[R-G] Is Israel Winning the 'Media War' over Gaza?

[Anthony Fenton]

Is Israel Winning the 'Media War' over Gaza?

January 11, 2009 By Ramzy Baroud

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20221

"We are all Hamas," screamed a scrawny Mauritanian, repeatedly, as he  
determinedly drew his face closer to a TV camera. Behind him,  
thousands more tunefully chanted similar words, chants that were heard  
in different Arabic dialects, in fact in many different languages all  
across the globe.

Yet, Israel, somehow is claiming victory in the media war, which it  
calculatedly unleashed weeks before its most violent attack on Gaza  
yet. Thousands have been reportedly killed and wounded in the first  
two weeks, starting Dec. 27, in the tiny stretch of land (roughly 140  
square miles), yet densely populated Gaza Strip of 1.5 million people.

"Whenever Israel is bombing, it is hard to explain our position to the  
world," said Avi Pazner, former Israeli ambassador to Italy and  
France, and "one of the officials drafted in to present Israel's case  
to the world media," according to the Jewish Chronicle. "But at least  
this time everything was ready and in place."

"Fewer military officers; more women; tightly controlled messages; and  
ministers kept on a short leash. This was Israel's new media game plan  
in Operation Cast Lead," the newspaper reported.

It's always difficult to fathom Israel's giddiness and sense of  
triumph as defenseless civilians are pulverized by mostly U.S.- 
supplied warplanes and bombs. Even if one chooses to empathize with  
Israel's dodgy claim, parroted endlessly by the George W. Bush  
administration, that the Israeli army is in a state of self-defense,  
one can never fully grasp the wisdom of its military tactics.

"Fatalities in Gaza are already over 400 and injuries close to 2,000  
so far as is known. Total Palestinian civilian casualties are 400  
times greater than the casualties incurred by Israelis," wrote three- 
time presidential candidate Ralph Nader in an open letter to Bush,  
five days into the Israeli onslaught. Nearly one week after the  
devastating airstrikes, Israel unleashed a ground offensive which is  
pushing the causality figures to unprecedented heights, made mostly of  
civilian victims, which by January 9, reached 795 dead and over 3,000  
wounded.

Much of Israel's war machine is financed, manufactured and supplied by  
the United States. U.S. financial and military generosity has served  
as the backbone of all of Israel's wars against its neighbors,  
including the Palestinians. In Israel's war against Lebanon in the  
summer of 2006, lest it runs out, the U.S. rushed 'emergency' military  
supplies, including cluster bombs to the Israeli army, allowing the  
latter to ensure the demise of its arch enemy: thousands of dead and  
wounded Lebanese civilians.

In the ongoing war against Gaza, neither the U.S.' "dedication to the  
security of Israel," nor Israel's dedication to inflicting maximum  
harm on civilians have been in any way altered. While Bush brazenly  
chastised Hamas and the Palestinians for the death wrought on them by  
Israel, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama had nothing to say.

"The scale of bloodshed in Gaza over five days is the same as if  
almost 2,000 Israelis had been killed and 9,000 wounded in the same  
period. Imagine the consequences for Israel in such an event," wrote  
author and former BBC correspondent Deepak Tripathi. Would Obama find  
the staggering number worthy of cutting short his Hawaii vacation,  
even for a brief comment, if the tables were turned? Candidate of  
change, he said.

But Israel is winning the media war, reports Israel; a peculiar claim  
by any standards. If the reference is made to a "victory' that helped  
win over mainstream U.S. media, one has to wonder if the corporate  
media has ever expressed any sympathy for Hamas, or any resisting  
Palestinian faction, be it secular, socialist or Islamist?

The opposite has always been true. Any violent Palestinian response to  
the Israeli occupation and its inherit violence has been dubbed  
"terrorist" for decades, even if Palestinians were targeting Israeli  
soldiers or paramilitary settlers. Aside from allowing a 'moderate'  
Palestinian commentator an occasional limited space to write a watered  
down op-ed, now and then - which serves as a feel-good moment that  
demonstrates the 'objectivity' of U.S. media - the pro-Israel mantra  
has defined every major American newspaper in every city in every  
state. That requires a separate discussion, but the persistent  
question remains: what is Israel winning exactly?

More Israeli women are stating Israel's case to the media, according  
to reports. The strategy is both sexist and underhanded. Following the  
Lebanon war, Israeli bikini models flooded U.S. men magazines  
exhibiting their barely covered bodies. Former Miss Israel, model Gal  
Gadot defended her nude photos, promoted partly by the Israeli  
consulate in New York as her attempt to help "improve Israel's war- 
torn image," reported the New York Post in June, 2007. Now as Israeli  
bombs are lightening the sky of Gaza, similar tactics are underway, in  
Maxim and other magazines.

Kadima leader and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni took its message to  
YouTube, conveying the same redundant but "tightly controlled"  
misinformation, that attempts to explain why imprisoning, starving,  
then senselessly bombing 1.5 million Palestinian Muslims and  
Christians is good for world peace, for democracy, for security, for  
the future of the region and the world.

But the fact is, Israel never won the media war in the United States  
for, frankly, there was never one to begin with. Yet somehow, millions  
of people around the world managed to read through the filters, the  
propaganda, the perplexing logic, the Maxim cover pages, and took to  
the streets in a collective act of passion and dismay, without billion- 
dollar media crafters "tightly controlling" their every move,  
scripting their chants or directing their hoarse voices: We are all  
Palestinians and "with our souls, with our blood, we will die for you  
Gaza."

What has Israel won exactly, aside from the haunting images of  
Palestinian youngsters in UN schools, homes and hospitals, mutilated,  
some silent and others screaming? This is no victory, but a brief  
illusion of one. As for the long-term repercussions, that is a whole  
new story. Israeli bombs over Lebanon in 1982 gave rise to Hezbollah,  
and its war of 2006 turned a small, resisting militant movement into a  
major powerbroker that will certainly help shape the future of  
Lebanon. Israel is now doing the same in Gaza. A victory, indeed.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of  
PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many  
newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book  
is, "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's  
Struggle" (Pluto Press, London).