Snapped Shot

Always Watching the All-Seeing Eye

 

Truth in Advertising

By Brian C. Ledbetter · Thursday, August 9. 2007 09:38
Update/Retraction: Eagle-eyed reader Annie writes to inform that the hand gesture pictured usually represents "Wait a minute" in Middle-Eastern societies. I guess I had that coming, for trying to interpret another country's colloquial hand gestures...

"Curses, foiled AGAIN!"


Thanks for the correction, Annie!
This photo purports to be of a Hamas "security officer" checking and registering a passport from an individual crossing into the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

Hamas security officers check and register the travel documents of Palestinians returning to the Gaza Strip through the Erez border crossing, between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007. The last group of Palestinians stranded for weeks in Egypt after the Hamas takeover of Gaza returned home Thursday, crossing into Israel and riding buses to a crossing point between Israel and northern Gaza. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)


By itself, there isn't anything too extraordinary about this picture, but if it weren't for me reading this article earlier in the week, I wouldn't have caught it: Check out the "officer" towards the centre of the frame. Does it look like he's "checking" any travel documents?

Take a closer look at his hand gesture:

[img:looks-like-bribery.jpg:Hmmm, what hand gesture could that be?]

I could be wrong, but that looks like Ye Olde Classic "gimme yo' money" hand gesture, which would mean that this is potentially photographic evidence of the very bribery described in the article above.

Of course, considering that Hamas is a group of fanatics who have no problem killing their children (and then blaming someone else), a little bit of bribery isn't really all that surprising... is it?
permalink · Intifada · Comments (3) · Trackbacks (0) · digg this
 

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments [RSS]
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Here is what a handful of random people think about this article. But first, the fine print:
The opinions expressed here, even where approved for display, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website, the management, or any other entity or organization, with the exception of the Vast Zionist Conspiracy. Those opinions we represent in style, yo. Please keep the language in these comments clean, as this is intended to be a family-friendly, work-friendly website. Comments not compliant with this policy will be edited for content where necessary. Abusive or otherwise illegal comments will be reported to the proper authorities, up to and including the aforementioned Vast Zionist Conspiracy. The Management cannot and will not be held responsible for commenters making a spectacle of themselves, even if The Management are the said commenters in question. In other words, don't take yourself so seriously, folks. We're all here to discuss the news, and more importantly, to have fun. Now go get yourself into some OCD treatment program—you obviously need it if you actually read all of this mess.

annie on 2007-08-16 16:38 #1
*Heh. You're welcome Brian ;-) Better luck next time...

[Ed.: Originally posted on 11 Aug 2007 at 19:13 EDT]
Reply  
captainfish on 2007-08-16 16:44 #2
*And, in Italy, it means "shove it up your ***~"???

And the French have that hand gesture using it to hold their cigarettes. So that means...?

Is there documentation for this assertion? Like you Brian, my first assumption was, "Where's the money?" And the fact that the "victim/begger/subjugant" is holding money also helps our assumptions.

BTW, looks like a nice cheerful and safe border crossing with all those safety guns around.

[Ed.: Originally posted on 13 Aug 2007 at 20:51 EDT]
Reply  
JSinger on 2007-08-16 16:56 #3
*Is there documentation for this assertion?

She's absolutely correct. Both Arabs and Israelis use that gesture constantly to mean "wait a minute".

[Ed.: Originally posted on 14 Aug 2007 at 17:12 EDT]
Reply  

Add Comment

E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

HTML-Tags will be converted to Entities.
Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.
BBCode format allowed