Writing a wrong

On the bright side, Israel has apparently learned one of the lessons of the al-Dura fiasco: potentially damaging lies about the IDF's conduct have to be answered very quickly in order to prevent the allegations from taking hold in the public's imagination. By the time the official, thorough IDF investigation exposes the truth, the lie has already gone halfway around the world.

Hence, in the case of Jawaher Abu Rahmah, the woman who the Palestinians claim died as a result of Israeli tear gas, the Israeli army quickly presented a list of reasons why it seems likely that she died of another cause - or at the very least, why another cause (possibly cancer) was central to her death.

On the less good side, the haste means that the IDF's report may be, well, a little shaky in parts. One of the reasons (amongst many very reasonable ones) given for their doubts about the official Palestinian version of events is that

חלק מהדו"חות הרפואיים נכתבו בכתב יד קריא וברור, בניגוד מוחלט לדו"חות רפואיים שהתקבלו בישראל בעבר.

That is, one reason why they suspected the medical reports received from the Palestinians were fake was that they were in clear and legible handwriting - and not in the usual doctors' scrawl!

Go tell that to the 9/10ths of the doctors who - despite all the jokes - stats show do actually write nicely...

(Via)