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…
Do you have anything positive to sasy about Israel? Anything at all?
I’ve listened to Palestinian professors who express greater appreciation for Israel than you.
I enjoy hearing a lively, spirited debate about the nation and its future. You learn more by listening to opposing views.
But in my career, I have never heard someone of the Jewish faith so hostile to everything Israeli. Everything. No exceptions. You are more more hostile, more vicious, and more destructive towards Israel than anyone I’ve ever met in the American Arab community.
Wow. The only comfort I can take is that your hostility puts you in the tiniest of minorities both here and in Israel.
Support for Israel in the US has dropped 20 points, from 69% to 49% over the last ten months, as the truth becomes more widely known. Worldwide the situation is far worse. So I would hardly say that Silverstein is in the tiniest of minorities.
Luntz’ propaganda piece is being widely mocked, not just by Silverstein. It’s a shame that it is so easily discreditable but there you have it. Silverstein is not the problem. The falsity of the propaganda is the problem.
One example of your teachings is the billboard “battle” in Texas.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1099437.html
The pro-Israeli said has the text
“Save Gaza from Hamas. Teach peace, not hate.” + a picture of two boys, an Arab and an Israeli, sitting arm-in-arm and smiling. Exactly as you teach them to do. Main topics Hamas as you know and the positive message.
Well if you even for a while consider the problem from the side of Palestinians. If you as Palestinian child watch the world where your brothers are arrested and killed, the economy is strangled, you wait with your mother daily hours on a road bocks listening and watching the racist insults etc do you seriously that the problem is an educational problem on the Palestinians side?
Surely the occupiers and people drunken with racist supremacy feelings have a much more intensive educational task ahead than the occupied people. Every single nation under attack uses their religion in their defensive fight, so do Palestinians and so did Jews in the past. The much more questionable moral problem have those who use their religion to justify ethnic cleansing and aggressions. And least admirable are those who for money give instructions how to “erase” the truth.
Do you have anything truthful to say about Israel’s crimes against Palestinians? Anything at all?
For instance, any comments on the recent Amnesty International report on the war crimes of both Hamas and Israel?
link
They also did a report earlier on Hamas’s crimes against fellow Palestinians, which I don’t doubt you’d find congenial. What I despise about propagandists of your sort is the way you cherrypick your facts, when you bother with facts at all–you’re exactly like the “nationalists” that Orwell wrote about in “Notes on Nationalism”.
Here’s something positive about Israel–they have people like the author linked below writing articles condemning the monstrous policies of their government–
link
Repressive regimes all have their Frank Luntz’s, people who write propaganda and pretend that all the evil is on the other side, but one thing you can say about Israel–it doesn’t force all of its citizens to be dishonest political hacks.
Frank -Do you have anything negative to say about Israel? Anything at all? In 119 pages you trot out nothing but superlatives about Israel. I’ve met plenty of Israeli professors who are more objective than you about this conflict.
If you were interested in honest debate you sure would not have published 119 pages of totally biased material. You are so wrong about Richard being in a tiny minority. I’m also a Jew with a LONG attachement to Israel, My grandfather was Irgun, I lived in Israel for a number of years and I have 35 relatives living in the settlements and outposts. Those of us, Jew and Gentile alike, who feel Israel needs to make a MAJOR change in direction are growing. J Street, IPF etc and the 75+% of American Jews who voted for Obama are just examples.
Frank – It is you and the people who hired you who are the minority and out of step with the rest of the world.
The criticism is of the Israeli government policies. The problem in your understanding I think is that what seems like harsh criticism is inspired by the very views that you support which are maddening. It’s not born of hatred of Israel, quite the contrary.
Those who sponsor you who would like to be called and call themselves “pro-Israel” support policies that have not worked towards ending the conflict. Your primer covers up a hardline harsh approach that not only does not work, has not worked, does not admit to any past injustices or failures. It exacerbates and prolongs the situation by laying all the blame on the other side. That is fundamentally dishonest.
