Birthers thrive on faux experts, and we have another birth certificate analysis with a coat of credibility painted on in the form a report at “Israel Science and Technology Homepage.”
It appears that this official-sounding web site is just one guy, Israel Hanukoglu, who snagged a good domain, and built some hyperlinks to articles on science, particularly by Israeli or Jewish scientists. Hanukoglu has a somewhat distinguished scientific career in biochemistry and one wonders why he would publish an article analyzing Barack Obama’s birth certificate, an analysis that is naive even by birther standards. His essential argument is that the birth certificate is a fake because some parts of things are in one clipping region (usually called “layer”) and other parts are in another. A scientist might have bothered to do an experiment, like scanning a birth certificate himself, and if he had he might have found the same layer separation that I did when I tried the experiment.
Israel Hanukoglu is just another crank birther conspiracy theorist with no credentials in what he’s writing about. He doesn’t even pretend to employ the scientific method with experiment, nor does he cite sources with credentials any better than his.
The report links to The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office birther report of Mara Zebest, The American Thinker, WorldNet Daily, and other equally eminent scientific peer-reviewed journals. It appears we have full-tilt conspiracy crankery brewing, as he says:
Moreover, the lack of action on the part of the members of the United States House of Representatives and Senate, as well as the courts of the United States, despite many previous appeals to these three branches of American government, also raise a concern about how the governmental institutions of the reputedly best, and certainly the most important democracy in the Free World have avoided this issue.
What’s the motivation behind this article? Perhaps Hanukoglu explains it himself:
In my report of March 9, I said that with Barack Obama in the White House, the American government has become an overt enemy. I noted that Obama has made appointments of persons who are openly hostile to Israel. Like him and various Israeli politicians, they advocate an Arab-Islamic state in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. This would lead to Israel’s demise.
Update:
This Israeli page is over a year old, just updated with more hyperlinks. It was already online in May of 2011, explaining why the analysis is so primitive.
Update 2:
Deleted
Since the publication of this article, the subject web page has been deleted. When I wrote the article, I left a contact form comment on the site noting that the article was easily debunked and embracing conspiracy theories made Israeli science look bad. The disappearance could have been the result of other criticism than mine (more likely), or perhaps the page is being updated with a modern version of birther image crankery. An older version of the article is still accessible from the Internet Wayback Machine.
Update 3:
It’s back
http://www.science.co.il/Obama-Birth-Certificate.htm
Get a load of this link, from 2008:
http://www.science.co.il/arab-israeli-conflict/articles/Anonymous-2008-10-27.asp
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Which MIGHT and that’s a big might, have actually meant something…had the scientist in question been a document expert and not a biologist.
I mean, I wouldn’t go to a podiatrist to have a look at my toothache.
Another red flag…why is this Israeli site in English and not Hebrew?
This site however is in Hebrew http://www.most.gov.il/
I call BS on that site the birthers are referencing.
Any ‘real’ document examiner/expert would not bother with the PDF in the first place, they would examine the actual document that was scanned and then converted to PDF.
Accoding to Wikipedia, Dr. Hankoglu is a professor at the Ariel University of Samaria, which is located on a settlement in the West Bank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Hanukoglu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_University_Center_of_Samaria
Judging by his publications, he has done pretty good work in his field, which involves steroid bisynthesis, cytochomes and keratin. Nothing in there on document analyis or computer graphics.
Since I have the same credetials as him (PhD in Biochemistry) and I say the birth certificate is real, I have effectively counteracted his assertions.
do you believe that he believes what he writes ?
is there a political agenda ?
does he mention the other (non-pdf) pics ?
Where’s the [Expletive deleted. Doc] source of the scan, [Expletive deleted. Doc]?
Show it in all its glory, you jive [Expletive deleted. Doc] [Expletive deleted. Doc].
In a matter such as this, it is very difficult to separate deliberate propaganda from simply allowing one’s prejudices to color one’s conclusions. In the end, all that matters is that the material analyzed is not the actual document and the methodology employed lacks scientific validity.
I read on that website:
Before you add a link to any of the pages of this web site,
please go to that page and send the contact form to request
permission. Linking to any of the multimedia files in the web
site is strictly forbidden.
are there other websites that “forbid” linking ?
