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Sarajevo haggadah

Antaea Darom

Israeli women's art

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Torah as music

Ben Heine

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ceramic bowl

Mohammad Said Kalash, "Offering Reconciliation" exhibit (photo: Ilan Amihai)

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Punch and Judy/Pinchas and Jamila

Avi Katz

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David Grossman

Ben Heine

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Eldrige Street shul

Lower East Side

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Dove

Ben Heine

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Two birds

Hoda Jamal

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Israeli and Palestinian boys

from documentary, Promises

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Cat in the Hat

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Daylight through the Wall

Banksy: graffiti art on Separation Wall

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Maurice Sendak's Brundibar set

New Victory Theater (photo: Nan Melville/NYT)

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Daniel Barenboim, West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

Palestinian-Israeli musical ensemble (photo: Kerstin Joensson/AP)

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Great Day on Eldrige Street

N.Y.'s klezmer greats celebrate shul rededication (photo: Leo Sorel)

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Joint Appeal for Peace

(Avi Katz)

Joint Appeal for Peace

Ketubah, Ancona, Italy (1772)

(Jewish Theological Seminary library)

Ancona ketubah

Posts Tagged ‘hasbara’

Twitter and Winning the Online War for Israel

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Those valiant hasbara honchos in the Israeli foreign ministry are fighting the good fight on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people.  First, Danny Ayalon stood up to the Turkish ambassador by seating him on a kiddie chair and showing how to humiliate a true enemy of Israel.  Then Danny stiffed a U.S. Congress delegation, making clear that he’d have nothing to do with those anti-Israel, so-called Jews in J Street.  Next, to show Israel in a truly constructive light as a center of hot sex in the Middle East–the MFA, Canadian Jewish pro-Israel donors, and the Israel lobby funded a thrilling video that proffered oral sex in return for traveling to the land of hot beaches and bronzed bodies that is Israel.

Yuli Edelstein, settler, and minister of the newly created Hasbara (I kid you not) Ministry, created a devilishly witty website which makes fun of foreign journalists telling their audiences back home that the IDF uses camels to haul their ammunition and that standards of civilization are somewhere in the late 19th century.  He’s also deputized Israeli tourists and, why the hell not, the entire Jewish people to be ambassadors of hasbarist good will on Israel’s behalf.  I tell you, as a good Zionist, it just makes my heart pound and my body tingle.  We’re finally getting out the message.  With this, it won’t be long before we win this damn propaganda war with the dark Arab hordes.  Then Israel will stand with its foot atop the neck of those damn Palestinians, as it should be.

Now, Danny and his friends in the Australian Zionist Federation have discovered a truly nefarious enemy within our very own Jewish people.  These are those Jewish-born individuals who should be ashamed to call themselves Jews (we certainly don’t), because they hate, I say HATE, Israel and all it stands for.  People like those nasty Twitterers who mock magnificent specimens of Jewish manhood like Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor, and deputy minister Ayalon himself.  And how do these so-called Jews disseminate their hate?  Not through the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  No they’re far too crafty and hip for that.  They seek ever newer ways to promote their bile.  They do it using the tools of the young people on whom they prey: YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.  Yes, I said Twitter.  Is nothing sacred?

And who do we have to thank for this Paul Revere-like early warning of the impending peril to Israel?  Something called the Community Internet Engagement Project of the Australian Zionist Federation.  You see, many of our leaders are the white-haired Old Guard.  They’re used to dictating to cute secretaries a la Mad Men.  They barely know how to type, let alone tweet or “friend” someone on Facebook.  They’re the dinosaurs.  But the future belongs to the CIEP which aims to teach Australian Zionists how to fight for Israel in the perpetual online war waged by Islamofascists and their anti-Zionist fellow travelers.  All I can say is thank God for this veritable firewall, or should I say mechitza, on behalf of all that is good about the Jewish people.