Israel is doing well and armed to the teeth with high tech weapons which it uses but at the same time claiming to be seen as the victim and in danger of annihilation. In the eyes of the world Israel is on it’s way, to more and more, to be seen as a pariah apartheid occupying nation and growing into a fortress (in the words of Jordan’s king). You probably don’t like those words.
The remedy for this state of affairs from your side, is to get out the propaganda to change this opinion-NOT to do anything to change the situation.
What stands out for me in what you have written is that we are supposed believe that it’s all about what Palestinians need to do. In fact what needs to change on the Israel side and with Israel’s supporters is their views of and towards Palestinians and their just needs and claims. This is something Israel has control over and which will absolutely change everything else. That’s the propaganda needed.
Instead, we have attempts at clever language and arguments that try to justify and cover up a postponement policy. These are so transparent and maddening to many who feel really pro-Israel, that of course you get this kind of parsing of your work in an effort to knock it down as being the real enemy of Israel’s survival.
This effort covers up a real disinterest and unwillingness to actually make necessary compromises by offering more well worded appealing excuses to “the troops”. So to me at least it seems you are, in this effort, actually helping to prolong and increase Israeli suffering…. not to mention Palestinian suffering.
This criticism is not coming from hatred of Israel- far from it.
Sorry, my above was addressed to Frank Luntz. While I am here- I think the better of him for engaging here at least.
Frank, your problem is that I know more about Israel in my little finger than you know in your entire body. Besides, you make an all too common error in attempting to browbeat people like me in that you confuse opposition to Israeli government policy with opposition to Israel. I’m not opposed to Israel. In fact, I’m pro-Israel. It’s people with views like yours who are anti-Israel because you’ll prevent peace in the region for decades if your views & those of the Bibistas hold sway. Your views are a guanrantee of endless war. But either because of your ignorance or because the Israel lobby pays those fat fees, you keep churning out the rubbish you do.
Which only displays for all the world to see just how pathetically narrow your sampling of Jewish views about Israel are. As for being in the minority. That would be you Frank. I support Barack Obama along with 79% of American Jews as of the most recent poll (not yours, btw). My views about the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict are in the main supported by a plurality or majority of Israelis (depending on the specific issue). And I’m talking about real polls as opposed to those ersatz polls that TIP manipulates & which you attempt to pass off as gospel in the Dictionary.
Who have you met in the Arab American community, Frank? Have you ever met fellow pollster, Jim Zogby? My views don’t diverge much fr. his. And he’s not only one of America’s most respected pollsters (sorry Frank not to include you), but he’s a respected leader in the Arab American community. If you can say with a straight face the narischkeit you’ve just said then you know nothing about the views of Arab Americans (except perhaps the 100 or so wealthy Republican Arab Americans who you might perhaps hang out with).
Actually, Frank it’s your views that are in the minority in the real American Jewish community. Not the world of the Jewish fat cats who pay your fees. Not the world of the Republican Jewish Coalition. But the real Jewish world.
Mr. Silverstein,
I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your background. I tried searching the web and all I can find is that you write this blog. I asked my well-connected friends in several Jewish organizations and they hadn’t heard of you, either. Maybe your readers can tell me what you do.
But I do know that someone who begins a blog post with “I know more about Israel in my little finger than you know in your entire body” is not worth the time to engage. So I’m signing off.
I tell my clients that they have a choice: yell a lot and convince no one, or speak calmly and with empathy and educate everyone.
You have clearly chosen the former. I can’t say I wish you success because I obviously don’t agree with you, but I do hope that over time you’ll come to realize that life is much more interesting, more fulfilling, and more enriching when you listen than when you shout.
Mr. Luntz you just failed the listen test. I take back my compliment. Ostensibly it’s about the shouting… I don’t believe it.
This pretense of yours that you’re the reasonable man being shouted down might work with people who don’t know the issues, but you haven’t made one substantive reply in your posts here and I think you’re leaving because you know you’d lose any argument that was based on facts.
