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Frank Luntz’s Hasbara ‘Fictionary’ (Part 3)

Monday, July 13th, 2009

This is part of a series of critiques of Frank Luntz’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary.

Thanks to reader John Dickerson for coming up with the delightful moniker “Fictionary” to describe Frank Luntz’s bit of hasbara mediocrity written on behalf of the The Israel Project. Here is more of my detailed critique of the material in the handbook:

In contrast to those in the Middle East who indoctrinate their children to become hate-mongers and suicide bombers, Israel educates their children to strive for progress and peace. Israel is the one place in the Middle East where a young girl can grow up to be anything she wants—from a doctor to a mommy, to a businessperson and even to be prime minister!

Yes, Israel is a feminist paradise. No problems there. When I last lived in Israel in 1980 it was still illegal for women to work in jobs that required them to work at night. I assume that nasty bit of discrimination has been removed from the books. Israel has a proportionally high degree of domestic violence and rape. It is, and has always been quite a macho society as are many Middle Eastern societies. Yes, there has been one female prime minister in its 60 year history. Tzipi Livni came close in the last election and may have done less well than she might have because she is a woman. I hope that she or another Israeli woman will become the second prime minister. But to claim that any Israeli girl can grow up to become prime minister is another exaggeration from Luntz’s playbook.

The Fictionary contains numerous misleading or fraudlent poll results. One of them claims that 59% of those polled believe the U.S. should favor Israel while only 29% believe we should favor the Palestinians. There’s only one small problem. They didn’t ask how respondents believe U.S. policy should favor neither side or be even-handed. That of course, would radically shift the results. I am certain that a plurality or even majority of respondents would favor this position.

Talking about Israel in the context of religion is a Luntz no-no:

…Some of those who are most likely to believe that Israel is a religious state are most hostile towards Israel.

…Even the mention of the word “Jew” is many Israel contexts is going to elicit a negative reaction—and the defense of Israel as a “Jewish State” or “Zionist State” will be received quite poorly. This may be hard for the Jewish community to accept but this is how most Americans and Europeans feel.

God forbid, don’t mention Biblical claims to Judea and Samaria. Don’t mention the Orthodox monopoly on Israeli social institutions like marriage and divorce. A big turnoff to Americans. Besides, this only reminds Americans that Israel’s biggest supporter are Christian fundamentalists. And if you’re reaching out to the undecided middle, as Luntz claims to be, the fundies are an even bigger turnoff.

What’s extraordinary is the Luntz is conceding that one of the central tenets of Zionism, that Israel is a Jewish state, does not resonate with the non-Jewish world. If only right wing Zionists could actually hear this statement and grasp its meaning and adapt Israel accordingly (turning Israeli instead into a state that embraces both Jews ANDS Arabs as equals), then perhaps it wouldn’t be in the pickle it is now in.

The TIP handbook cynically reminds hasbaraniks that they don’t have to answer hard questions about Israel. And if they are asked tough questions–change the subject:

No matter what you are asked, bridge to a productive pro-Israel message. When asked a direct question, you don’t have to answer it directly…Remember, your goal in doing interviews is not only to answer questions—it is to bring persuadable members of the audience to Israel’s side in the conflict.

Luntz reminds his audience that browbeating the media is more important than having facts or a good argument:

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…But don’t confuse messages with facts.

I wish some of my right-wing readers and commenters here would remember this worthwhile message:

Spending time giving the public a history lesson on the maps of Israel will put your audience to sleep — at best. At worst…it will be viewed by Americans and Europeans as a game of gotcha…Remember—communications is not a test for who can remember the most facts.

The Fictionary once again expresses fake concern for the Palestinians:

Avoid head on attacks of your opponents. Use a soft tone. Show regret that the Palestinians have been led so poorly.

No mention of the sterling quality of Israel’s leadership which, much like the Palestinian, has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace.

Here’s more fiction, this time mangling the Road Map:

“How can the current Palestinian leadership honestly say it will pursue peace when previous leaders rejected an offer to create a Palestinian state just a few short years ago and now refuse to live up to their responsibilities as outlined in the Road Map?”

A “few short years ago” was actually 1998 and Camp David, but who’s counting. As for the offer of a Palestinian state, yes there was one that retained a significant percentage of the Occupied Territories as Israeli. Both Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak knew in advance that Arafat was unlikely to accept this truncated offer and he didn’t.

As for the Road Map, what Luntz won’t tell you is that Israel has refused to live up to its own responsibilities under that document. Step 1 calls for a settlement freeze, precisely what Barack Obama is now lobbying Israel to do and which Israel is rejecting.

…If Israel stopped fighting terror, the violence would not end? If the Palestinians stopped terror, Israel would have no reason for curfews, fences, checkpoints, and other defensive measures.”