We should thank them for all they do on our behalf (cut out that sniggering you in the back, this is serious work we’re engaged in):

Israel has been attached [sic] in Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. Eventually it had to happen… and in messages of 140 characters of [sic] less, now Twitter too is being used in public diplomacy against the Jewish state….In Israel MKs, such as Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, are also making use of Twitter. So is the IDF’s spokesperson and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. What’s new…are efforts to use Twitter to attack, satirise or demonise. Two fake profiles demonstrate the potential. The first, is a FakeDannyAyalon profile on twitter, [sic] is an example of political attacks. Using his real picture and a string of 79 posts, the profile spreads over-the-top messages in the Deputy Foreign Minister’s name. One expounds the rights of protestors to express themselves in Iran, going on to say those who do so in Israel should be shot. Another suggests a Palestinian Mandela must be found… so that he can be locked up. The second fake profile of interest is for NGO Monitor. NGO Monitor is the watchdog organisation that reports on human rights NGOs active in the Arab Israeli conflict.  This profile likewise makes over the top and self defeating statements. “‘Telling the truth is less important than defending Israel.’ Yes, EXACTLY! When will you learn?!” it reads. Another comment says “Remember: Everything we say = democratic debate, legitimate criticism. Everything they say = exploiting democracy for a political agenda”.

Ashley Perry and advisor to Danny Ayalon responded to our enquiries saying they were aware of FakeDannyAyalon on Twitter and that “imitation is the highest form of flattery”…Despite the interest from imitators, Danny Ayalon apparently soon launch a blog and an interactive website. One wonders if FakeDannyAyalon will be left by the wayside.

The fake profile for NGO Monitor is less blatant than that for Danny Ayalon. IT differs from NGO Monitor’s real account by only an under score. The posts also link to articles that debate and respond to NGO Monitor reports. The profile itself lists the Palestinian Propaganda [!] site Electronic Intifada as its home page. Electronic Intifada was previously exposed as being behind efforts to manipulate the Wikipedia community after they infiltrated and exposed efforts by CAMERA to encourage more people to become Wikipedia editors.

It’s taken a while, but finally twitter too has become a tool of online warfare. While Facebook bans the use of fake names, Twitter only prohibits Impersonation and Trademark violations. It remains to be seen how far satire can be used as a cover, and how good the satire must be to qualify. One this [sic] is certain, the online world is only growing in impact when it comes to politics and the international reputation of countries. Israel is starting to get online, but there is a long way still to go.

And with starke Yidn like Prof. Dr. Oboler on our side, we’ll get there in no time.  Who is this fellow, you ask?

Dr. Andre Oboler is a social media expert and Director of the Community Internet Engagement Project. He…spent a year as a Post Doctoral Fellow focusing on Online Public Diplomacy at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

Phew, I feel better already.  One thing you should know, by the way, is that that wonderful sounding name “public diplomacy” is another phrase for hasbara when it comes to Israel.  It’s selling Israel, selling its story (as conceived by the pro-Israel right), selling the good, and dismissing the bad with the wave of a hand.

Psst, Dr. Oboler, use that PhD in computer science to buy yourself a good grammar check program, lest the anti-Semit’n out there start thinking all of us Jews are semi-literate.

To enjoy the wonderful satire of NGO_Monitor and FakeDanny Ayalon, visit their profiles and be ready to laugh your head off.  Some of this has to be written by writers for Eretz Nehederet, it’s that good.  By the way, Prof. Dr. Oboler missed a few other hilarious ones as well that would throw him into fits of righteous indignation: Fake_Bibi, FakeShimonPeres, DanHalutz, M_Ahmadinejad, SalamFayyad and MohammadDahlan.  Please let us know about others in the comment thread below.

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Settlers Campaign Against Size Doesn’t Matter Video

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

It looks like there’s a definite split in the pro-Israel community about the Size Doesn’t Matter soft-core video promoting Israeli student tourism.  I wondered why Vimeo, which originally hosted it took it down for “explicit sexual content.”  I blamed the company’s editors for being prudish.  Little did I know it was radical Orthodox settlers who objected to it.  A reader points me to this report in Arutz Sheva bragging erroneously that it got the video pulled:

The Foreign Ministry has taken down a video promotion for Israel that used sexual innuendo after Arutz-7 exposed the campaign on Tuesday. The film was sponsored by the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA).The video shows a young couple in bed and uses sexual terms in comparison with Israel. The exposé noted that the video was vulgar and could also be used by anti-Semites in their campaign to discredit Jews and Israel.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levi told Israel National News that the government workers involved in the promo are located in Toronto. “The idea did not come from Jerusalem,” he said.

This story completely contradicts this claim from another MFA spokesperson and the student who claims ownership of the tourism promotion that the MFA had nothing to do with it:

Maya Kadosh, spokesperson at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem…said that a conversation with the Israeli consulate in Toronto “indicated that the Consulate had no part in the movie, did not initiate it and did not participate in its planning or its distribution.”

Make up your minds guys. Did you or didn’t you? Is it possible that two different Israeli consular officials could’ve given diametrically opposite statements to the same question? It makes you wonder whether the confusion is based on a lie or simple incompetence. Either way, it isn’t terribly impressive.