How could it ever be judged or enforced
He’s an Israeli winger. Settlers don’t like Obama. Sad to see a working scientist / academic dabble in nuttery, for political purposes, but he’s not the first scientist, whose profession is exploring and documented new reality, to dabble in creating some.
I plead not guilty, personally….
In the US a web site can claim a copyright to its content and then file a complaint when someone infringes. However, what I have done would be considered “fair use” under US Law and they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
Embedding a multimedia item is one thing and perhaps copyright could be enforced on that, but just linking to a single page is not something that can be restricted under law. I generally only embed things where the original source has an “EMBED” button which I take as implicit permission.
Of course, it is good practice to get permission for links, but nobody does that any more that I know of.
IANAL.
you could be guilty of linking by Israel law, who knows
———————-
will he “allow” the linking, when he reads here:
> crank birther conspiracy theorist with no credentials
> an analysis that is naive even by birther standards
I’m tempted to create a hoax site under a pen name, with “compelling” evidence, that only a birther would believe, make a HUGE name for myself in the birther community, get them all strung along, and then when it all crescendos go “GOTCHA!!!”
What I can say is that he should know better. He certainly couldn’t believe that what he wrote as “science.”
Hanukoglu references US law when asserting his copyright claim “All reproductions of this copyrighted material must be for non-commercial educational “fair use” as defined by 17 U.S.C 107.” My guess is that he wants unknowing readers to assume that they need to comply with his requirement that they request permission so that he will have more control over where his content travels but there is no legal force backing it up.
Remember how many birthers believe things today that started as hoaxes.
The thing that got me was this quote:
“If the “Long-Form Birth Certificate” of Obama was a photocopied document then it should not be composed of separate parts”
But it was a scan, not a photocopy. How does this apply? Maybe I’m missing something, not being a document expert.
DEAR MR. ILLEGAL ALIEN PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF CORRUPTED LOWER COURTS OF AMERICA!!!!!
THE WORD OF THE TRUE AND ONLY GOD OF JESUS CHRIST AND ABRAHAM,STATES IN LUKE 12:3-4 THERE IS NOTHING CONCEALED THAT WILL NOT BE DISCLOSED,OR HIDDEN THAT WILL NOT BE MADE KNOWN.WHAT YOU HAVE SAID IN THE DARK WILL BE HEARD IN THE DAYLIGHT,AND WHAT YOU WHISPERED IN THE EAR IN THE INNER ROOMS WILL BE PROCLAIMED FROM THE ROOFS.
MR.BARRY SOEOTORO THIS IS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,NOT THE UNITED STATES OF ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!!!!
Dr. C:
One of your links above to Hanukoglu is really to somebody named Paul Eidelburg. I did the same thing myself last night, on the 2008 link which is technically “anonymous.” That whole Arab-Isaeli Conflict heading is full of editorials.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Boy, this was a whole lot more persuasive since it was all caps. If not, I would’ve thought it was nonsense.
FYI, Obama has never used the name “Barry Soetoro.” Ever. As in, never.
But, more to the point, if you use the letters in your name to count off the words in your infantile, obnoxious, borderline-schizophrenic rant above, you will find that it points to six words in six lines which have six letters.
That’s right: 666.
So, apparently, from my understanding of scriptural prophesies, YOU are the Anti-Christ! You bear the mark of the Beast, and your own words and thoughts will unconsciously show it at every turn.
The Lord is not merciful to corrupters of the word such as yourself, who spread ignorance and deceit amongst his children. And, personally, I’ll be laughing my head off when you meet your just deserts according to His will, and are roasting in the flames of Perdition.
Oh yeah, nothing says “Hello, I am a sane and rational human being, with something intelligent to say!” quite like screaming a warped interpretation of biblical text, in all caps.
This is interesting. I was trying to clean up my attribution in my article on this. The link above had no name on it at the Israel Science website. In the index, the author was listed as “anonymous.” But I have found out that the piece is called “The Jihad Candidate 2” by somebody called Rich Carroll, who is probably dead.
http://www.science.co.il/arab-israeli-conflict/articles/Anonymous-2008-10-27.asp
But see here for info about the real author:
http://2sistersfromtheright.blogspot.com/2011/10/in-dangerous-place-by-rich-carroll.html
And here for the Jihad Candidate 2, although I can’t tell where it was first published:
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=3054
Rich Carroll had a blog called “patriotscreed” which could be read two ways. He was also on Plains Radio at some point.