Actually, if Israel was willing to make the compromises necessary for peace (withdrawing to 1967 borders with minor adjustments) then the Palestinians would compromise as well. But Frank sees no need for Israel to actually negotiate a peace agreement with the Palestinians. There one small problem with his logic: if the Palestinians stopped resisting the Occupation as Frank demands, then Israel would be under no pressure to negotiate in good faith to end it. And it wouldn’t. You see, in Frank’s world view the Israelis are just like the next door neighbor in your suburban subdivision. Sure you may have some minor disagreements. But everyone’s basically good-natured and we can work out any problem with a little good will. Because–aw shucks–we’re all just good old fashioned Americans at heart. Aren’t we? Clearly, Frank sees Israel through American glasses and not as they really are.

There are good Israelis and bad ones. But they aren’t Americans. They don’t think like us and don’t act like us. They don’t live in the same part of the world we do and don’t face the same issues we do. Their interests are different than our own. To pretend that they are us is dishonest and misleading.

“Is it too much to ask that the Hamas leadership condemn all terrorist activities, including suicide bombers? Is it unreasonable to insist that they stop killing innocent children before Israelis jeopardize their security and make concessions for peace?”

Actually, none of this would be unreasonable would Frank and Israel do one small thing themselves: condemn Israel’s own violations of international law, the targeted assassinations, Gaza siege, etc. If the IDF would stop killing innocent Palestinian children as it did in Gaza, then the Palestinians too might be willing to “make concessions for peace.”

Luntz has a real bug up his ass about Hamas:

“Why is the world so silent about the written, vocal, stated aims of Hamas?”

This is Hamas, the bug-eyed exterminationist Islamist militants who want nothing more than to kill Jews and throw them into the sea. The Hamas of the 1988 Hamas charter. That’s the document created when the movement was in its infancy. The one written by some member no one can even remember. The one no current Hamas member can even quote. The one Hamas leaders say has absolutely no governance over anything the movement does now.

I’ve challenged Frank in the comment threads here to find a Jew-hating statement by a current Hamas leader. But surprisingly for someone so deeply attached to truth and accuracy, instead of producing proof for his claim he’s bid our blog a fond adieu. He wouldn’t want to actually have to support his prejudices with evidence, you see.

The TIP document does know the pro-Israel crowd well enough to acknowledge its rhetorical Achilles heel: a conviction that Israel is always right and the other side always wrong. Clearly, Luntz believes that Israel IS always right. But he advises, for tactical reasons, to downplay this arrogant approach. He suggests that his spinmeisters tone it down a bit. Don’t clobber an audience over the head with your certitude (a common affliction of this crowd):

Never, never, NEVER speak in declarative statements. Never. Americans and Europeans think in shades of gray – especially when it comes to conflict in the Middle East. They believe both sides are to blame, both sides are responsible for making sacrifices for peace…So every time you say “every,” totally,” “always,” “never,” or the like, the reaction is immediate and negative.

The Fictionary dusts off an old Sharon policy that didn’t work for him and certainly won’t work now. Sharon used to say that Israel would negotiate with the Palestinians once they stopped violent resistance against the Occupation. So here’s Luntz’s version:

The situation in the Middle East may be complicated, but all parties should adopt a simple approach: peace first, political boundaries second.

This proposition places the cart before the horse. There is violence because neither Palestinians nor Israelis know what territorial boundaries Israel is willing to accept. Territory is precisely at the heart of the conflict. So to demand the Palestinians become quiescent in order to then negotiate these boundaries is fraudulent. There can only BE peace once these boundaries are neogiated and agreed upon by the parties.

Here Luntz makes an interesting concession to the truth. He admits the public doesn’t believe the Israeli government:

Don’t try to stack your credibility up against the media’s...Americans trust the
media to report the situation in the Middle East more accurately than either Israel or the
Palestinian government. Do not attempt to impeach the credibility of a media report head
on. You’ll just end up undermining you own.

This of course doesn’t stop pro-Israel partisans from whining incessantly about how the media hates Israel and is anti-Semitic. But at least the author of this reports warns them off this bankrupt strategy.

Here’s some more cold water thrown on the typical hasbara approach:

Also, don’t try to stack your credibility up against the global community’s...The public doesn’t want to hear Israeli politicians complain about this fact [that the world is against Israel]. The Israel-against-the-world, woe-are-we approach comes across as divisive.

In the following passage, the TIP handbook concedes that the Palestinians are viewed more sympathetically than Israelis:

The world sees Israel and the Palestinians on completely different plains…It’s David vs. Goliath – only this time the Palestinians are seen as David.

To be continued…

Tags: 2009 global language dictionary, frank luntz, hasbara, spinmeister, the-israel-project
Posted in Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 41 Comments »

Comment is Free on The Israel Project’s Hasbara ‘Fictionary’

Monday, July 13th, 2009

I’ve been writing a serial critique of Frank Luntz’s 2009 Language “Fictionary” written for The Israel Projects hasbara efforts on behalf of the Israeli Occupation. Comment is Free just published my own account of the project. It was written after I’d read Douglas Bloomfield’s critique of the document, but before I’d had a chance to delve deeper into it when the full handbook became available at the Newsweeek site. But my piece is still useful as an introduction to the worst aspects of Luntz’s puerile hasbara handbook.

