Caveat lector

Apple sites fall for “Muslims offended by NY Apple Store cube” story.

Robert Jung at Electric Escape (antler tip to MacSurfer) rightly takes gullible Mac pundits to task for falling for the “Muslims Offended By NY Apple Store Cube” story.

The story is being pushed by an [modifier deleted – see note below] organization run by former members of the Mossad Israeli intelligence [Mossad may be wrong – they may have all been in military intelligence] and includes no link to the web site that apparently speaks for all Muslims in saying “we’re too stupid to know that a Genius Bar isn’t stocked with alcohol.”

C’mon, people.

UPDATE:  And the stars of the Mac community come out to shine in the comments at TUAW!

6. Muslims should be upset with Mohammed for being a demon processed [sic] pedophile and not with Apple for making a cube.

Ookay.

NOTE ON MEMRI [UPDATED]: The Macalope originally wrote that MEMRI was and “anti-Muslim astroturfing organization.” “Astro-turfing” is the wrong term and “anti-Muslim” is difficult to prove categorically. More accurately, MEMRI reports on cherry-picked stories that tend to make Muslims look bad. Call it a watchdog group, call it biased. Jacob in comments provides this link, but if you’re really interested you can Google MEMRI and draw your own conclusions.

UPDATE: TechWeb reports that MEMRI has “not respond to questions about the source” of the posting.

15 thoughts on “Caveat lector”

  1. I absolutely hate it when stories like this come out, whether they end up being true or not: because then you have a whole bunch of juvenile people coming out and saying nasty, stupid things.

  2. mmmm, voodoo chicken bouillon cubes…… uh, wait. Yeah, agreed. Some people just need to not talk, or type, or uh… do anything involving other people.

  3. Just reading some of the comments over at Ars made me feel ill. I sent a note to them asking them to retract the posting based on seeing this here.

  4. Actually I don’t think The Gaurdian post that Electric Escape refers to had concrete backed up evidence that the site is Anti Islam.

    The contention of this piece here (and electric escape) is that MEMRI is a landover baptist?

  5. Actually I don’t think The Gaurdian post that Electric Escape refers to had concrete backed up evidence that the site is Anti Islam.

    That’s a fair criticism and the Macalope has updated the post to reflect it.

    The contention of this piece here (and electric escape) is that MEMRI is a landover baptist?

    Well, certainly it’s not funny, so no.

  6. Where do you get that MEMRI is run by former Mossad agents. Saying that it is tied to the Government because 5 out of 6 founders were in the army is just subterfuge. Almost every Israeli citizen serves in the army. The UK Guardian is about the most anti-semitic publication out there.

  7. From the Guardian article – the author retrieved cached pages from MEMRI’s site.

    Retrieving another now-deleted page from the archives of Memri’s website also throws up a list of its staff. Of the six people named, three – including Col Carmon – are described as having worked for Israeli intelligence.

    The Macalope is well aware that Israel has mandatory service. Not everyone serves in intelligence. On a second reading of the article, the author may have left out “military” in that graph, meaning they may not have been in the Mossad but in Aman. So, the Macalope will change the reference, but he doesn’t see how that really matters.

    If you want to claim the Guardian is anti-semitic, please provide some backup.

    None of this gets to the basic point – the whole issue is that the MEMRI piece references a “web site” without linking to it or providing any background on it. Any idiot can throw up a web site. It’s absurd to react to it as if it speaks for the entire Muslim world.

  8. Macalope said: “Any idiot can throw up a web site. It’s absurd to react to it as if it speaks for the entire Muslim world.”

    The thing is Muslim (and Judeo Christian) leaders are often seen on the news making all sorts of absurd claims. This wasn’t a stretch. I see this no different than Greenpeace claiming Apple is close to the bottom of the list environmentally, not factoring in longevity.

    The Gaurdian is a left leaning liberal bias publication; no doubt. The issue with a Google search is that ONLY The Gaurdian is quoted by multiple sources as being a “quasi muslim news” organization. The Wikipedia page is probably the best reference (eventhough a little bias)

  9. “If you want to claim the Guardian is anti-semitic, please provide some backup.”

    http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/The_Guardians_Selective_Memri.asp

    Israel Simply Has No Right To Exist
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,417125,00.html

    In 2005 Natan Sharansky called out the Guardian specifically in regards to its hostile stance against Israel when talking about a significant increase in attacks against Jews in Britain and the rest of Europe
    http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1397726,00.html

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