Just as important, Arutz 7′s report is simply wrong. The website is up. The video is up. The only way I can justify their claim is that perhaps the MFA was making this available on its own website and it no longer is. But I’d guess it’s simply another lie or bit of incompetence from MFA officials in Israel who haven’t even bothered to check whether what they claim is true. What a way to run a country, eh?

I want to make crystal clear to anyone reading this that my criticism is not of all Israelis nor of the country, Israel.  It is of the twisted policies and world view of the current Israeli government (and any government that would pursued similar policies perpetuating Occupation).  That is why I am so disdainful of the kind of hasbara represented here.  It papers over problems and attempts to hide reality rather than expose it.

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Size Doesn’t Matter: Israel’s Porno Tourism Promotion

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Israel has annexed the West Bank and Gaza in map featured in Size Doesn't Matter video

Israel’s hasbara and tourism promotions are the gift that keeps on giving as far as this blogger is concerned.  I hope you’ve all seen the atrocious video I offered here a few days ago in which a lissome lass tells her lad she can’t possibly go “down” on him because it’s “too small.”  The up shot of all this double entendre is of course that Israel may have a small, er, no…rather that Israel may be small, but that it is MIGHTY!!

There have been some rather delectable developments in the aftermath of this viral video which seems to have infected all those involved with it in a case of the jitters.  Shalomlife, a Canadian Jewish news portal, followed up on the story and managed to get an MFA spokesperson to deny the Size Doesn’t Matter campaign has anything to do with it or the consulate:

Kadosh said that a conversation with the Israeli consulate in Toronto “indicated that the Consulate had no part in the movie, did not initiate it and did not participate in its planning or its distribution.”

As I noted in my earlier post, this is given the lie by a rapturous announcement by the very same MFA and consulate that they were partnering with three wealthy Canadian Jewish pro-Israel individuals in a long-term rebranding campaign on Israel’s behalf of which the Toronto Film Festival’s controversial fete of Tel Aviv’s 100th birthday was but the start.

The student ostensibly behind the Small Penises Aren’t That Bad campaign, Rebecca Cherniak, is falling all over herself to deny that the organized Canadian Jewish community had anything to do with the video:

Rebecca Cherniak, coordinator of the campaign and chair of Israel affairs for the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students also confirms that Size Doesn’t Matter is an initiative strictly run by students, not by CIJA. She said that they have not been in contact with any Israeli ministers or diplomats.

A few problems with that statement.  My trusty informal researcher Robin notes that Cherniak is president of McMaster University’s Israel on Campus chapter.  On the group’s website it says clear as day:

McMaster Israel On Campus thanks the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) for their generous contribution, which made this website possible.

And if you need any further evidence that this campaign is tied directly into Canada’s Israel lobby, note that the Size Doesn’t Matter domain was registered to:

Domain name: sizedoesntmatter.ca
Domain number: 2929497
Approval date: 2009/07/13
Renewal date: 2010/07/13
Updated date: 2009/12/10

Registrant:
Name: Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Inc.
Number: 1262044

Administrative contact:
Name: Rob Hall

Canadian Jewish Public Affairs is an Israel advocacy outfit whose board chair is none other than Joel Reitman.  He is one of the three gentlemen I mentioned above partnering in the MFA’s Canadian rebranding project. So much for plausible deniability. Size Doesn’t Matter is about as much of a student-run project as the old Mickey Mouse Club TV show was run by the mouseketeers themselves (sorry for dating myself).

Cherniak embarrasses herself further by actually claiming the reason she produced the video was because Israel’s image suffered among the general public (and this was going to make it right?):

“We were very dismayed by the way that Israel is represented in the media,” she says. “We think students are more critical and want to understand more than the typical slogans they see. We put together a campaign that grabs people’s attentions.”

So she made the video for all those students out there thirsting for critical thinking about Israel, which is why the underlying theme is oral sex.  As for grabbing peoples’ attention (and crotches?)–that she did.

I’m a little sorry that someone complained to Vimeo about the SDM video and it was inexplicably pulled due to “explicit sexual content.”  I could see if it’d been pulled due to excruciating bad taste.  But calling this “explicit” leads one to believe that Vimeo is run by some extreme prudes.  Does this mean, by the way, that hasbara is pornographic or just THIS hasbara?