Tags: 2009 global language dictionary, comment-is-free, Defending the indefensible settlements, fictionary, frank luntz, supporting israeli occupation, the-israel-project
Posted in Mideast Peace | No Comments »

Republican Pollster Crafts Secret Handbook for Israel Lobby (Part 2)

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

This is part II in my discussion of the 2009 Global Language Dictionary (pdf), the secret hasbara handbook crafted by veteran Republican image-shaper Frank Luntz on behalf of The Israel Project. The Dictionary is a propaganda treasure for the pro-Israel right, suggesting ways of spinning issues that might otherwise embarrass Israel in the U.S. media.

One of Luntz’s main themes is to ram home to a U.S. audience that Israel wants peace. Of course, neither he nor Israel ever offer any concrete proof of what they will do for peace or how to achieve peace. The empty slogan seems good enough for Luntz:

For Americans to have hope regarding the Middle East conflict, they need to be reminded that:

• Israel has a long-term commitment to peace. When courageous Arab leaders, such as Egypt’s President Sadat and Jordan’s King Hussein, reached out their hands to Israel, peace was achieved.

This passage neglects to mention that these leaders negotiated peace deals with Israel decades ago and that Israel has not achieved any similar agreements with any Arab leaders since. In fact, Pres. Assad of Syria has been “reaching out his hands to Israel” begging for negotiations for almost a year to no avail. Why no mention of this inconvenient fact?

Then there’s the tired old Gaza fallacy:

“Israel made painful sacrifices and took a risk to give peace a chance. They voluntarily removed over 9,000 settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, abandoning homes, schools, businesses, and places of worship in the hopes of renewing the peace process.”

“Despite making an overture for peace by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel continues to face terrorist attacks…”

Ariel Sharon took no risk whatsoever in his unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Nor did he withdraw “in hopes of renewing the peace process.” In fact, he hoped that the withdrawal would act as a pressure valve and diminish his need for a future peace process.

Those settlements were an albatross around Israel’s neck and no one except a tiny minority in the extreme settler movement saw them as having any value. Further, since Sharon withdrew without consulting or negotiating with the Palestinians, he gained nothing as he might have. So to say that Israel has the right to expect anything in return for withdrawal is foolish. If it wanted anything in return, the time to negotiate for it would’ve been BEFORE withdrawing.

Yes, hasbara can be fun and unintentionally humorous:

Americans want a team to cheer for. Let the public know GOOD things about Israel.

Once you have established that you care about both Israelis and Palestinians and that Israel wants peace, you can begin the process of establishing a strong connection between Americans and Israel based on shared values and interests, including:

– Israel’s cooperative efforts with Jewish and Muslim citizens working together to create jobs, cutting edge technology, science and research;
– Israel’s remarkable advances in alternative energy;
– The work Israel has done in Arab neighborhoods and communities to raise health and living standards, including access, as full Israeli citizens, to Israel’s world-class national health care system.

Information about the cooperation of Israeli doctors and scientists – Jews, Muslims, Christians and others alike – in solving important health and technological challenges can be helpful. So can demonstrating that Israel and America share a commitment to freedom of religion, press, speech as well as human rights, women’s issues, and the environment.

Notice Luntz provides absolutely no proof of such “cooperative efforts” between Jews and Muslims. The idea that Israel is doing anything to “create jobs” for its Muslim citizens is laughable. And the number of Israeli Arabs working in the sectors of “technology, science and research” is infinitesimal.

Also, the notion that Israel is “raising health and living standards” for its Arab population is also grotesque when the latter has the highest poverty rate, lowest life expectancy, highest rate of children living in poverty, lowest level of education, etc. of any ethnic group in the nation.

As for freedom of religion in Israel–not so fast. Religious leaders of the Muslim community are approved by the State, which can and does reject the choice of the community itself for whatever reason it chooses. Jewish rabbinic leaders are never rejected in the same way.

As for freedom of the press–except for the times when military censorship is invoked on the flimsiest of excuses. And the Israeli media NEVER challenges such censorship.

Freedom of speech? Perhaps, except for Arab Knesset members who are regularly excoriated, threatened with death, and investigated by the Israeli police again on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Human Rights? Except for those Israeli citizens who protested the Gaza war and were imprisoned for their non-violent protest. And except for those who are investigated by the police and charged with crimes for doing nothing more than exposing torture and abuse committed by the IDF.

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…support…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…Imagine what we would do if more than 250 times terrorists had crossed into our land and killed our children while they were riding buses or eating pizza? What would America do? What would America do if America’s neighbors in Canada or Mexico were firing rockets into America?

