Updated: Will Rooftop Productions Correct? (Yes!)
Update Nov. 7, 2011: Rooftop Productions issued a correction on Nov. 4, 2011. For more information go here.
Original entry follows:
Earlier this year, Snapshots reported about Rooftop Productions’ use of a fake Ben-Gurion quote in its 2010 movie, With God on Our Side. In a distorted summary of Israeli history, the movie reports that the man who became Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, stated, “The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as war.” He allegedly stated this in a 1937 letter to his son. As you can see from the picture below, the quote was splashed across the screen in a particularly lurid manner.
It’s a damning quote, but Benny Morris said it was an “invention” in 2006.
Morris’ assessment was not enough to convince Porter Speakman, Jr., the director and producer of With God on Our Side. When Snapshots reported in June on the inclusion of this fake quote in the movie, Speakman did not respond.
Finally, during a recent Twitter exchange between Speakman and a CAMERA researcher, Speakman stated that Benny Morris’ assessment was insufficient to convince him that the quote was fake, but that if CAMERA researched the topic, Rooftop Productions would issue a correction via a statement. Here are images of two tweets where Speakman says he will correct:
CAMERA subsequently asked Speakman via email the source of his quote. He replied that the source of his quote is from Ilan Pappé’s book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, page 23.
Pappé includes two sources in the endnote for the article. The first is the July 12, 1937 entry from David Ben-Gurion’s diary. CAMERA has examined this source and the quote is no where to be found. It’s not there.
The other source Pappé cites is page 220 of the August-September 1937 issue of New Judea, a publication of the World Zionist Organization. CAMERA has obtained a copy of this page, and the quote is nowhere to be found. Again, it’s not there.
On Nov. 1, CAMERA provided Speakman with electronic copies of both of these texts. Later that day, a CAMERA researcher “pinged” Speakman on Twitter, asking when Rooftop Productions would issue a correction. Here is his response:
Watch this space!
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