Frank: All you have to do is read my About page right in front of your nose linked in the sidebar. For someone who’s supposed to do research and presumably has a staff that helps you do this, you’re remarkably lacking in research skills.
I doubt very much that the Jewish leaders in whose circles you run have never heard of me. But if that’s true it once again indicates the insularity of their positions on this subject. One thing I can say for you is that at least you’ve been willing to enter the fray and deal w. my criticism in the limited way in which you have. Aipac, the ADL and AJC like to pretend that they’re in some august position that allows them to somehow represent the entire Jewish community w/o deigning to interact w. the majority of us who hold views opposite their own.
Frank, what do you know about Israel? I can only go by what you wrote in your Fictionary. And it indicates little more than a sloganeering perspective on Israel & its society. Next time you go if you really want to meet Israelis & Israeli Arabs who can open your mind to new ideas, get in touch & I’ll give you the benefit of my much wider experience (than yours).
Frank Luntz said:
And then:
I think I’m getting a handle on where all the ‘facts’ in the Fictionary come from!
Phuck you Frank. You are a master manipulator of the written and spoken word. Everything about you is decietful. You make a living twisting truth and lies together to create Frankspeak fitting to whichever agenda is at hand. You have no integrity as you will do and say anything to make a dollar and please your handlers. You have not an ethical bone in your body. Once again, as proven with this “not for publication” claptrap, your agenda is to hoodwink the American public into believing Israel is a friend of our Nation, by way of deceit.
While I agree with your basic sentiment, please keep extraneous bile to a limit. Watch the language please. No need to express yr displeasure with Luntz by using the “F” word. Luntz is bad enough that we can find other means of expressing our disagreement & dislike with him.
Richard,
You certainly set a record with this outburst, but it is interesting to note that fellow progressives like “Jerry Haber” and MJ Rosenberg are also using the same increasingly fevered tones lately. I presume this is because it is increasingly clear that the savior Obama is not going to do what you all seem to think he would do. 16 years ago the Oslo fiasco was foisted on Israel and the Israeli “progressive” Left kept lying to everyone and telling us that peace was around the corner. About half of the Israeli public bought that line (but the other half never did). The suicide bomber war made by our “peace partner” Arafat and the later rocket bombardments from evacuated Gaza has now convinced the majority of the half that bought into the “peace” delusion that there is no prospect for any peace agreement in the foreseeable future. And Israelis overwhelmingly view Obama as hostile to Israel and its interests and are not going to mistanely give him credit like they foolishly did to Clinton and Bush who each, in his turn, was given the title “best friend of Israel of all time”, meanwhile while watching Israel’s security and standing in the world deteriorate and useless wars, one after another break out in this era of “phony peace”.
There is no doubt that even the vast majority of “progressive” Israelis would reject the implication of your scurrilous statement:
———————————————————
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.
——————————————————
Obviously the implication by you is that the Arabs are subject to repression and degradation by a vile apartheid regime. This is not true and I am sure you know it. Christian Arabs have the same level of education and average income as Israeli Jews. Muslims are lower because they have larger families, a much lower level of female education and participation in the work force which is their choice. But why should facts bother a nice piece of propaganda? If you have to say things like this, it is because you know your cause is lost.
I would say that whatever ‘fevered tones’ you might detect, bar kochba, are in relation to the behavior of the state of Israel, particularly the on-going siege of Gaza. An important point is that most of us here see Palestinian people as human beings possessing inalienable rights, as all human beings do (I’m not convinced you really get this). So, the immense suffering they are going through right now as we speak as a consequence of Israel’s seige, along with the IDF’s kidnappings & handful of killings of the peaceful protestors of the Wall in the West Bank, causes pain and outrage to those of us who care about human rights & the sacredness of human life. Sorry if this is a foreign language to you.