Now, that’s a slightly embarrassing line of argument since the U.S. actually did wage two wars of aggression against our Canadian and Mexican neighbors. In the first (the War of 1812), our asses were whipped and we slunk home in defeat. Relations have been pretty good with Canada ever since.

In the second (the Mexican War of 1848), we whupped Mexico’s ass and stole a huge chunk of their territory to make America safe for California freeways and Texas BBQ. Relations have been a little touchy ever since.

Further, whenever dealing with the argument that asks Americans to put themselves in Israel’s shoes and imagine how they would act if New York was under attack–you have to turn the tables. Imagine today that the U.S. conquers Baja California in a war and occupies it for 42 years and shows no willingness to return it anytime soon. Would we Americans have any right to complain if Mexicans didn’t take too kindly to such unfriendly behavior?

If you don’t laugh at this passage you’ll cry it’s so ludicrous:

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. This is not rhetoric. It is fact. Despite the non-stop coverage of Israel in the press, the positive news about Israel remains untold.

No, it’s not rhetoric. Just because Frank tells us so. But wait. Here are the “facts” he marshals to prove his argument:

It’s our job to “wear white hats in public”—to remind Americans that Israel is a team for whom they can feel good about cheering. After all:

• Israel, America’s ally, is a democracy in the Middle East. In Israel, Christians, Muslims, and Jews all have freedom of speech, religion, and a right to vote. Indeed, more than a million Arabs are citizens of Israel, representing almost 20% of the population.

Furthermore, 12 Arabs and 21 women serve in Israel’s 120-member Parliament, and an Arab judge sits on the Israeli Supreme Court. On a cultural level, a recent Miss Israel was an Israeli Arab and Israel is sending an Arab-Israeli and a Jewish-Israel to sing together in the upcoming Eurovision contest. As the following chart shows, female membership in the Knesset is even on the rise.

Again, not so fast. Israel is not a full-fledged democracy. It is an ethnocracy with unequal rights for majority and minority ethnic groups.

12 Arabs may sit in the Knesset but none are ministers and no Jewish party has the guts to include any Arab party in a governing coalition. In essence, this renders Arabs MKs powerless.

And as for the supposedly increasing female membership in the Knesset, what that chart indicates is that the numbers of female Knesset members has risen from 12 in the first Knesset (60 years ago) to 21 today. A 90% increase over 60 years is nothing to brag about (you do the math). And the fact that 15% of the Knesset’s members are women in a society in which at least half the citizens are female is also nothing special, I’m sorry to say.

to be continued…

Tags: 2009 global language dictionary, frank luntz, israeli ethnocracy, the-israel-project, womens rights in israel
Posted in Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 24 Comments »

The Israel Project’s Secret Hasbara Handbook Exposed

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Imagine for a moment you’re a general about to embark on a decisive military campaign and your intelligence service secures a copy of your opponent’s entire campaign strategy. You open it and you see his battle plans laid out before you, key forces, weaponry, lines of attack, points of weaknesses, etc. You suddenly understand just how weak his forces are and precisely how to mercilessly attack and eviscerate him. The plan makes you understand that his forces are largely based on artifice and sham. It gives you confidence that you are entirely on the right course and tells you how to stay on that course. Victory is assured, your enemy’s defeat certain.

Douglas Bloomfield and Newsweek have done pretty close to that against the Israel lobby. Specifically, they’ve exposed a secret hasbara handbook written for The Israel Project by star Republican marketer, Frank Luntz. The oddly-named Global Language Dictionary (pdf) is a veritable goldmine of arguments, strategy, tactics. At 116 pages, it’s not for the faint of heart. But anyone who wants to get inside the head of the Israel lobby must read this document.

I want to devote at least two or three posts to it so I hope you, dear reader, will bear with me. I know my enthusiasm will mark me as a real wonk, but this is the real deal and worth spending some time parsing and deconstructing.

The first thing to say is that the entire document is a pathetic piece of propaganda. While it ostensibly is addressed to TIP’s leaders and advises them how to shape a pro-Israel message when they lobby Congress, the media and other critical power brokers, the entire thing reeks of desperation and a lost cause. It goes without saying that the arguments offered are not only devoid of truth, they’re devoid of rigor or credibility. There is literally no substance to the claims offered on Israel’s behalf. It’s an empty exercise in every sense of the word. Reading this makes you realize that the entire Israel lobby edifice is a house of cards.

Perhaps I’m letting my shock at the shabbiness of the Dictionary get the better of me and overstating the case it reveals against the Lobby. After all, any political network that exists for six decades and achieves as much as this one has doesn’t topple overnight. But I’ll just have to let you be the judge.

