Rayan Uddin
Middle East Eye / July 24, 2024
Analysts question veracity of viral clip of masked man inciting violence in France over dubious Arabic accent and far-fetched rhetoric.
Wearing a keffiyeh around his face, and a Palestine flag hoodie, a man in a recent viral video proclaimed in Arabic that “rivers of blood” would flow through the streets of Paris during the upcoming Olympics.
In the video, first posted to X on Sunday, the masked man lambasts the French people, and President Emmanuel Macron, for supporting “the Zionist regime in its criminal war against the people of Palestine.”
“You invited the Zionists to the Olympic Games. You will pay for what you have done,” he said, referring to the event that begins later this week.
“Rivers of blood will flow through the streets of Paris. This day is approaching, God willing. Allah is the greatest,” the man concluded, before holding up a fake severed head.
Social media users were quick to attribute the video to Hamas – an accusation the group denied.
Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said on Tuesday that the clip was fabricated as part of “Zionist propaganda” and incitement against Palestinian resistance.
Analysts and commentators have pointed to several factors casting doubt on Hamas being responsible for the footage.
“The number one reason is that Hamas is not a globally operating terrorist organization,” Andreas Krieg, assistant professor at the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, told Middle East Eye.
“They’ve never been involved in any sort of terrorist attacks overseas: the IS [Islamic State] or al Qaeda-style mass casualty attacks on Western targets – or even Jewish targets or Israeli targets – overseas.”
Krieg said that Hamas saw itself only as a Palestinian resistance army, whose fight was on its own soil.
“Clearly the framing is an attempt to equate Hamas with IS, who have a very different political outlook,” Marc Owen Jones, an expert on disinformation and the Middle East, told MEE.
The fake severed head appeared to be a clear attempt at linking Hamas with the Islamic State group. Videos of gruesome beheadings were common at the height of IS’s prominence in Syria and Iraq a decade ago, but such actions have never been associated with Hamas.
“Hamas has never really made such videos,” said Krieg. “To confirm or to propagate, or to warn of, an imminent attack.”
Linking Hamas with groups involved in transnational terror attacks has been a strategy of Israel’s since war broke out last year.
Shortly after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: “Hamas is Isis… And just as the forces of civilization united to defeat Isis, the forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas.”
‘It wasn’t made by a Palestinian’
The Arabic spoken in the viral clip has also been scrutinized. It appears to be far from what we would expect to hear from Hamas fighters based in Gaza.
Chief among the offending phrases is the use of “Allaha akbar” instead of “Allahu akbar” – an error an Arab adherent of the Muslim faith would be highly unlikely to make.
One Palestinian social media user noticed at least nine other linguistic transgressions, including a failure to roll the letter “r”.
“We have no idea who did this,” said Krieg. “But it wasn’t made by a Palestinian. It’s unlikely to be Hamas-affiliated or even Palestine-affiliated.”
The sweatshirt worn by the man in the video, with a Palestinian flag in the middle, is also in stark contrast to attire we are used to seeing from masked Palestinian fighters.
A thread on X by disinformation expert Tal Hagin found that the video was first posted by account @endzionist24, which was created in February 2024.
According to Hagin, the user began by following crypto and pornographic accounts, before suddenly shifting towards pro-Palestine accounts.
The user described themselves as a “Hamas fighter” in their bio, but had not shared any videos by Hamas. The account was suspended by X on Tuesday.
“The fact such contentious and false videos can be circulated to millions… who will not see the correction, is a damning indictment of social media moderations,” said Jones.
“It lets anyone with an agenda promote their fake news and disinformation, and promote hate, with little to no accountability.”
Krieg said whoever created the video had an interest in “stirring up discourse”.
He said such a video put more pressure on French security to bolster security and surveillance, creating the kind of fear that could turn visitors away from the Olympics.
Rayhan Uddin is a Middle East Eye journalist based in London
