<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[ei: Israel investing $1.6 million in &#8220;new media&nbsp;warriors&#8221;]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p><span class="text14">Jillian Kestler-D&#8217;Amours, <em>The Electronic Intifada,</em> 24 February 2011</p>
<p><span class="content"> </span></span></p>
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<td><span class="text11">Israel desperately tried to control the message during its attack on Gaza in winter 2008-09. (Oren Ziv/<a href="http://www.activestills.org/">ActiveStills</a>)</span></td>
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<p><span class="text14"><span class="content"><br />
The Israeli military establishment is once again on the offensive, but  instead of high-tech weaponry and missiles, it is using computer  screens, keyboards and rapid wireless connections to fight what Israeli  military representatives are dubbing a &#8220;new media war.&#8221;</p>
<p>In early February, military spokesperson Avi Benayahu announced that  approximately $1.6 million would be invested to train more than a  hundred Israeli &#8220;media warriors,&#8221; who would use social media tools to  disseminate Israeli propaganda to audiences around the world.</p>
<p>&#8220;We need to ensure the confidence of the public, and assist the minister  of foreign affairs to obtain that legitimization which is required for  an army like ours to effect a military operation, whether it&#8217;s in the  north or the south,&#8221; said Benayahu of this new media campaign during the  11th annual Herzliya security conference in early February.</p>
<p>Held at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya near Tel Aviv, the  Herzliya Conference is a largely right-wing, neo-conservative gathering  that brings together mainly Israeli and American government, business  and academic figures to discuss Israeli policy and regional and global  issues. This year&#8217;s conference, which was covered by this reporter, was  held under the theme &#8220;The Balance of Israel&#8217;s National Strength and  Security.&#8221;</p>
<p>Speaking on a panel called &#8220;New Media as a Strategic Weapon,&#8221; Benayahu  told the audience in Herzliya that Israeli soldiers are now forced to be  more aware of the fact that new media users can be documenting their  actions at all times.</p>
<p>&#8220;[There is] an unprecedented responsibility to the commanders,&#8221; he said.  &#8220;They have to think if the civilian across from them or the child on  the second floor above them is a combatant or a new generation media  person.&#8221;</p>
<p>According to Benayahu, the Israeli military has prioritized the field of  new media in order to combat &#8220;pro-Iranian factors&#8221; which use the  Internet to &#8220;delegitimize Israel.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;It is orchestrated and timed and financed by all the pro-Iranian  factors,&#8221; he stated. &#8220;They know how to flood us with media and  information. They are also nurturing all these pro-radical  organizations. The Palestinian Diaspora [is] conducting this [work] in  universities, in the [United Nations] institutions, in the human rights  institutions, and in the new media,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p><strong>Strategy perfected during attack on Gaza</strong></p>
<p>It was during the outbreak of Israel&#8217;s attacks on Gaza in the winter of  2008-09 &#8212; during which more than 1,400 Palestinians, including 300  children, were killed &#8212; that the Israeli <em>hasbara</em> campaign concentrated its focus on new media sources.</p>
<p>&#8220;Hasbara,&#8221; the Hebrew word for &#8220;explanation,&#8221; is used to describe  official Israeli efforts to release information, spin and propaganda on  behalf of the state and its governmental, communication and  informational branches.</p>
<p>Key messages during the three weeks of attacks, dubbed Operation Cast  Lead by Israel, included the claims that Hamas broke the ceasefire  agreement with Israel, that Israel&#8217;s aim was to defend its citizens and  that Hamas is a terrorist organization.</p>
<p>Israel&#8217;s assault on Gaza has been condemned by numerous international  human rights organizations. Israeli officials responsible for the  attacks are suspected of war crimes according to the UN-commissioned  fact-finding mission led by international jurist Richard Goldstone.</p>
<p>&#8220;Israel knew of the violent extent of its planned war on Gaza well  before it took place,&#8221; Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian-American political  analyst, journalist and author, told The Electronic Intifada.</p>
<p>&#8220;The political rationale for that was Hamas needed to be taught a  lesson, hoping for two possible outcomes: that either Hamas will simply  disintegrate under the weight of Israeli bombs, or that the people will  topple the government,&#8221; Baroud added. &#8220;For that to happen, the extent of  the violence had to be extraordinary, and had to target largely  civilian infrastructure and exact a high price in terms of civilian  causality.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;That required planning and lots of it. The propaganda, as in  disseminating misinformation, falsehoods, half truths and selective  versions of events, was more institutionalized than ever,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>In order to carry out its <em>hasbara</em> campaign, the Israeli military opened a YouTube account in December 2008 (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk">http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk</a>),  where administrators uploaded dozens of videos depicting Israeli  bombings and missile strikes, and images of Israeli shipments of  humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>One of the first videos uploaded to the account on 31 December 2008, for  example, displays what the Israeli military defined as &#8220;a precision  [air force] strike against weapons hidden in a Gaza mosque.&#8221;</p>
<p>According to Aliza Landes, an Israeli soldier originally from Boston,  Massachusetts, who now heads the military&#8217;s new media unit, the YouTube  account has been the Israeli army&#8217;s &#8220;greatest success&#8221; to date.</p>
