Israeli Air Force's newest form of hasbara: mother-washing. I call it hasba-momma. http://t.co/msfCJBM5E8 pic.twitter.com/UVYLIDrHXE
— Tikun Olam (@richards1052) May 11, 2015
On Mother’s Day, the IDF devised a new hasbara meme for social media. It published the above photo on Twitter, which pictures an Israeli Air Force officer breast-feeding her baby in uniform. Exploiting the tenderest of bonds for the sake of Israeli propaganda seems to be a new low in the hasbara universe. It, as @columbiasjp tweeted, militarizes motherhood, recruiting it on behalf of the war goals of the State. The picture attempts to erase awareness that this same officer, once her baby has been sated, will return to work helping kill Palestinian mothers and babies (including 550 children during Operation Protective Edge).
For that reason, I’ve coined my own new form of pro-Israel propaganda. We already have pinkwashing, Blackwashing, greenwashing and faithwashing. Now we have Mommywashing. I also like the alternate form, which I call hasba-momma.
I’m delighted to report that my tweet has driven several hasbara-Twitterati around the bend with one jackass tweeting this means I wasn’t breastfed! At least my mother never killed Palestinians.
Whatever one may say about Israelis, they are probably the world’s finest propagandists. This Mother’s Day picture only serves to burnish Israel’s image as a soft, tender and loving natoin of Jews and Palestinians are by extension, the violent savages.
Well, they DO have 4000 years of experience at it.
@ Dave Terry: Nonsense. Hasbara is an invention of 20th century Zionism. The Torah by the way, displayed Israelites warts and all. It contains some hair-raising history which no self-respecting hasbarist would allow.
“WARTS”??? Don’t you REALLY mean המלחמה שלי (Mein Kampf”) ??
IMO – ANYONE who can read the torah without rejecting this
version of אלוהים הוא טוב (God is Good) is beyond reason or sanity!
@ Dave Terry: So you’ve forgotten or ignored that the Israelites committed genocide against the Amalekites, Jebusites, Amorites & Moabites? Deny the Israelite wars of conquest against them documented in the Tanach? Or is genocide OK as long as God (appears to) command it? And if you make another reference to Nazism here you’ll be bounced so fast your head will spin.
Richard – Israeli media is full with the shortfalls of Israeli society. Corruption, sexual harassment, inequality etc’. How is that for Hasbara? Israel is a young, vibrant, wonderful country and not everything is done to please the ears and eyes of the world and a PR stunt.
Talking about the IAF, just recently a few soldiers were arrested on rape charges and it was all over the media. Not such great PR.
The different ‘genocides’ you mention aren’t written in the Torah as a shortcoming but rather as a reproach for a task that wasn’t done right and should be finished, a commandment. A better example might have been David and Bathshabe but then I can always counter with Moshe Katsav.
Check your anti-semitism.
[Islamophobia is absolutely not permitted here. The next such comment will earn you an outright ban.]
Richard.
Were you ever drafted during the Vietnam War?
Just curious.
@ Walter: I was a conscientious objector and proud of it, too. The first Jewish CO recognized by my draft board.
I’m confused. I thought only Quakers, Amish and Jehovah’s Witnesses got exempted.
@ Walter: You ARE confused & “thought” wrong–or not at all.
@Richard,
She’s an IAF pilot. This image is ment to show that you can have a demanding and meaningful career, just like men, and still able to be a mother. A great message for Mother’s Day.
Could you be more biased?
@ yonathan: I strongly doubt she’s an IAF pilot, nor do you know this. She’s more likely a general’s office assistant. And as you confirmed, this is pure unadulterated hasbara. Have you seen any other army in the world put out such drivel on Mother’s Day?
@ Richard,
“I strongly doubt she’s an IAF pilot, nor do you know this.”
Well, the badge on her shirt tells me that – ‘flight-wings’ (freely translated), what you get when finishing the IAF pilot training program. She also served during the second Lebanon War, and she’s a Major, making her around the age of 30. And since there’s not a lot of in-service (not in the reserves) pilots in the IAF , and even fewer women it’s really unlikely that they would have dressed someone as one for a photo-op, since everyone knows everyone – in case anyone thinks that it’s fabricated.
“She’s more likely a general’s office assistant”
A bit sexist that comment. Makes this picture even more relevant and powerful.
“this is pure unadulterated hasbara”
The I-P conflict is also a PR war. So why not publish these images? The IAF serves Israel’s interests – not yours. And if it motivates young teenagers to try and pursue a meaningful service (not just as a ‘general’s office assistant’) – even better.
@ yonathan: You do understand what hasbara is, don’t you? It’s a form of marketing. This image is an advertisement. It contains an image of a person. That person is wearing a uniform. We know nothing about the image, who is in it, what she does for a living, whether she’s in the IAF. She could be an actress. She could be anyone.
Yonathan, earlier the IDF put up a picture at Facebook of two Israeli soldiers holding hands, with the comment:
“It’s Pride Month. Did you know that the IDF treats all of its soldiers equally? Let’s see how many shares you can get for this photo.”
It turned out to be fake, including the uniforms:
“A picture of two male Israeli soldiers holding hands, posted by Israel’s military spokesman and circulated widely on the web this week as part of gay pride month, was staged and is misleading, The Times of Israel established Tuesday.
The newly hip, multimedia-savvy IDF Spokesperson’s Office posted Monday on its Facebook page a photo of two ostensibly gay soldiers, one seeming to belong to the Givati Brigade and the other to the Artillery Corps, holding hands and walking on a city street.
In fact, the two soldiers in the photo are not a couple, only one of the two is gay, and both the soldiers serve in the IDF Spokesperson’s Office.
The picture appears to have been taken on Itamar Ben Avi street in Tel Aviv, around the corner from the Spokesperson’s Office headquarters.”
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/officially-the-pinkest-pinkwashing-photo-youve-ever-seen-in-your-life#sthash.xeIEfFxJ.dpuf
The IDF lies so frequently that none of its statements can be taken seriously anymore.
Richard, what exactly is your objection to the picture? It’s an IDF soldier shown breastfeeding her child to honor mother’s day. Is the problem that it makes Israel look good?
@ djf: Please don’t ask dumb questions. My objections are stated clearly. Not my problem if you don’t understand them.
Richard, your objection seems to be that it portrays Israel positively, which you find offensive. You write: “The picture attempts to erase awareness that this same officer, once her baby has been sated, will return to work helping kill Palestinian mothers and babies.” I don’t see how you reach that conclusion unless you would say that about any positive portrayal of Israelis. Do you think commercials in the US praising the Marines erase the experience of Iraqis families that lost loved ones in the war? If you take the position that any marketing effort by the IDF is “hasbara” then so be it, but then that’s true about Palestinian marketing, and every other country, corporation, or advocacy group, all of which engage in marketing of some kind.
@djf: the U.S. military would never use a breastfeeding air force pilot for promotion. Not to mention it would never use such a promotion for foreign consumption as the IDF has done. Only the IDF among militaries in the world promotes it’s “wholesomeness” in such a bizarre manner.
You’re done in this thread.
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Richard, you are boring.
@Yuval: And you’re moderated. Next time you’ll be banned.