One aspect of this I find extraordinary and entirely dubious is the choice of the Republican campaign pollster Frank Luntz to write this report. This indicates, as I’ve always maintained, that the Lobby is totally tone deaf to the political environment. We have a democratic president and two Houses of Congress under Democratic control for the first time in a few decades. Pragmatic liberalism is ascendant. Neo-conservatism and Bushian Republicanism are in retreat. And who does TIP chose to make the case for Israel? A right-wing Republican spinmeister. Remarkable. But one thing I must say is that this is a good sign for our side. If our opponents are as wooden as they appear, then they will topple themselves without needing much help from us.

The first chapter, 25 Rules for Effective Communication opens with:

The first step to winning trust and friends for Israel is showing that you care about peace for BOTH Israelis and Palestinians and, in particular, a better future for every child. Indeed, the sequence of your conversation is critical and you must start with empathy for BOTH sides first. Open your conversation with strong proven messages such as:

“Israel is committed to a better future for everyone – Israelis and Palestinians alike. Israel wants the pain and suffering to end, and is committed to working with the Palestinians toward a peaceful, diplomatic solution where both sides can have a better future. Let this be a time of hope and opportunity for both the
Israeli and the Palestinian people.”

The first thing we learn is that this passage, as with everything else printed in the handbook, is empty meaningless drivel. It’s a perfect example of political three-card monty in which there appears to be a card which isn’t there at all. It’s all a sham. There is no substance. The rhetoric here is even worse than that offered by spokespeople like Mark Regev on behalf of the Israeli government.

In the following passage, we can see that Luntz has lifted shamelessly lifted arguments from MEMRI and former Mossad officer, Itamar Marcus’ Palestine Media Watch. Others before me have demolished these tawdry arguments, but it’s instructive to read the lies and distortions that TIP instructs its representatives to parrot.

Throughout, the document drips noblesse oblige and fake concern for Palestinian children:

“As a matter of principle, we believe that it is a basic right of children to be raised without hate. We ask the Palestinian leadership to end the culture of hate in Palestinian schools, 300 of which are named for suicide bombers. Palestinian leaders should take textbooks out of classrooms that show maps of the Middle East without Israel and that glorify terrorism.”

As a matter of principle, children should not be raised to want to kill others or themselves. Yet, day after day, Palestinian leadership pushes a culture of hate that encourages even small children to become suicide bombers. Iran-backed Hamas’s public television in Gaza uses Sesame Street–type programming to
glorify suicide bombers.

As a matter of principle, no child should be abused in such a way. Palestinian children deserve better.”

As a matter of principle I believe that no child (Israeli or Palestinian) should be raised in fear that their mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother or grandfather could be killed for no other reason than they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and a frightened, trigger hungry 18 year army recruit decides to make an example of them.

As for maps, before Frank Luntz or Itamar Marcus make their specious claims about Palestinian textbooks, I’d like them to show me a single Israeli textbook that features a map of Palestine. You will certainly find Judea and Samaria. But will you find any acknowledgement of the millions of Palestinians who live in the Territories?

Further, the arguments are entirely dated. Suicide bombings were a serious phenomenon in years past. But Palestinian militants have largely abandoned this tactic, at least in part due to its unpopularity among average Palestinians. You certainly wouldn’t know this from Frank Luntz’s agitprop. It’s like he’s living in a time warp and its still the first Intifada (circa 2000).

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.

Another characteristic of the Dictionary is the dubious distinctions it draws, as in this example. There is no way to distinguish between the Palestinian people and their leadership. In effect, the passage concedes the illogic of its argument with this phrase: “even though they elected Hamas.” Of course they elected Hamas. That’s precisely the point. They had an election and chose who they wanted to represent them. So for the lobby to say they sympathize with Palestinians, but not with the leaders they chose is an empty statement.

Yet another example of noblesse oblige (and it’s entirely dubious to claim that these words “work”):

WORDS THAT WORK

We know that the Palestinians deserve leaders who will care about the well being of their people, and who do not simply take hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance from America and Europe, put them in Swiss bank accounts, and use them to support terror instead of peace. The Palestinians need books, not bombs. They want roads, not rockets.”

Clearly passages like this are designed to score debate points but are entirely devoid of accuracy. The claims of embezzlement, of course, go back to the days when Yasir Arafat ran things and tolerated rampant Fatah corruption. But Arafat has been dead for lo these many years. Someone ought to roll over and tell Tchaichovsky and Frank Luntz the news.

As for Palestinians wanting roads, they do. They’d like some of those wonderful Israeli bypass roads that run directly through former Palestinian farmland and whisk settlers from their settlement homes to their jobs inside Israel proper. The same apartheid roads which are off-limits to Palestinians.

One thing you’ve got to give Luntz, he’s not above stealing ideas from anyone, even Israeli peace activists (see italics):

MORE WORDS THAT WORK

“The obstacles on the road to a peaceful and prosperous Middle East are many. Israel recognizes that peace is made with one’s adversaries, not with one’s friends. But peace can only be made with adversaries who want to make peace with you. Terrorist organizations like Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are, by definition, opposed to peaceful co-existence, and determined to prevent reconciliation. I ask you, how do you negotiate with those who want you dead?”