Thankfully, YouTube isn’t quite as prudish (yet).  People, don’t complain about this video.  It’s a gift.  In fact, if any of you are Canadians and have any spare change you might want to make a designated gift to one of these two estimable pro-Israel organizations that will help fund more of these videos.

And on that note, there are future videos in store for us in this series including one that takes us “from the office to the bedroom.”  I can’t wait!

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Canadian Jewish Tourism Ad Uses Oral Sex to Promote Israeli Tourism

Sunday, February 21st, 2010


UPDATE: The video was originally hosted by Vimeo, which removed it after a complaint that it featured “explict sexual content.” Bad taste, for sure. But “explicit” content? It is instructive though, at least in a symbolic sense, that Vimeo finds such Israeli hasbara is video pornography. H/t Robin.

Dimi Reider has discovered one of the stranger of Israel’s tourism promotions.  This one is sponsored by the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) undoubtedly in close collaboration with the foreign ministry.  The video is in indescribably bad taste, portraying an attractive couple in bed with the woman telling the man she can’t possibly “do it” because it’s “too small.”  The dialogue is so lame that it simply must be quoted to be believed:


Girl: Uhhh…
Boy: What?
G: Don’t be mad…It’s just that it’s small…
B: Small?!
G: I don’t know if I can go there.
B: I consider this a spot of worship. It may be small, but it’s brought the driest places to life. Baby, this is paradise. [camera pans to show map of Israel and tourist guidebooks covering boy's crotch].
G: OK, but if I go down there for you, you have to promise you’ll down south for me next winter.

I’m simply flabbergasted that Israel would use the promise of fellatio and cunnilingus to promote itself. This also puts into proper perspective the blandishments of Birthright Israel and its former premier trip vendor, Shlomo Momo, who hold out to trip participants the possibility of great Jewish sex and meeting potential Jewish mates on their trips.

There are just way too many strange, odd places to go with this evocative video. Do you notice the phallic outline of Israel in the video’s opening image? What does it say about the creator’s fixation on the symbolic size of Israel’s, er member? Maybe Israel is compensating for this sense of sexual inferiority with its “muscular” Occupation (h/t to Ali Gharib)?

The website devised to promote this tourism campaign portrays Israel as a hipster paradise full of models, beaches, bronzed bodies, and beautiful modern metropolises. If I caught it correctly, there’s an image of a dread-locked Idan Raichel thrown in for good measure. Yes sir, Israel is nothing but sun and fun. Not a hint of politics. Not even culture, art or music. And certainly not an Arab in sight. In fact, here are some factoids of which the hasbara machine wants you to be proud:

Did you KNOW?

* On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotechnology startup companies in the world
* Israel is a world leader in water conservation and reforestation
* Arab Israelis have served as elected representatives of the Knesset (Parliament) since Israel was founded

Israel is a welcoming and inclusive country

* In 1999, an Arab woman was named as “Miss Israel”
* Israeli Arabs serve on the Israeli Supreme Court
* Israel is at the forefront of promoting equality for LGBT communities, as well as promoting women’s rights
* In 1969 Golda Meir was elected as Israel’s Prime Minister – the third elected woman leader of any other country in the world

Speaking of Israel’s technological innovation, did you get a load of those Mossad killers talking into their wrists with that cool gear that communicated with their Austrian command center? Now that’s innovation! Not to mention the cool floppy hat worn by the Mossad babe who was stalking the victim. If that isn’t fashion sense, what is? And how ’bout targeted assassinations in general? What a neat innovation Israel has perfected and given as a gift to the Palestinians and the rest of the world.

How ’bout those claims about Israeli Arabs? Holy shit, Batman! There are Arab Israelis who’ve been elected to the Knesset! I bet you thought they were all dishwashers, daily laborers and maids. No kidding. Of course, this “fact” omits the real fact that Arab political parties are excluded from governing coalitions, and rarely are individual Arab Knesset members named government ministers and so have almost no political power.

And yes, Israel is an inclusive and welcoming country if you’re a Jew. If you’re not, not so much.

Regarding Arabs sitting on the Supreme Court, this neglects the fact that the daughter of Israel’s Arab justice was treated like an Arab terrorist by the Shin Bet when she attempted to leave Israel. Israel is at the forefront of gay rights…except when crazy haredim stab gay marchers in Gay Pride parades, when haredi rabbis denounce gays as evil Sodomites, and when Tel Aviv gay community centers are attacked by crazed gunmen. As for Golda, that’s very nice except that the percentage of women in the Knesset is miserably low and women hold almost no major cabinet portfolios.

