Tal Inbar is mad at me. Really, really mad at me. He’s called me names. They. Hurt. So. Much! In fact, I may never be the same again after his fraudulent campaign to report my Facebook account as fake. The Pied Piper of Herzliya has enough Facebook Friends that they all collaborated in the hoax and enough of them reported my account so that Facebook automatically disabled it.
During the entire process, Facebook’s notices implicitly blamed me for not using my real name or providing fraudulent personal information (none of which were true). After providing them my driver’s license it still took them 24 more hours before re-opening the account. When they sent me a reply to my appeal they didn’t even tell me my account had been restored:
Hi,
Thanks for your response. We updated your account with the information listed on your ID. Facebook requires everyone to use their real identities so that you always know who you’re connecting with.
You can list an alternate name (ex: nickname, maiden name) on your Timeline along with your real name. Learn how to add an alternate name in the Help Center.
From this message, you’d think they actually added some information I hadn’t already provided to them in creating my profile. I reviewed my profile and Facebook did NOT update my account or add any information. Nor did I ever list an “alternate name” on my Timeline as the statement implies. All this simply proves the utter opacity of Facebook. It isn’t human, it’s an algorithm. It’s not accountable to anyone, especially the users who fuel its growth and success. All this opacity enabled charlatans like Tal Inbar to game the system.
The shame of it is that a human hand at Facebook might make Inbar pay a price for his chicanery. But it’s doubtful he’ll pay in any real sense. So perhaps we can make him pay in some small way by calling him out and linking whatever reputation he has to this fraud.
Inbar is the “director of UAV and space programs” at the Fisher Institute. It’s unclear to me what this is. It’s an organization affiliated with veterans of the IAF. But its website is so amateurish that it’s hard to believe it’s a real academic body. But I’d like to forever associate the Institute with one of its senior directors. Inbar even lists his professional affiliation with Fisher on the same Facebook profile in which he organized his campaign against me. One has to ask whether Fisher is as fraudulent as Inbar himself.
Inbar and Fisher, as well as the IAF, derive enormous benefits from the current Gaza massaacre. Their weapons are at the forefront of the killing there. Their expertise is sought after. War is good. Therefore, when individuals like me come along, we threaten the gravy train. We rock the boat. We are the enemy. The danger I pose is critical to them because my posts and social media messages reach an Israeli audience, unlike many other critics of the war. That’s why it’s especially critical to silence someone like me.
The great thing about hasbarists who overreach as Inbar has, is that events catch up to them. Remember Semion Kras who hacked my site? Kaspersky caught him in the act. I got to call him and tell him personally I knew what he’d done. I told his employer as well.
But even better is that hasbarists generate so much sympathy and interest for their victims that you couldn’t possibly buy the support that comes your way after episodes like this one. 500 new Twitter followers in the past month. 300 new Facebook Friends. 70,000 unique visits in the past three days alone. So, Kol HaKavod, Tal. It backfired on ya, baby. Fraud can only take you so far. Eventually, the system catches up with you.
Sharing widely!
○ International ISR: Israel Tackles The Last Frontier Of UAV Technology
“UAVs have become indispensable in performing a full range of missions in support of our defensive strategy. Not a day goes by without multiple operational deployment of our unmanned assets,” said Tal Inbar, head of the Space and UAV Research Center at Israel’s Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies.
Background info collected from Internet on Tal Inbar, Head of the Space Research Center.
Googling for Tal Inbar … what’s right up there next to his biography? Right your newest article! One could say another errant UAV was launched from Israeli territory that needed to be taken down. Well done, excellent restraint.
I had a dispute with a Zionist commenter recently, as he claimed that IDF can “walk and chew gum”. The topic then was if arresting and harassing though the entire span of West Bank is detrimental to the ostensible goal of finding the culprits who at that time were believed (by us, the public) to be kidnapers. Well, I did not read about them being found.
While UAV program is technologically admirable (at least, against an unsophisticated opponent), and the skill at harassing villagers reaches new heights, the abilities at close range combat seem to decrease. So the dilemma, walk or chew, is still there.
I am happy that Mr.Inbar didn’t get very far with this one – and the time seems to be fast approaching that being called names by the likes of him becomes a positive part of one’s cv.
This brings me to a related question.
Twelve years ago Eric Alterman published a list which classified American columnists on the basis of their attitude to Israel. His criteria where: reflexively pro Israel, critical of both Israel and the Palestinians but basically supporting Israel’s security over Palestinian rights, reflexively pro-Palestinian. The list with the reflexively pro-Israel types was as long as your arm, the two other ones (critical but basically supportive of Israel. and reflexively Palestinian) had five names each. Of the reflexively pro-Palestinian types only Pat Buchanan is still alive – and he is getting decidedly long in the tooth.
However, as M.J.Rosenberg wrote a few years ago in the Huffington Post, the ground is shifting (as a former important AIPAC staffer who is now critical of Israel and its US lobby he is himself an example of that) . He pointed, inter alia, to the present attitudes of David Remnick and Peter Beinart to prove his point. I would love to see an update of Alterman’s list, to find out how much the ground has shifted. Does any one know of one? Perhaps we could cobble one together ourselves.
The Fisher Bros. Institute is part of the IAFC Foundation wth some well-known faces you have undoubtedly poisoned your pen to write about. LOL
I am going through the same experience as you, Richard, but it has been 48 hours. So many Bloggers are telling me trhe same thing.
For what it’s worth, I placed a complaint against Mr. Inbar as violating Community Standards. It was rejected, but at least it is on the record.
@ Abhanh: Thanks. A friend says he knows someone senior at Facebook. Maybe there’s some hope yet.
So happy you are back Richard!
Richard, this just happened to me today! This is their new tactic. I guess I’m in good company 🙂