[R-G] Israel’s Propaganda War

[Anthony Fenton]

Israel’s Propaganda War
Palestine Monitor
14 January 2009
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article788

Following its 2006 war with Lebanon, Israel decided that it needed to  
set up a Public Relations program to deal with hasbara- Hebrew for  
‘explanation’, since the media coverage and death toll in that war— 
over 1,000 Lebanese civilians, made Israel look ‘bad’. In other words,  
the ‘National Information Directorate’, created in 2008, deals with  
information, spin, and propaganda. This program has been put to use  
for the first time on a world-wide scale with the Israeli invasion of  
Gaza.

In addition to sending Israeli diplomats around the world to gain  
international support for the invasion of Gaza, the program has also  
been recruiting a staff of Arabic, Italian, Spanish, and German  
speakers ready to explain the Gaza situation to any visiting media  
representative, so that they do not have to judge the rapidly  
worsening situation for themselves.

The “anti-Hamas-pro-Israeli” message sent out via international media  
is the Directorate’s primary focus. The basic strategy of the ‘hasbara  
apparatus’ is to coordinate all of the Israeli agencies that deal with  
communication relations and public diplomacy, so that they form and  
present a unified message to the media.

With respect to the Gaza conflict, this PR strategy has focused on  
several key messages that have been repeated over and over—they include:

- “Hamas broke the ceasefire agreements with Israel”
- “Israel’s objective is the defense of its population”
- “Hamas is a terror organization targeting Israeli civilians”

According to the directorate’s chief, Yarden Vatikai, “in general, we  
think we are succeeding in getting the message across”. Of course it  
helps that Israeli representatives get more than twice the air time on  
international broadcast media than Palestinian representatives do,  
according to a study by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

One of the largest issues facing the National Information Directorate  
are the ‘disturbing’ images from the Gaza conflict. An Israeli public  
affairs representative admits that “in the war of the pictures, we  
lose, so you need to correct, explain, or balance it in other ways”.

Apparently, the Directorate knew ahead of the invasion that they would  
need to start balancing out potentially disturbing images in a  
campaign beginning months before the conflict. They wanted to make  
sure that they had governments and the international community on  
their side before any disturbing images could change their minds. So  
the Directorate began an international PR campaign targeting Hamas as  
a terrorist organization, and asserting the right of Israel to defend  
itself against that terror.

However, with the recent escalation and deepening humanitarian crisis  
in Gaza, it is becoming more and more difficult for Israel to ‘explain  
itself’ to the world and justify their actions as any kind of  
reasonable response to the comparably insignificant Qassam rocket  
attacks by Hamas.

Recently, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni has called on the  
Foreign Ministry to take “emergency measures to adapt Israel’s  
international public relations to the ongoing escalation in the Gaza  
Strip.”

Part of this plan includes publicizing the amount of humanitarian aid  
Israel has allowed into Gaza. On Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs  
website, there is a box showing the exact amount of aid that has  
reached Gaza. This constantly updated list includes the number of  
truckloads of aid that have actually reached the people in Gaza, the  
total number of ambulances allowed in–five from Turkey, and five from  
the West Bank, number of blood units donated by Jordan, and the fact  
that 34 injured people (out of thousands…) have been allowed to be  
evacuated from Gaza for medical needs, including 2 children.

Unfortunately, for many Gazans, this PR show of allowing aid into Gaza  
is too little, too late. And with respect to the amount of aid allowed  
in, a more interesting number to look into would the amount of  
humanitarian aid that hasn’t been allowed into Gaza—the most notable  
of which is the Libyan ship carrying 3,000 tons of humanitarian aid  
that was turned away on Monday by Israeli warships. When compared, it  
is easy to see that the aid Israel has allowed into Gaza is purely  
symbolic, and ridiculously inadequate. Another count on the website  
meant to garner support for the Israeli offensive is the number of  
Israelis killed by Hamas’ qassam rocket attacks. The count since the  
beginning of the invasion of Gaza is currently at 4. Again, this  
number is more meaningful when compared to another number—the number  
of people killed in Gaza since the IDF began its invasion. That number  
is close to 1,000 and still climbing; almost half of which are women  
and children. With the amount of almost sadistic violence the Israeli  
army is carrying out on the people of Gaza, it will take more than  
Livni’s current measures in her PR campaign to convince any reasonable  
person that this war is necessary, or even slightly logical.