Is this any way to promote a country? You bet it ain’t. But one thing I have to say–this is yet another ‘brilliant’ manipulation brought to you by those boys, Yvette and Danny, and their most excellent adventure at the Israeli foreign ministry. At the rate they’re going, there may not be much of an Israel left to promote before too long.

This advertising campaign is part of a joint Israel rebranding effort organized by the Israeli consulate in Canada and Canadian Jewish business leaders including the Asper family and Jason Reitman, who also chairs CIJA. An earlier effort at this type of rebranding included the Toronto Film Festival’s honoring Tel Aviv’s 100th birthday in an effusion of pro-Israel glitz and hasbara that Israeli film artists and Naomi Klein objected to strenuously.

Students at 20 Canadian universities will have the pleasure of dreaming about oral sex in Israel when this tourism campaign comes to a campus near them in the coming weeks. I bet they just can’t wait.

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Israel Plants Shills at U.S. Events

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

In the annals of hasbara, some interesting developments.  First, in an attempt to shoot itself not in one foot but both, deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon refused to allow a J Street Congressional delegation to meet with government officials.  Why?  Well, certainly because J Street is anathema to his rightist political agenda.  But Ayalon demanded that the delegation exclude Jeremy Ben Ami, the J Street leader accompanying the mission, from such meetings.

Mossad killers in tennis outfit disguise

Think about this.  Aipac brings Congressional delegations to Israel regularly.  Its staff routinely accompany members to all of their meetings on these trips.  So Ayalon wishes to throw up a wall between the “bad” J Street and the “good” Aipac.  It’s ludicrous.  Beyond that, these four members of Congress actually vote on foreign aid appropriations which are critical to Israel’s well-being.  Does Ayalon really think he can take their votes for granted?  Does he care?

What I hope will happen is that the next J Street delegation will contain 25 members and then Ayalon will be forced to meet with them or at least allow them to meet with officials under his thumb.

I’m pleased that Tzipi Livni has bucked Ayalon and met with the delegation.  As a leader of the opposition I would expect she’d welcome an opportunity to stick her finger in Ayalon’s eye.  And he’s made it oh so easy for her to do so.

Some true dufus from Israel’s UK embassy thought the accompanying tweet was cute, alluding to Shahar Peer’s tennis victory in a Dubai tournament and Israel’s alleged “hit” against a Hamas operative.  Rememeber too, that the Mossad hit men wore tennis gear to disguise their evil intent.  Next time you see overweight middle aged men with beards or mustaches in your hotel, beware.  This is what passes for wit at the MFA these days.  Keep in mind this is the very same embassy whose ambassador has been summoned by the foreign office to explain how the Mossad managed to steal the identities of five British nationals and use them to murder the Hamas leader in Dubai.  Now, that’s effrontery.  Thanks to a commenter noting this true oddity of Israeli hasbara.

Here’s more from the Israeli foreign ministry.  Apparently, they’ve been stung by the hostile reception meted out to Michael Oren at UC Irvine and Ayalon himself at Oxford on recent speaking engagements.  So how are they going to respond?  Listen to this from M.J. Rosenberg:

The Israeli daily, Ma’ariv, reported on Tuesday that the foreign ministry has devised a plan to counter the demonstrators who turn out whenever an Israeli diplomat appears on a campus.

“The Foreign Ministry intends to include groups of Israeli university students on trips of high-ranking Israelis overseas. The goal is to counter the heckling,” Ma’ariv reported.

“The students [in groups of five] will wave Israeli flags, will blow whistles and call out.”

Talk about a couple of hare-brained schemes. Once upon a time, Israeli policies were defended by people who thought they were right and spontaneously turned out. Now the government is enlisting ringers.

I’m sure that’s going to be welcomed by security personnel at campuses around the world.  As if they didn’t have enough to worry about keeping the peace at these events.  Now, they’ve got a foreign, non-student element with a built in goal of provoking hostility from students.  Have you ever heard of such an idiotic plan in your life?

I’ve already written here about the new Israeli Hasbara Ministry (yes, that’s literally what it’s called in Hebrew) headed by settler leader, Yuli Edelstein.  Of course, Bronner won’t tell you about Edelstein’s rightist background because that’s the kind of pro-Israel reporter he is.  The Hasbarists plan to enlist Israelis who travel abroad and all of world Jewry, according to Ethan Bronner, in a campaign to rebut the negative image Israel has around the world.  What will they tell those who have yet to appreciate Israel’s virtues?