Anyway, Hanukoglu chose to put it on his website, which has very limited number of such articles. For whatever it is worth.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Living proof that the internets cause brain damage.
I just flashed back to Times Square/42nd Street in 1978.
They would just believe that Obama got to you, too.
I’ve been tempted to do this for at least a year, but I never got around to doing it. Maybe
after the electionsin the year 2525, if birtherism is still alive…If mankind can survive…
FWIW, French conspiracy theorists are blaming Mossad / Bibi for the Bacile movie which caused the upset in Libya and Egypt, allegedly in an effort to influence US elections.
Some claim Bacile is “friends” with Sheldon Adelson, who is one of Romney’s major backers.
I have no idea if this is true; probably not. (It sounds too neat and too guilt-by-association.)
OTOH, French conspiracy theorists had told US sources AQ was going to attack the US in September 2001. So go figure. Conspiracies are bad for you. My head hurts.
Already been done. Don’t you remember, Ed Hale? He said that he’d release some information to only subscribers that would bring down the President. Nobody subscribed, and he finally stated that it was a trick to try to take money from the Obots…
BREAKING UPDATE!!! Article disappears from Internet!
http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/israeli-birth-certificate-article-disappears-or-the-invisible-hanukoglu/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Wow. Thanks for that. I think the story of the article’s disappearance is much more interesting than the article itself (which is just all debunked birther stuff).
Putting on my tinfoil hat: maybe Corsi told Hanukoglu that he only way his non-article is going to benefit the birther cause in any way is to remove it so WND can run a “smoking gun article scrubbed” series?
The French Conspiracy theorists were only 50% right. It turns out it wasn’t the Israelis but the Chistianists who are behind the video:
http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/romney-jumps-the-shark-libya-egypt-and-the-butterfly-effect.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29
Agreed.
Lupin: Given that the guy behind it is a convicted fraudster who served 21 months for a check kiting scheme, I wouldn’t rule out that the main motivation was pure and simple financial gain. The line between poltics and scam is a thin one these days- see, for example Smth, Lucas; Zullo, Mark; Taitz, Orly et al.
Wow…thanks for sharing that, Lupin! A fascinating read…and quite a real conspiracy fraud of globe-spanning consequences. At first, I was sickened to learn the details behind the film and its distribution – which seems to be an intentionally coordinated scam to incite and excuse violence by various flavors of different religious extremists. But then there were some positive elements to the article as well.
These excerpts in particular really stood out to me:
So, as sorrowful as the whole terrible incident has been and as shameful as Romney’s inflammatory political interjection has been as well, there remains hope that actual leaders with real steady calm leadership, can tamper down such cynical extremism and keep it from spreading beyond control.
The guy is definitely a fraudster, but I think it is clear that this was an intentionally incendiary act…one possibly borne out of collusion between the hate-based agendas of several different sects of religious extremism.
The goal certainly seems to have been to incite violence. These crazies want to stoke religous wars and are increasingly desperate to light those matches.
This, basically, is THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION “scam” adapted to 21st century media and technology.
Yes, same ilk. Definitely.
G/Lupin
Sam Bacile, Innocence of Muslims and Steven Klein
Courageous Christians United. Steven Klein is listed as the CEO as well as founder for the group. And what is the purpose of the group and who is Steven Klein?
Courageous Christians United can be found on the web and they apparently run anti-Islam, anti-Catholic as well as anti-Mormon sites.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/12/1130860/-Sam-Bacile-Innocence-of-Muslims-and-Steven-Klein
I think maybe Steven Klein wrote a book for Floyd Brown and some non-profit organization. But it has been a while since I read it, and I may have the Klein person wrong.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I think you are right about that…
“Sam Bacile” is actually Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, per HuffPo and the AP.
Thomas Brown:
yes and this is a great article too
http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/romney-jumps-the-shark-libya-egypt-and-the-butterfly-effect.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+juancole%2Fymbn+%28Informed+Comment%29