There is an amazing insularity in the arguments presented here, with absolutely no conception that Palestinians feel precisely the same emotions as Israelis. In other words, they too ask how and why they should negotiate with a state of Israel that would just as soon kill them as live with them in peace.

More obliviousness, with no awareness of the dark irony of this statement:

“We may disagree about politics…But there is one fundamental principle that all peoples from all parts of the globe will agree on: civilized people do not target innocent women and children for death.”

Do I hear any concern here for the “innocent women and children” of Gaza who were slaughtered in their hundreds during the Gaza war? No, of course not.

Of course, there is unintentionally comic discourse:

Don’t pretend that Israel is without mistakes or fault. It’s not true and no one believes it. Pretending Israel is free from errors does not pass the smell test. It will only make your listeners question the veracity of everything else you say.

Admit Israel make mistakes. Don’t specify them. Change the subject as quickly as possible and hope no one notices what you’ve just conceded. And then point out how much more guilty the Palestinians are than the Israelis for the conflict.

Use humility. “I know that in trying to defend its children and citizens from terrorists that Israel has accidentally hurt innocent people. I know it, and I’m sorry for it. But what can Israel do to defend itself? If America had given up land for peace – and that land had been used for launching rockets at America, what would America do?

Use fake humility. Pretend that Israel is the U.S. and that there has been no Occupation and no injustice perpetrated against Palestinians. Pretend their lands have not been stolen. Pretend they have not been turned into refugees in the hundreds of thousands. Pretend that Israel has a right to expect Palestinians to behave like Canadians or Mexicans, who have not had a border dispute with the U.S. in 150 years.

Here is more fakery in the guise of concern. And note the conflation of American Jews with Israelis as if we are them (a little identity confusion?):

WORDS THAT WORK

“Are Israelis perfect? No. Do we make mistakes? Yes. But we want a better future, and we are working towards it.

And we want Palestinians to have a better future as well. They deserve a government that will eliminate the terror not only because it will make my children safer—but also because it will make their children more prosperous. When the terror ends, Israel will no longer need to have challenging checkpoints to inspect goods and people. When the terror ends we will no longer need a security fence.”

There is virtually no terror on the West Bank, yet 500 checkpoints remain there. Why? Tell me why, Mr. Luntz.

If there is a money quote in this document that reveals that the lobby is now running scared it is this:

We’re at a time in history when Jews in general (and Israelis in particular) are no longer perceived as the persecuted people. In fact, among American and European audiences—sophisticated, educated, opinionated, non-Jewish audiences—Israelis are often seen as the occupiers and the aggressors. With that kind of baggage, it is critical that messages from the pro-Israel spokespeople not come across as supercilious or condescending.

More unintended irony:

WORDS THAT DON’T WORK

“We are prepared to allow them to build……”

If the Palestinians are to be seen as a trusted partner on the path to peace, they must not be subordinated, in perception or in practice, by the Israelis.

What is the Occupation if not “subordination” personified??

Here’s right back at ya, buddy:

WORDS THAT DO WORK

“Achieving peaceful relationships requires the leadership…of both sides. And so we ask the Palestinians … Stop using the language of incitement. Stop using the language of violence. Stop using the language of threats. You won’t achieve peace if your military leadership talks about war. You won’t achieve peace if people talk about pushing others to the sea or to the desert.”

Israel’s military and political leaders speak the language of violence, incitement and war virtually every day. No acknowledgement of that, of course, by Luntz. As for “pushing Jews into the sea,” I haven’t read a real live Palestinian resident of the Occupied Territories make such a statement in several decades. So this argument is circa 1970 or so. Nice try though, Frank.

“Israelis know what it is like to live their lives with the daily threat of terrorism.

As do Palestinians.

Remind people – again and again – that Israel wants peace. Reason One: If Americans see no hope for peace—if they only see a continuation of a 2,000-year-long episode of “Family Feud”—Americans will not want their government to spend tax dollars or their President’s clout on helping Israel.

Bingo. Here Luntz inadvertently speaks the truth. Israel wants peace in the same vague way that a 13 year old girl may want to be whoever the teen idol of the moment happens to be. Israel has no plan. No means of getting to peace. So to say that Israel wants peace is, once again, meaningless.

And the fear lurking in the hearts of the lobby is that some day Israel will be exposed and Americans will abandon it because they will come to understand that whatever Israel may claim it wants, there will never be peace under terms acceptable to Israel. That will be a day of reckoning that the lobby wants to avoid at all costs.