You bank on Obama succumbing to the Israel lobby and the establishment consensus, and and on his inability to force Israel’s hand in the direction of peace. You could be right about this. What a right-winger like you really fears, or ought to fear, is the emergence of real small ‘d’ democracy in the United States. Support for Israel’s policies is decreasing in the US and continuing downward (among ordinary Americans). The more the American people can take the reins from our corrupt establishment, the greater you’re going to see a change in America’s Israel policy. Our Israel policy does not reflect a broad American consensus any more, if it ever did; it reflects, rather, an incredibly crooked and corrupt beltway establishment that has no real accountablity to the majority of Americans. Once there is a real shift in our Israel policy, Israel could very well find itself alone, a Pariah rogue state, and will be compelled by the international community to behave more like a civilized nation. All you’ve got is US, so you might want to start sucking up a little better.
What utter nonsense! God, I hope you didn’t spend an inordinate amout of time thinking up this drivel. If you did you wasted your time.
Israelis have never understood America, American politics or American political leaders. Similarly, they don’t understand Obama. Israelis loved George Bush. Look where it got them. They hate Jimmy Carter. Look what Jimmy Carter accomplished for Israel. I frankly don’t care what Israelis think of Obama. He doesn’t need Israeli votes to get elected OR to campaign for Israeli Palestinian peace.
I’m amused that you call my claim that Israeli Arabs are discriminated against in Israeli society “scurrilous.” In what way? Your attempts to excuse Arab poverty are insulting to Arabs and intended to get Israel off the hook in terms of its responsibility for the problem. Talk about lacking facts. Your comment is pure pro-Israeli agitprop propaganda.
Interesting to hear you say my cause is lost. You were the one who claimed John McCain would win the last election and that Obama’s cause was lost. Look how that turned out. Hmmm…
Mr. Luntz probably came here via googling his name and stayed for a bit (opposition research) posting until he realized that he would have to provide some real rebuttals to the meaty criticisms of arguments he makes.
This tells the story of why Republicans are where they are right now too… they don’t engage the real issues- they deflect and use language ( see George Lakoff on this)
This dictionary is all about programming people who are ready for it, giving them scripts.
I have, in the past, posted on a “hasbara” website in an effort to make some points or counterpoints to these same arguments and I was showered with animosity and name-calling. No dialogue. No points made.
Mr. Luntz does not engage in dialogue either about the arguments in his dictionary, instead he gets covers over his deficit in an attempt to belittle before he makes his exit.
I think you’re probably right. A person like Mr. Luntz didn’t make his name arguing fairly or in good faith.
It might be helpful sometimes if people who “support Israel” clarified which Israel they have in mind. On its own it’s as nonsensical as “supporting the troops” – the troops doing what?
Is it the really existing Israel or a vision (which?) of what it could/should be? And if you think the parallels to the gulf between the “really existing socialism” of old and the original Marxist utopian vision are obvious, quite so.
Clearly Frank’s Israel is not Richard’s, but one has to concede that, on the face of it, the former seems better correlated to current reality than the latter. See Uzi Arad lay it out in all its glory: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1099064.html
(emphasis mine, not unfairly, I think)
An Israel with a raison d’etre of “never again to us (and screw di goyim)” and the chutzpah on top to call it “repair of the world” can go to hell, as far as I’m concerned.
(Note I’m not saying the same about Israelis, as in human beings.)
(Does anyone know which Dror he speaks of? This is the first and last time he’s mentioned.)
luntz,
silverstein gives an effort to be decent. you are a total piece of deception.
no. there is nothing good about israel. an israeli actually being honest and truthful is not a good about israel.
that act is that person trying to get free of evil.
Just WOW, what a weenie appearance here and even more pathetic exit. He ran away because he’d be forced to engage on issues with informed people.
Frank Luntz’ whole job is the illegitimate perception management of the American People by way of deception. It’s OBSCENE what people like Frank Luntz and the 1.74% are trying to do to America (click the jewishvirtuallibrary link in my ID).
It’s not hard to see what you’re about, Frank Luntz… and now a whole lot more people are waking up. I’m turning attitudes left and right in my small sphere of influence. We see you, Frank Luntz. We know what you’re about. And it ends sooner than you think.