One main message of the campaign is that Israel is a technically advanced and diverse society and that its government policies are not the source of regional conflict. It notes that a number of important agricultural breakthroughs have occurred here, including drip irrigation and the development of the cherry tomato.

Yes, that’s the way to dispel notions that Israel is a blood-thirsty nation that represses millions of Palestinians and engages in all out war with its neighbors: remind the world about drip irrigation and those delicious cherry tomatoes they eat every day.  Not to mention Israel’s other major export–high-tech lame-brained political assassinations.  If that doesn’t turn things around for Israel, nothing will.

What other elements of the campaign will bring the world around to Israel’s point of view?

…It also seeks to puncture what the ministry considers common myths about Israel — that it is a big and primitive country, that its food consists of little more than hummus and falafel, and that Israelis as a group do not seek peace.

Yes, tell ‘em that Israelis also eat schwarma and schnitzel and all those other wonderful foods gracing their own western kitchen tables.  That’ll do the trick.  And peace?  Of course Israelis want peace.  If only those pesky Palestinians would realize they don’t need all that land in Judea and Samaria which God promised to the Jews anyway.  Then we could have peace.

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Drafting Israeli Tourists for World Hasbara

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Yuli Edelstein: what this country needs is some good hasbara (Dan Porges)

Ori Nir has a delightfully ironic column about Israel’s new Hasbara Ministry, yes an entire ministry devoted to Israeli propaganda.  In other countries this might be called the Information Ministry, but this being Israel–let’s call a spade a spade, it’s propaganda.  And guess who the new minister is?  Yuli Edelstein, a settler.  It figures.  Why not appoint the most controversial and objectionable type of Israeli to sell Israel’s most objectionable and controversial policies abroad?  And Israelis wonder why their hasbara falls flat…

Yuli did some polling and he decided, surprise, Israel has a problem:

Israel’s Ministry of Information (yes, there is such a thing – for the first time it is a full-fledged cabinet portfolio) recently commissioned a public opinion survey among Israeli Jews (yes, Jews only). Ninety-one percent, according to the poll, said that Israel has a “severe” or “very severe” image problem overseas. Eighty percent said that Israel is perceived as an “aggressive country” and 30 percent said that Israel is perceived as an “unfriendly country.”

How to solve it?  Well, Israelis are famous travelers and can be found in virtually every country in the world.  So why not draft them?

Edelstein told the Israeli news site Ynet last month what his solution is to Israel’s severe “explanation” crisis. “I intend to draft the millions of Israeli citizens travelling abroad to take an active part in the Israeli hasbara apparatus,” Edelstein said. He figured that over 4.2 million Israelis travel overseas annually. Soon, he said, his ministry will launch a campaign to instruct Israeli travelers how they can do the job. He’s even planning to dedicate a special website to that purpose (by the way, Israel’s Hasbara Ministry does not currently have a website).

Nir then points out that one of Maariv’s most right-wing columnists, Ben Dror Yemini (ironically, meaning “right-handed”) even he concedes Israel has a REAL (as opposed to hasbara) problem:

“It is not the Hasbara.” Here’s how it starts: “We are deluding ourselves (by believing) that it’s about hasbara; That if only we told the world how wonderful we are, everything would have been rosy for us. As one who deals a lot with the industry of anti-Israel lies, it’s hard to accuse me of not understanding the importance of Hasbara. It’s important. But let’s not exaggerate. Not everyone out there is anti-Semitic. Some love Israel. And they, even they, cannot understand us.”

Yemini goes on to point out that Israel has rebuffed Syrian President Bashar Assad’s peace overtures, Israel is consistently dismissing the Arab League’s peace initiative, and is utterly dismissing the possibility that Hamas could transform into a legitimate interlocutor. “The Image is that the Arabs are offering peace and Israel is turning its back,” he wrote, “It can be different. It is okay to say yes. The Arabs understand it. We forgot.”

Where I part company with Nir is the praise he offers to Israel’s hasbara apparatus as represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  I find nothing useful or praiseworthy in their enterprise.  It is devious, and employs false pretenses, and underhanded practices in order to support an opaque agenda especially on matters like Iran.  And often it is but one-step (or less) removed from Israel’s intelligence services.

