Instagram is more dangerous than a sniper’s rifle?

John Macpherson posted this on February 21st, 2013

Israeli sniper view.

The ongoing media battle for the moral high ground in the Israel/Palestine conflict is something I’ve followed with interest.

I came across this image this week and….well……it’s only an image. Of a child. Sitting playing. Doing nothing dangerous. And crucially, alive.

But add those cross hairs. The oof details and….well…..read more

Before the 20-year-old Israeli sniper who uploaded the photograph was able to delete his Instagram account, Mr. Abunimah and other bloggers copied it and the snapshot was published on news sites in Israel and around the world — dealing another self-inflicted blow to the Israeli military’s effort to use the Web to burnish its image.

After a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces told reporters that sharing the photograph was “a severe incident which doesn’t accord with the I.D.F.’s spirit and values,” the young man also deleted his Facebook account, where he had posted images of himself using his sniper rifle as a comic prop.

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February 21st, 2013 | Category: duckrabbit

6 comments to Instagram is more dangerous than a sniper’s rifle?

• donna ferrato

  February 21, 2013 at 16:30 · Reply

  This is so sick. Not a joke. The games are real life. Real life is not a game. No wonder we are in such a morass of mental sickness.

  • John Macpherson

    February 21, 2013 at 16:50 · Reply

    Hi Donna – yes. I find the image chilling in and of itself. But I find the context of its use disturbing too. Has life become so cheap we can use the ‘implication’ of the damage we can do should we choose to, to taunt our opponents.

• tonemeister

  February 21, 2013 at 22:30 · Reply

  In the eyes of the powerful, the lives of ‘others’ has, sadly, always been cheap. Now more than ever.

  • John Macpherson

    February 21, 2013 at 22:38 · Reply

    But never so blatantly demonstrated – the power of social media.

• Farhiz

  February 23, 2013 at 06:21 · Reply

  This idiot obviously hadn’t read David White’s earlier post. “Never forget however, that with great power comes great responsibility.”

  • John Macpherson

    February 23, 2013 at 08:04 · Reply

    Somehow I don’t think that phrase will catch on in the IDF as a tattoo. Be nice if it did, on the back of their hands, to remind them at all times………….