To be continued…

Tags: 2009 global language directory, frank luntz, hasbara, pro-israel-propaganda, the-israel-project
Posted in Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 32 Comments »

Jane Harman Hires Lanny Davis to Fight Political Fires

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Jane Harman is auf tsouris (“in trouble big time”). So it’s only natural that she hire a big-time spinmeister who can negotiate the thicket of legal and political problems she faces. What better person to choose than the guy who helped get Bill Clinton off: Lanny Davis. The only problem with Davis is that he’s up to his eyeballs in the very web of pro-Israel intrigue that includes Harman. You’d think that Harman might want to avoid going to the very well which got her into trouble to begin with. Clearly, Harman is playing hardball and unwilling to concede that she did anything wrong in cozying up to Israeli agents and using them to advance her own political power.

As I reported here, Davis signed on with IDF generals to become a media apologist at The Israel Project for the Gaza war. TPM reports that he’s long been affiliated with Aipac (you’ll for sure see him yucking it up with Harman and the group’s fatcat donors at next month’s annual policy conference, at which the congresswoman is scheduled as a headline speaker). He’s also a regular on Fox News.

Davis’ strategy will be to blame Porter Goss for Harman’s troubles, claiming that he’s had it in for Harman since she leaked a House intelligence committee report that angered the Republican majority. It would be a deft stroke on Davis’ part, since it would turn a scandal that highlights Jane Harman as a national security risk under the sway of a foreign government; and turn it into a petty partisan political feud. This would add enough confusion and complication to allow Harman to break a tackle and head for daylight.

In the interest of keeping the matter focused where I think it should be, I quote this incisive passage from Philip Giraldi:

The real Harman story is about Israel intelligence operations directed against the United States which have brought about the systematic corruption of the America’s political system by a foreign power aided and abetted by friends strategically placed throughout the government and the media. Just imagine if Harman had obtained either senior intelligence position that she sought. She would have had access to every sort of top secret intelligence possessed by the US government and would have been in a good position to influence policy. From the Israeli perspective, she would have been their spy, a highly placed agent of influence who could also provide every bit of sensitive intelligence in the CIA cupboard. The apparent fact that she agreed to help an agent of a foreign government and was to be rewarded with advancement makes her something like Kim Philby, the British spy of the 1960s who progressed through his own system while secretly working for another country, Russia. Philby was a whole lot smarter, but the essential betrayal was the same. Those who argue that Israel is no Cold War Russia miss the point, as the national interests of the U.S. and Israel are far from identical, particularly after a series of right-wing governments in Tel Aviv has culminated in the current monstrosity of Netanyahu-Lieberman.

Once you are on the hook in an intelligence relationship, there is no getting off it. Had Harman done a favor for the Israelis and been rewarded in return, it would have been a skeleton in her closet forever. The Israelis might also have taped the incriminating conversations, presumably unaware that the FBI was also on the line. The Israelis would surely remind her of her crime whenever they need a favor, and she would be forced to pay the piper whenever called upon. What could have been better for Israel than owning the director of central intelligence or the head of the House Intelligence Committee? What could have been worse for the United States?

Even if you label this overly alarmist–and it is because it posits Harman as a helpless puppet of Israel’s interests and I’d like to think she would be able to navigate the shoals of power without totally prostituting herself–what Harman did is terribly troubling. And no amount of diversion into the realm of partisan vendettas should distract us from this bedrock original fact. For you can argue what you will about Porter Goss’ motives, but his actions came AFTER Harman’s betrayal in exchange for a mess of political porridge.

Tags: harman hires lanny davis as for media spin, lanny davis apologist for israeli war in gaza, porter goss vendetta, the-israel-project
Posted in Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 3 Comments »

‘Munich’ and ‘Paradise Now’ Oscar Potential Damaged by Pro-Israel Campaign

Tuesday, March 7th, 2006

While no one is dismissing Oscar-winner, Tsotsi, in the Best Foreign Language Film category as anything less than stellar, it must also be said that Paradise Now’s Oscar potential was severely damaged by an orchestrated smear campaign led by The Israel Project, a pro-Israel propaganda group. Newsday says this about the film and its opponents:

…A furor is starting to erupt around…”Paradise Now,” nominated as best foreign-language film. The film is obscure (director Hany Abu-Assad is not a name heard much around Hollywood), and it hasn’t made much money (barely more than $1 million), but the topic is red hot: suicide bombing in Israel.

The tagline of the movie declares, “From the most unexpected place comes a bold new call for peace,” and the film is nuanced and ambiguous. Still, it’s hard to refute the argument that it humanizes Palestinian suicide bombers. A private group called The Israel Project has led the charge against “Paradise Now”; yesterday the project held a news conference in Jerusalem in which the Israeli father of a teenager killed by a suicide bomber referred to the film as “Hell Now.” And the project is running an ad in Variety that asks, “Is it right to honor a film that puts a human face on deliberate murders of children?“

Israel Project ad against 'Paradise Now'

Israel Project ad in Variety (source: The Israel Project)

The Jerusalem Post, the Anglo-Israeli media mouthpiece for the campaign, added this description of the ad:

The group also placed a full-page ad Friday in the entertainment industry daily Variety featuring photos of an Israeli bus and teenager blown up by a suicide bomber.

