Jewlicious Contributor Fabricates Tikun Olam Quote

Keeping up Jewlicious’ usual high blogging standards, one of that blog’s contributors, Michael, posts a comment at a post attacking me in which he completely fabricates a quote supposedly made by me:

“I want to be a writer for Global Voices Online in the Israel section because there aren’t enough progessive voices and they’re letting right wing fascist Lisa Goldman do it! And why aren’t there Israeli Arab bloggers? RACISM!!”…

“DISCRIMINATION! RACISM! ORWELLIAN THOUGHT SUPPRESSION! RIGHT WING FASCISM!”

Of course, it’s a feeble attempt at parody, but no one seems to have told Michael that if you want to parody someone, if you’re ethical you usually note somewhere that the words stuffed into the victim’s mouth aren’t ones he actually wrote. But Michael seems to have misplaced his Strunk & White style manual if he ever read it to begin with.

Jewlicious’ owner, Abitbol, is only too happy to feature Michael’s fabrication as the first comment in the thread. A reasonable site owner would take it down or amend it. What’s your guess what he’ll do?

I find it ironic that this same “Michael” wrote a put down of Steven Plaut for Jewlicious. The irony is that one of Steven Plaut’s signature tactics is to make up quotations about those he slimes. Birds of a feather.

Anyone wishing to know what I actually wrote on this subject can check out my posts about Global Voices insular Israel section.

“Clap hands till daddy comes home”–image stolen-defaced by David Abitbol

This is the same Blog Wars post which features an image of me which David Abitbol, Jewlicious’ sleazy owner, stole. The original image portrayed me doting over two of my children. After Abitbol’s sloppy Photoshopping, my children have been erased. We have to credit that he may’ve actually had ethical compunctions about invading the privacy of my children and displaying them at his blog (compunctions Steven Plaut doesn’t have, as he did do this). But the former’s compunctions didn’t extend far enough to prevent him from defacing said image.

In reply to my DMCA demanding that his web host take down the copyrighted image, Abitbol is claiming the image is protected under fair use. Isn’t it interesting how the creator of a work creates it to celebrate his relation to his children and some jerk can come along and deface that relationship for the purpose of ridiculing me and claim it is protected speech. Whether it is or isn’t, this is a moral violation of which he should be ashamed. But Abitbol knows no shame. I can only hope that when and if he has children of his own someone will return the favor. Then he’ll know what this violation feels like. Another charming feature of the image displayed at Jewlicious is the alt tag “shmuck” [sic]. Sure. Anyone can call anyone else a schmuck online. It happens everyday. But it’s illustrative for someone who holds himself up as a poster boy of the Jewish blog world to assault a fellow Jew in this fashion. That’s because Abitbol’s Jewishness is only skin deep.

I have possibly made an error though which I’d like to correct. Steven Plaut linked to the stolen Jewlicious image at the fake blog he created and I mistakenly concluded that Abitbol had posted the image shortly before Plaut linked to it. It appears that Abitbol stole my image back in 2006 and I may never have known about this till Plaut direct linked to it. So my conclusion that Abitbol was directly involved in the current campaign of harassmant by Aussie Dave, Rachel Neuwirth and Steven Plaut should be amended to say that Abitbol is being used by Plaut to further the latter’s slimy agenda. Abitbol, for his part, is a willing collaborator since he allows Plaut to direct link to my image at his site.

For anyone taken in by Abitbol’s claim that he maintains “liberal” views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they should note that the latter’s 2006 Jewlicious post apes a similar Little Green Footballs attack and that Abitbol published a comment at that LGF post promoting his defacement of my image. Isn’t it appropriate that he uses LGF to promote his acts of juvenile delinquency. LGF is one of the most rabid ultra-Zionist blogs there is (there are so many out there though it’s hard to say which is the most rabid). Birds of a feather.

UPDATE: The day after writing this post I learned that an anonymous party claims ownership of the fake blog I refer to above and furthermore states that Steven Plaut has not participated in its creation. So while I have no idea whether this person is being truthful, it is possible that Plaut is either not involved in the blog, is partially involved, or that the blog claimant is lying and Plaut is fully responsible. I don’t yet know for sure which is the case. My strong impression of Plaut’s involvement stemmed from the word of someone who is also the victim of a similar type of fake blog which he feels is authored by Plaut.