“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” (attributed to Mark Twain). [A misattribution. — DV ed]
Israel’s image is now so badly damaged that it is desperately stepping up its ‘hasbara’ (meaning propaganda and disinformation) programme on all channels, especially social media. In the past they’ve paid an army of students to push their lying texts. Now they’re hiring even more scribblers to poison our media channels.
It’s no surprise that Israel’s lie machine has an instruction manual for those it recruits into its vile business including the stooges they’ve positioned at the heart of all Western governments. This masterpiece on the art of lying is titled The Israel Project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary. Read it here.
It aims to win over the mass of “persuadables”, primarily in America but also in the UK and elsewhere. The strategy from the start is to isolate democratically-elected Hamas and rob the resistance movement and the Palestinian people of their human rights. This quote at the beginning sets the tone: “Remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear.”
Top priority is to demonise Hamas… and this is how they want their stooges to go about it.
• “Clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas. There is an immediate and clear distinction between the empathy Americans feel for the Palestinians and the scorn they direct at Palestinian leadership. Hamas is a terrorist organization – Americans get that already. But if it sounds like you are attacking the Palestinian people (even though they elected Hamas) rather than their leadership, you will lose public support. Right now, many Americans sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians, and that sympathy will increase if you fail to differentiate the people from their leaders.”
• “Draw direct parallels between Israel and America—including the need to defend against terrorism…. The more you focus on the similarities between Israel and America, the more likely you are to win the support of those who are neutral. Indeed, Israel is an important American ally in the war against terrorism, and faces many of the same challenges as America in protecting their citizens.”
Note how Israel’s strategy is almost totally dependent on the false idea that they and America are victims of terror and that all Western nations need to huddle together with Israel and America for mutual protection. But level-headed people are beginning to realise who the terrorists really are. It is surely obvious by now that allowing parallels to be drawn between Israel and America only serves to increase the world’s hatred of America. US citizens are very belatedly waking up to this, as are the British, but many continue to blunder into the trap.
• “Next, inject with ‘core values’ and repeat over and over and over again… The language of Israel is the language of America: ‘democracy,’ ‘freedom,’ ‘security,’ and ‘peace’. These four words are at the core of the American political, economic, social, and cultural systems, and they should be repeated as often as possible because they resonate with virtually every American.”
If so fluent in this splendid language and practised in those core values, why won’t Israel acknowledge their neighbours’ rights to democracy, freedom, security and peace and end their military oppression?
• “A simple rule of thumb is that once you get to the point of repeating the same message over and over again so many times that you think you might get sick—that is just about the time the public will wake up and say ‘Hey—this person just might be saying something interesting to me!’ But don’t confuse messages with facts…. “
Right, never let facts get in the way of a good message! And, as George ‘Dubya’ Bush, 43rd US President, once said: “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” Either he had a copy of the ‘hasbara’ manual at his bedside or he’d been reading the thoughts Hitler’s chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels who said: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
• “The fight is over IDEOLOGY, not land; terror, not territory. Thus, you must avoid using Israel’s religious claims to land as a reason why Israel should not give up land. Such claims only make Israel look extremist to people who are not religious Christians or Jews.”
If the fight isn’t about land, why did Israel steal it at gunpoint? And why won’t they give it back when told to repeatedly by the UN? Then there’s the uncontrollable urge to possess the Holy City…
• “The toughest issue to communicate will be the final resolution of Jerusalem. Americans overwhelmingly want Israel to be in charge of the religious holy sites and are frankly afraid of the consequences should Israel turn over control to the Palestinians.”
Fact is, the Old City and East Jerusalem are Palestinian. Nevertheless “Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel,” says prime minister Netanyahu. And Israel is in control right now, preventing Muslims and Christians from outside the City visiting their holy places. No way can Israel be trusted.
The UN’s 1947 partition plan decreed that Jerusalem should become a corpus separatum under international administration. It is unlikely that the UN would wish to see its resolutions torn up or international law re-written for Israel’s sole benefit or to suit America’s misinformed opinion.
The ‘hasbara’ instruction manual also says:
• “Many on the left see an Israel v. Palestinian crisis where Israel is Goliath and the Palestinians are David. It is critical that they understand that this is an Arab-Israeli crisis and that the force undermining peace is Iran and their proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You must not call Hamas just Hamas. Call them what they are: Iran-backed Hamas. Indeed, when they know that Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah, they are much more supportive of Israel.”
So, by the same token, I’ll call that racist regime what it really is: US-backed Israel. The plight of the Palestinians under US-backed Israel’s heel was of international concern long before Hamas appeared on the scene. Iran’s support for Hamas is difficult to quantify and probably less than we think. In any case it is peanuts compared to America’s support for Israel.
Hamas, as most people know, is an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and was founded in 1987 during the first Intifada. Hezbollah came into being in 1982 in response to US-backed Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. So the territorial ambitions of US-backed Israel provoked the rise of both. US-backed Israel’s problems are therefore entirely self-inflicted.
The lie machine’s propaganda manual is a toxic document oozing poison. It shows better than anything else why the Israeli regime never wants peace and is therefore no partner for peace, and can never, never, never be trusted. It follows that neither can the US.