The left-leaning ‘liberals’, who had been bouncing off the walls ever since Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid denied the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits, blamed the BJP IT Cell after Israeli ambassador to India Naor Gilon apologised for his fellow countryman’s uninformed comments on ‘The Kashmir Files’.
Lambasting the leftist filmmaker, Naor Gilon said that he should have been a bit sensitive towards the sufferings of Kashmiri Hindus and apologise to Indians for the “bad manner” in which he repaid them for their generosity and friendship.
An open letter to #NadavLapid following his criticism of #KashmirFiles. It’s not in Hebrew because I wanted our Indian brothers and sisters to be able to understand. It is also relatively long so I’ll give you the bottom line first. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED. Here’s why: pic.twitter.com/8YpSQGMXIR
— Naor Gilon (@NaorGilon) November 29, 2022
The Israeli ambassador also highlighted how he has been receiving messages from people expressing their displeasure with Lapid’s despicable remarks denying the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits and doubting movies like The Schindler’s List, Holocaust, and the persecution of Jews in Germany.
“You will go back to Israel thinking that you are bold and ‘made a statement’. We, the representatives of Israel, would stay here. You should see our DM boxes following your “bravery” and what implications it may have on the team under my responsibility. The friendship between the people and the states of India and Israel is very strong and will survive the damage you have inflicted. As a human being I feel ashamed and want to apologise to our hosts for the bad manner in which we repaid them for their generosity and friendship,” Gilon said in his open letter to Lapid.
Liberals defame BJP IT Cell after Naor Gilon apologises for Nadav Lapid’s comments denying the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits
But no sooner did Gilon slam Lapid for his remarks against ‘The Kashmir Files’ movie, a raft of left-leaning liberals, who are always on the prowl to undermine statements that challenge their narrative, blamed the BJP IT Cell for forcing the Israeli ambassador to apologise over his countryman’s comment on ‘The Kashmir Files’.
Sakshi Joshi, a YouTuber who pretends to be a journalist, took to Twitter and posted a gibberish rant against ‘Bhakts’, a term that the Left uses for Indians who stand up for nationalism and patriotism.
Rohini Singh, who had recently mocked Akshay Kumar with a ‘Canadian’ jibe for standing in support of the Indian Army, went into raptures about Nadav Lapid, an Israeli filmmaker who denied the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits. Responding to Gilon’s thread, Singh accused the nationalists of registering their protest to the Israeli ambassador.
Then, there were others who blamed the BJP IT Cell for Gilon’s apology over Lapid’s comments.
The modus operandi of the Left to demonise the BJP IT Cell and mask genuine criticism as contrived outrage
For the left-leaning liberals, who are used to living in an ever-shrinking echo chamber, any voice of criticism of their narrative, even well-meaning ones, is a product of the BJP IT Cell. Indians, who felt genuinely outraged by Lapid’s disgraceful remarks against The Kashmir Files, a movie that chronicles the atrocities faced by Kashmiri Hindus that eventually led to their exodus from the Valley, registered their protest with the Israeli ambassador.
But the ‘liberals’ used a broad brush to paint everyone who objected to Lapid’s remarks as members of the BJP IT cell involved in pushing the saffron party’s bidding. Anyone who dared to criticise Lapid for his remarks or registered their protest to the Israeli ambassador for his countryman’s denial of the genocide of Kashmiri Pandits, the ‘liberals’ pigeonholed them members of the BJP IT Cell.
This modus operandi of using sweeping generalisations serves two purposes. It discredits genuine criticism as propaganda-driven outrage and vilifies the BJP IT Cell as an organisation involved in online mobbing, even at the cost of maligning honest critics and painting them as members of the IT Cell.
How the ‘liberals’ leaned on now-withdrawn Tek Fog and Meta stories to defame India
And to make the BJP IT Cell all that powerful and omnipotent to force diplomats and foreign envoys into apologising, the ‘liberals’ lean on fiction peddled by far-left propaganda organisations like ‘The Wire’, which recently came up with Meta Story to allege that BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya had the power of pulling down any Instagram post from across the world that he found offensive.
However, to the liberals’ chagrin, The Wire’s deceit was called out after several social media users and independent researchers listed by the organisation refuted the claims made by the propaganda website. Subsequently, The Wire pulled down all its reports on the Meta Story and promised an internal probe over its fiasco.
The expose of The Wire’s story had implications for its earlier reports, where it claimed that BJP has a fictitious super app called ‘Tek Fog’ to manipulate social media trends and control the online narrative. In its statement, The Wire said it would also look into the older reports by the authors of Meta stories. At that time, it was unclear if Tek Fog stories would come under scanner in The Wire’s “internal investigation” or not. But the leftist portal suspended its Tek Fog stories too, indicating their suspicion over the veracity of claims made in those reports.
In the story claiming to be the existence of a fictitious and mysterious app named ‘Tek Fog’, The Wire had claimed that it allowed BJP to bypass all security measures available in top social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram etc, and helped create and delete dozens of accounts at the click of a button. They claimed BJP could hijack social media trends and target hatred towards journalists using the app, adding that the app had the ability to bypass email and OTP verifications required to log on to those platforms to create temporary accounts.
Similar to the Meta story, netizens had exposed the massive loopholes in the Tek Fog story too. That story also entirely relied on ‘screenshots’ of the so-called app and didn’t have any other verifiable evidence. And again, like the Meta story, the Tek Fog story was also questioned by tech experts who are not supporters of the BJP.
However, despite questions and doubts over its authenticity, several dubious international organisations cited The Wire’s Tek Fog stories and lowered India’s ranking on their prejudiced indices. From Freedom House to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and Wikipedia, a mesh of leftist organisations and media outlets promoted The Wire’s fiction about Tek Fog, underscoring how a global nexus was at play to tarnish India’s reputation.