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The Beat Goes On: Dershowitz Slanders Me in Jerusalem Post Too, Ghouls Rejoice

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Recently, I wrote that Alan Dershowitz had published a Huffington Post blog in which he named and quoted from my blog post, The Zionization of Disaster Relief, about Israel’s PR extravaganza in Haiti.  Instead of attributing the blog post to me, the author, and linking to this blog, instead he wrote the following:

The neo-Nazi Web site ReportersNotebook.com features a blog entitled The Zionization of Disaster Relief.

The editors of Huffington Post, after saying they would address the issue, have not yet done so.  Now I discover that Dersh also published this same post on the same date, January 24th, in his Jerusalem Post blog.  I’ve also written to the Post’s editors asking them to correct the record.

Given that I’ve attacked Alan Dershowitz before here, it can be no accident why he formulated his paragraph about my blog post in the fraudulent manner he did.  And now comes circumstantial evidence that this is the case.   An anti-Semitism-obsessed, anti-jihadi, pro-Israel blogger, Adam Holland, has taken up the cudgels.  Holland is also one of Joe Weissman’s buddies, who I’ve also criticized for his jihad against Anglican cleric Stephen Sizer.

Strangely enough, Holland also actually blogs at Daily Kos.  I wonder what credentials got him that gig?  Is being a pro-Israel, Muslim hater sufficient now to get oneself a diary at DK (apologies to a few of my good blogging friends who are DK diarists)?  This is beginning to look like pro-Israel tag team wrestling.  You bad mouth one of theirs and they’ll double team you with some of their big, fat sweaty hack heavyweights.

I’m not even going to get into how badly Holland mischaracterizes my views in the Haiti post I wrote.  More interesting to me is the McCarthyite guilt by association rhetorical style of demagogue-goons like Holland (and Weissman, Horowitz, Pipes and others):

Silverstein’s column has traversed the left-right wormhole and has been published by the neo-Nazi blogger (and David Irving associate) Michael Santomauro at his Reporters Notebook website (read here). Alan Dershowitz read this reposted version of Silverstein’s column and blasted it in a column of his own…Silverstein’s column has also been reposted on Russia’s Pravda English language forum and the Arab website Uruknet.

My work is republished (without my knowledge or permission, but that’s neither here nor there) by a Holocaust revisionist, the discussion forum of a Russian newspaper, and an Arab website–and that makes me…what?  A known associate of organized revisionism, the Russians, and jihadists?

This may satisfy those of little brain among the pro-Israel-obsessed blog world.  They don’t seem to be able to debate honestly or characterize accurately what you write, so they resort to these fraudulent intellectual stunts.  The Who once sang: “We won’t be fooled again.”  Unlike their song, I don’t think anyone is fooled by this narischkeit.

To me, this indicates a deep unease about Israel’s perilous position on the world stage as the Goldstone Report begins to reoccupy headlines and Israel refuses to appoint the investigative commission demanded by the UN panel.  The government has launched a vicious counter-attack against Israeli and international human rights NGOs, Israeli and Palestinian peace activists, the Report itself, and progressive bloggers who attest to the inadequacy of Israel’s response.  The attack is also coordinated along with internet activists recruited by the Foreign Ministry.  Dershowitz and buddies of his like Weissman and Holland also play a useful role.  I call it the vast right-wing hasbara conspiracy-crusade.

Dershowitz and Holland attacked my post because it revealed that the clothes the Haiti hasbara emperor were wearing were hiding the sins of Gaza.  Interesting who they haven’t attacked though–the Israeli doctor (and IDF Lt. Col.) whose newspaper article formed the basis for my article.  My post is 85% Dr. Yoel Donchin‘s article from the Israeli press with 15% commentary written by me.  But it would be much harder to target an experienced medicine specialist from Israel’s Hadassah Hospital as being anti-Israel or loony-left than me (though it won’t succeed with me either).

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The Zionization of Disaster Relief

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Didn’t know there was anything particularly Zionist about providing disaster relief?  You learn something new every day.  This is a story of exploiting the suffering of poor, defenseless Haitians on behalf of Israeli triumphalism.

A baby named Israel...who, if he reaches adulthood, would never be welcome in Israel (IDF)

Sol Salbe translated an eye-opening column from Yediot by an Israeli doctor who was an integral member of all Israeli international disaster response teams until recently.  Then he made the mistake of writing a mildly critical statement about Israeli disaster relief efforts.  As a result, he was relieved of his obligation for further IDF service and further participation in the disaster relief program.  The op ed is so revealing (and not yet available online in English) I’m going to quote large sections.  An explanatory note–at Israel’s Haiti field hospital, they delivered what the Israeli PR flacks called “the first baby since the earthquake.”  The medical staff urged the woman to name her baby “Israel” and she was only to eager to oblige.  Another Israeli PR coup!