<p>&#8220;YouTube is our greatest success,&#8221; said Landes, who was called on stage  by Benyahu during the &#8220;New Media as a Strategic Weapon&#8221; panel, to talk  specifically about the Israeli military&#8217;s New Media Desk and spoke for  approximately ten minutes. &#8220;Visual material is what is most compelling  online. It&#8217;s evidence. It&#8217;s proof in a way that a written statement  isn&#8217;t. If there is a big operation going on and we can provide visual  evidence of what&#8217;s happening, then other people can use that to make  arguments and discuss things.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Tangible impact on Palestinians</strong></p>
<p>While the real impact of Israeli <em>hasbara</em> is difficult to  determine, perhaps its most dangerous impact is how it easily seeps into  newspapers and magazines in Israel and abroad, thereby swaying the  public discourse.</p>
<p>&#8220;The media has I think the tremendous power to influence how society  sees itself, how it interprets its reality,&#8221; explained Nasser Rego, the  International Relations Coordinator at I&#8217;lam, the Media Center for Arab  Palestinians in Israel. &#8220;The media is extensively consumed in Israel; 90  percent of the public takes in media on a regular basis. So it has a  tremendous impact.&#8221;</p>
<p>According to Rego, the Israeli media&#8217;s portrayal of Palestinian citizens  of Israel has a palpable impact on the community, which accounts for 20  percent of the population. &#8220;I think what it does is it dehumanizes  Palestinians and the community [and portrays them as] being interlopers  or being these people that come from the outside. Then it seems almost  justifiable to treat them or deal with them in a way that&#8217;s reflective  of that coverage. So to continue to deny them their rights as human  beings, basic civil rights, to continue and to press with the policy of  home demolitions.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rego explained that the Israeli reaction to its attack on Gaza in winter 2008-09 is a prime example of how Israeli <em>hasbara</em> &#8212; and the coverage allotted to this propaganda by Israeli news sources  &#8212; can influence public opinion, which was largely favorable to the  Israeli attack.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think unfortunately when the community has been dehumanized, there  really [aren&#8217;t] too many barriers to such kind of action continuing or  even increasing in degree and worsening. For now I think this is the  most troublesome impact of this kind of coverage,&#8221; he told The  Electronic Intifada.</p>
<p>A more recent example of how easily Israeli <em>hasbara</em> can  infiltrate into the mainstream media and influence a situation was  evident at the beginning of this year when Jawaher Abu Rahmah died as a  result of excessive tear gas inhalation during a demonstration against  the Israeli wall and settlements in the occupied West Bank village of  Bilin.</p>
<p>Almost immediately after her death, the Israeli military made statements  suggesting a variety of lies and misinformation. Anonymous &#8220;army  sources&#8221; were widely quoted by Israeli reporters and bloggers as stating  that Abu Rahmah was possibly not even present at the 31 December 2010  demonstration in Bilin, or that her death resulted from a pre-existing  medical condition.</p>
<p>While these claims were quickly refuted by eyewitnesses and doctors at  the Ramallah-area hospital where Abu Rahmah passed away, the damage was  already done: the link between fiction and reality had been blurred.</p>
<p>&#8220;The army is trying to evade its responsibility for Jawaher&#8217;s death with  lies and invented narratives that have no basis. They are spreading  these lies and invented narratives via the media, which is not bothering  to do basic fact checking,&#8221; explained Mohammed Khatib, a member of the  Bilin Popular Committee, <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11712.shtml">in a press release put out by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our version is supported by named sources and with medical documents.  In a properly functioning society, the army&#8217;s version, which has been  spread by anonymous sources, would not be considered worthy of  publication,&#8221; Khatib added.</p>
<p><strong><em>Hasbara&#8217;s</em> greatest challenge is Israel itself</strong></p>
<p>According to Ramzy Baroud, an absence of Palestinian voices in US media  depictions of the situation in Palestine makes it more difficult to  counter Israeli propaganda.</p>
<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a matter of Israel&#8217;s propaganda machine&#8217;s own  success or failure that is causing this amount of misunderstanding among  general publics, mostly in the West,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The misconstruction and  confusion are largely caused by the absence of Palestinian and  pro-Palestinian voices &#8212; in fact reasonable and objective voices  altogether &#8212; when it comes to the conflict in Palestine, from  mainstream US media.&#8221;</p>
<p>A lack of coordination, an absence of media platforms and &#8220;the wall of  the mainstream media&#8221; all make getting Palestinian voices to a large,  international audience much more difficult than it is to present Israeli  voices, whose messages are long-established and have been ingrained  into Western discourse, Baroud explained.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Israeli propaganda is older and is almost embedded in Western  psyche which sees Israel as the embodiment of goodness, freedom, bravery  and democracy, while Arabs are the antithesis of all that is good and  &#8216;American&#8217; or &#8216;Western.&#8217; In other words, Israelis are &#8216;us&#8217; and the Arabs  are &#8216;them,'&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Still, Baroud added that the greatest challenge to Israel&#8217;s <em>hasbara</em> campaign is Israeli actions and policies themselves.</p>
<p>&#8220;Israel&#8217;s real challenge is not the Palestinian voice <em>per se</em>,  but Israel&#8217;s own behavior. Even if there is no Palestinian voice  altogether, Israel&#8217;s war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank are so  revolting that even well-financed media campaigns cannot hide their  atrociousness in their entirety,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Israel&#8217;s biggest opponent in the media is its own crimes.&#8221;</p>
<p><em>Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D&#8217;Amours is a reporter and  documentary filmmaker based in occupied East Jerusalem. More of her  work can be found at <a href="http://jilldamours.wordpress.com/">http://jilldamours.wordpress.com</a>.</em></span></p>
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