Thursday, October 17, 2013

Does Richard Silverstein need a hug?

Its been a bad week for Seattle blogger Richard Silverstein, described by  Adam Levick as  "one of the more shrill and dishonest commentators in a very crowded anti-Zionist blogosphere" . The blogger has been exposed in rapid succession as both as bully and as a purveyor of lies.   Yet this isn't news to anyone who closely follows the issues.  Silverstein  already has quite a reputation.  Silverstein is the self proclaimed expert on all things  Israel who once emphatically declared that hummus was... wait for it...made out of sesame seeds.



Early this week he was called out for harassing (in 140 characters or less) a Palestinian woman on Twitter, because she had the audacity to blame Hamas for the problems in Gaza.

Israellycool documents the fun and games here

Later, Richard was caught harassing a woman filming a public event in Seattle.

From The Mike report: 

Richard Silverstein Disrupts anti-Israel event at St. Marks Cathedral
  
Silverstein arrived at Skinner Auditorium at Seattle’s Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral with the Parent’s Circle lecture already well in progress.  After scanning the room, the ecumenical Enforcer quickly spotted his quarry.  A young woman  was videotaping the Parent’s Circle lecture. 
 Disrupting the program in progress, the meddling Marshall rushed up to the woman who was taping the event and demanded of her “who are you with!?”.  All heads in the auditorium spun towards the frantic Silverstein. “She is with Standwithus!” he exclaimed, referring to a local Israel advocacy organization. Silverstein demanded that the woman immediately stop videotaping the lecture, frightening the woman and  bringing the program to a halt.

Clearly annoyed with Silverstein’s dingbattery, one of the presenters, Robi Damelin,  left her seat on the panel and walked towards Silverstein and his videotaping suspect. Silverstein scurried back a few feet as Demelin approached.  Staring directly at Silverstein while addressing the woman taping the event,  Damelin urged her to please continue videotaping.  With that an ashen faced Silverstein slunk out of the room, not to return for the duration of the program.
And just yesterday, Richard revealed his aversion to fact-checking, when he printed verbatim totally false information, leaked to him from an "Israeli source".  CIFwatch writes about it here

 Richard Silverstein via The Mike Report
 Again from The Mike Report
At the beginning of this week Richard Silverstein, Seattle’s one man Hamas cheer-leading squad, had posted a series of  ”exclusive” articles revealing for the first time anywhere that Iranians had hacked and crashed a whole bunch of Israeli drones. Silverstein waxed gleeful that Israel had suffered such a setback, all the sweeter as it was delivered  at the hands of the Iranians (Silverstein is big fan of the Iranians, Hamas too). Turns out that Silverstein was taken in and his anonymous source, whom he didn’t even vet, was taking Richard for a ride.
Will this week's revelations on his bullying and casual disregard for truth relegate Richard Silverstein  to the dustbin of the blogsphere?  Unfortunately, its not likely.  His whole cause is built upon a shaky truth optional foundation.  He fits right in .



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