Public Relations instead of saving lives

Sending portable toilets to Haiti would have been a better option, but this does not provide good photo opportunities. Israeli missions to disaster areas in the past have shown that such activity was in vain.

Yoel Donchin

I received my final exemption from the army after I published an article which said that the State of Israel acts like the proverbial Boy Scout, who insists on doing a good deed daily and helping an old lady cross the road even against her will. How ungrateful of me to publish such a column when I had participated in almost all the rescue missions to overseas disaster areas! Suddenly I am no longer suitable to take part in such heroic endeavours. But in light of the experience I gained in such missions…we have wasted our effort.

Generally speaking, we start preparing for such a mission within hours of the announcement of a natural disaster. Most often the Israeli mission team is the first one to land in the area. Like those who climb Mount Everest, it plants its flag on the highest peak available, announcing  to all and sundry that the site has been conquered. And in order to ensure that the public is aware of this sporting achievement, the mission is accompanied by media representatives, photographers, an IDF spokesman’s office squad and others.

I understood the purpose perfectly when the head of one of the delegations to a disaster zone was asked whether oxygen tanks and a number of doctors could be removed to make room for another TV network’s representatives with their equipment. (With unusual courage, the delegation head refused!)

The lesson learnt from the activities of those missions is that when there is a natural disaster, or when thousands of people are expelled from their homes by force, as happened in Kosovo, survivors may benefit from international assistance only if it responds to the region’s specific needs. Also assistance must be coordinated among the various aid agencies.

The competitive race to a disaster zone imposes a huge strain on the local health and administration authorities. Airports are clogged by transport planes unloading a lot of unnecessary but bulky equipment. Doctors and rescue organisations seek ways to utilise single carriageway roads and in fact they are a burden.   The correct way to help is to send a small advance force to gauge the dimensions of the disaster…

Would they still call that child Israel?

Three components are crucial:  shelter, water and food — these things are crucial in order to save the largest number of people. Water purification equipment, tents, basic food rations are needed. But they do lack the desired dramatic effect. If we went down that track we would miss out on seeing that child who was born with the assistance of our physicians. Most certainly, the excited mother wouldn’t give her child (who knows if he will ever reach a ripe old age?) the name Israel or that of the obstetrician or nurse. (Would he get citizenship because he was born in Israeli territory? There would be many opposed to that.) The drama is indeed classy, but its necessity is doubtful.

It being Israel, our current force contains a Kashrut supervisor, security personnel and more.

In the present disaster, which is of a more massive scale than anything we have encountered to date, the need is not so much for a field hospital but field, ie portable, toilets. There is more of a need for digging equipment to dig graves and sewage pipes.

A country which wants to provide humanitarian aid without concern for its media image should send whatever is required by the victims, and not whatever it wants to deliver. But would the evening news show the commander of the Israeli mission at the compound with 500 chemical toilets? Unlikely. It is much more media savvy to show an Israeli hospital, replete with stars of David and of course the dedicated doctors and nurses, dressed in their snazzy uniforms with an Israeli flag on the lapel.

…It is quite likely that financial assistance commensurate with Israel’s resources would be preferable to the enormous expense and complicated logistics involved in the maintenance of a medical unit in the field…

But apparently a minute of TV coverage is much more important…and in fact Israel is using disasters as [military] field training in rescue and medical care. After a fortnight, the mission will reportedly return to Israel. To be truly effective a field hospital needs to remain for two or three months, but that’s a condition that Israel cannot meet.

…It is only in the Israeli aid compound in Haiti that large signs carrying the donor country’s name hang for all to see.

Prof. Yoel Donchin is the director of the Patient Safety Unit at the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem.
Translated by Sol Salbe, who directs the Middle East News Service for the Australian Jewish Democratic Society.

If after reading this you’re feeling either slightly soiled or angry, I urge you to perform a truly constructive, selfless act in reply to Israel’s self-promotional puffery. Make a gift to American Jewish World Service or Doctors Without Borders, who are each doing acts of mercy without thought of benefit to themselves or any narrow political movement.  In fact, DWB’s flights of precious, desperately needed medical supplies have been repeatedly turned away by American forces controlling incoming air traffic, in favor of military equipment deemed needed for the occupation which seems to be taking shape there.

Somehow Israeli field hospitals and all their support equipment manage to get through this bottleneck.  Could it be?  Nah, I didn’t think so.

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