This is the type of ad that represents what I call the pornography of terror. It is in the same class as the Iraqi Al Qaeda videos of terrorists beheading innocent westerners. Both forms of graphic abuse exploit images of terror to provoke manipulated emotions in their viewer. I have no doubt that this kind of terror exploitation affected Academy voters.

The Israel Project glommed onto Yossi Zur, a father who lost a teenage son to Palestinian terror, and used him for all he was worth to amass 33,000 signatures on a petition calling the film propaganda that justified suicide bombings against Israel. The group held a press conference the Friday before the Oscars and fronted the daughter of a fedayeen who’d fought Israel (and died) during the 1950s. She now denounced Palestinian terror and the film specifically though she’d never seen the inside of a Palestinian refugee camp and in fact is an American citizen. Full-page ads in Variety aren’t cheap and one wonders which deep pockets in the right-wing pro-Israel community fronted the bucks for this expensive project.

Here are some of the provocative comments made about the film at the group’s website:

…an extremely harmful piece of work, not only for Israel and the Middle East, but the whole world.

At a time when the world faces threats from a potentially nuclear Iran and is suffering from suicide bombers, is it right to give an award to a film that puts a human face on deliberate murders of children?

“Paradise Now” is a movie that attempts to explain away the actions behind mass-murderers. This mere act in-effect legitimizes this type of mass-murder & portrays the murderers themselves as victims!

Giving an Oscar to this movie will glorify these murderers & the groups that have sent them. It may even encourage more murders of this type.

This movie tries to say that suicide murder is legitimate…

Granting an award to this kind of movie gives the filmmakers a seal of approval to hide behind. Now they can say that the world sees suicide bombing as legitimate. By ignoring the film’s message and the implications of this message, those that chose to award this film a prize have become part of the evil chain of terror and accomplices to the next suicide murders – whether they kill 17 people or 17,000 people.

Of course, each of these statements about the film is patently false. If anyone behind this effort bothered to see the film at all, they clearly saw it only through their own ideologically distorted lens. But the problem is that this “distorted” view of the film prevailed via the media war waged against it.

Interviewed on To the Point today (audio stream), Christian Science Monitor film critic, Peter Rainer, said that the anti-Paradise Now created just enough noise that Academy voters decided to tune it out and go with nominees that brought less baggage with them like Tsotsi.

I was distressed that Warner Brothers, the film’s distributor did little to support the film during Oscar season. It was showing only in 10 U.S. cities and almost none outside of New York and Los Angeles regions. There seemed to be little or no publicity budget (I saw no ads for the film in the NY Times) and nothing was done to counteract the professional smear campaign the film faced.

I’m sorry to say that Hany Abu Assad, the director, was probably right when he told an interviewer that the Israel Project had probably guaranteed his film would not win:

Hany Abu-Assad, the director of Paradise Now, a film centering on two Palestinians preparing to carry out a suicide bombing, said he believed pro-Israel lobbying would in the end cost him the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

“I can write off an Oscar win right now,” Abu-Assad said.

“The Oscars are a complex matter, and I believe that in the end, if there is a close call, what will work against me will be two or three conservatives, even if the majority votes with its heart.”

I think this raises a troubling precedent for the Academy: the prospect that any film whose subject angers any particular group will face this type of expensive and debilitating vilification. I’d warn the studio and distributors to expect more of this in the future. If you’re distributing a controversial film you should expect the same type of crap the Israel Project dished out this year. And I think that Academy voters will have to educate themselves about such controversial films and become more sophisticated at recognizing propaganda campaigns for what they are and discounting them.

What is distressing is that if the campaign had been waged by a Pat Robertson or James Dobson Academy voters would know something about the political positions of these groups and discount them accordingly. The Israel Project and to a large extent the issues underlying Paradise Now are not as familiar to Hollywood. Why is why this campaign was able to succeed in sowing doubt in the minds of the film community. This in turn, has done a great disservice to the potential for serious debate of the issues surrounding this film. There must be a debate about terror and its role in resistance to oppression. There must be a debate about the role that terror plays and has played in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. How will the Palestinians ever be able to reject terror if we in the outside world cannot even discuss it intelligently and reasonably. Thanks to the Israel Project there will not be such a debate.

I included Munich in the title of this post even though there was no orchestrated campaign against it. Nevertheless, there was much disquiet among the pro-Israel community about the film as represented in a David Brooks column. The Jerusalem Post had this to say:

The film has been criticized, particularly in Israel, for allegedly drawing a “moral equivalence” between the terrorists and the pursuing Mossad agents, as well as for historical inaccuracy.

I hope that the time will come soon when the world will be more ready to address the issues raised by these two films and accord such works of art the Academy Award recognition they deserve.

Tags: asaf-zur, paradise-now, pro-israel, the-israel-project, warner-brothers, yossi-zur
Posted in Film-TV-Media, Mideast Peace, Politics & Society | 1 Comment »