Wrote: Etrit Rexhepi
"Albanian PM puts Blinken in his place about Palestine" or in Albanian, "The Albanian Prime Minister puts Blinken in his place about Palestine" says the text that has been attached to a video material taken from the press conference, following the meeting held in Tirana, between Prime Minister Edi Rama and Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
The video was found and published on Instagram, by the accounts "thisisappa" (April 8) and "alhelou.y" (April 9).
After verifying the content, it was found that Prime Minister Rama speaks about the historical context of Albania's role and positions in relation to Israel and Palestine.
Link to the video material published by the accounts "thisisappa" and "alhelou.y" on Instagram:
The videos in question have between 35 and 47 likes on Instagram and over 1 comments, many of whom say they took the claim for granted.
Hibrid.info has found the same video material also published on TikTok (see here).
The caption of the video on Instagram from the account “alhelou.y”, whose profile shows that it belongs to a Gaza war journalist named Yousef Alhelou (here).
“Albania recognized Palestine 36 years ago in 1988 and was also the only country in Europe where Jews were safe from Nazi prosecution. These are historical facts. World leaders should act like Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and push back against Western imperialism and hypocrisy, which is displayed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.”
Some of the historical facts regarding the issue, mentioned in this description, are highlighted by Prime Minister Rama, who answers a question (here) at the press conference (see here).
Rama's statement excerpted from the video and taken from the transcript of the conference published on the State Department's website:
"Yes, Albania recognized Palestine a long time ago.
To give you a little history, Albania was a communist dictatorship and our dictator was one of the closest friends and allies of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, and Yasser Arafat. And on the other hand, our regime was very fierce against the three great devils – the United States, the Soviet Union and Israel, in other words, American imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and Jewish Zionism. But this country, on the other hand, is the only country in Europe that after World War II had more Jews than before, and it is the only country where Jews did not fly out, but flew in for protection. And as is very well shown in Yad Vashem, it is a country where the Nazis did not manage to take a single Jew. That is the context.”
So, as can be seen in the last sentence, Prime Minister Rama makes it clear that this is about the historical context of events.
Hibrid.info has researched, through search engines, the official positions of Albanian institutions, which since the outbreak of the conflict last year between Israel and Palestine, in most cases, have assessed the organization declared a terrorist by the US, as responsible for the created situation, positions similar to those of Western allies (see here, here and here).
Analyze:
Prime Minister Rama's statements as he explains communist Albania's position in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are being misinterpreted as a rebuke by the Albanian Prime Minister to Secretary Blinken.
Also, Albania has in almost all cases held the terrorist organization Hamas responsible for the conflict in Gaza.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Manipulation of facts".
Reasoning:
“Factual manipulation” is a rating given to informational content that uses facts known to be accurate but interprets them in a distorted manner. These reports typically use accurate information to draw incorrect conclusions or claims, thereby misleading consumers of media content about the actual meaning of the facts presented.