<?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[Israeli Settler Minister: We Published Pictures of Corpses for&nbsp;Hasbara]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>Source: Richard Silverstein&#8217;s website</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width:394px;"><img title="yuli edelstein" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/38909_Yuli_Edelstein10.jpg" alt="yuli edelstein" width="384" height="293" />&nbsp;</p>
<p class="wp-caption-text">Propaganda minister, Yuli Edelstein, exploits the dead in national interest</p>
</div>
<p>It’s hard to believe that any minister of any government, even Israel’s, would’ve given an <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/why-did-israel-release-bloody-images-of-the-family-slain-in-itamar-1.349254" target="_blank">interview so patently disgusting and self-serving</a> as Yuli Edelstein did with Haaretz’s Nir Hasson.  Edelstein is the  aptly named ‘minister of hasbara’ (in Hebrew–in English he’s the  ‘minister for public diplomacy’).  And what he’s done is disseminate  terror porn.</p>
<p>To get the full flavor of just how odious the interview is I’ll quote  extensively from it and let Edelstein hang himself with his own words:</p>
<blockquote><p>Two days ago, the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and  Diaspora Affairs released horrific photographs from the scene of Friday  night’s terrorist attack in Itamar. The photos show the stabbed and  bleeding bodies of the members of the Fogel family, with only the faces  blurred, as per their relatives’ request. Minister of Public Diplomacy  and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein is the one who made the  unprecedented decision to release them.</p>
<p><em>Do you think this sort of publicity can change Israel’s image?</em></p>
<p>People who deal more with information sent quite a few supportive  messages. I know that on the Internet the images are really catching on  and circulating. It’s hard to talk about in terms of success, because we  all understand that this is an unbelievably heinous crime. But it does  have an important impact.</p></blockquote>
<p>What astonishes is an Israeli minister publicly admitting that he’s  exploiting the dead for the propaganda value of their images.  This is  one of the worst sins Judaism can imagine: exploitation of the dead.   It’s a <em>hillul ha-Shem</em>, a desecration of the divine name.  Edelstein, who is a settler himself and Orthodox Jew, has allowed <em>Israel </em>to become his religion, while abandoning his actual religion.</p>
<p>The Ashrey prayer says: “the dead will not praise God…but we [the  living] will bless Him from now and forever.”  Not so in this perverse  version of Judaism (or perhaps I should use Bernard Avishai’s apt term,  Judeanism, to distinguish this from real Judaism), in which the dead  don’t praise <em>God</em>, but rather <em>Israel</em>.</p>
<p>In the days of the Temple, Jews used to slaughter animals as  sacrificial offerings to propitiate God.  Now, we allow our own  slaughtered co-religionists to be the sacrificial animals.  What kind of  religion is this?  A religion in which God approves of the blood of his  followers?  Is this the religion of Abraham where, instead of God  staying the father’s hand as he raises it to slay his son, Issac, God  actually demands and approves of the act of child-murder?</p>
<p>To be clear, I’m not saying that either the Jewish God or the  settlers approve of murdering their own. But clearly they’re not only  willing, but eager to use the dead for political purposes.  Perhaps we  should put a value not only on human life, but on a pint of the poor  victim’s blood.  How much is it worth to the propaganda ministry??</p>
<p>What are these images and what is the purpose of their dissemination  but to conjure in the minds of viewers a mini-Holocaust?  The little  babies of Itamar are fascimiles of the Jews killed in the Kishniev  porgroms (even lefties like Didi Remez have quoted Bialik’s famous poem,  <em>On the Slaughter</em>, about this 1903 massacre) or those killed in the arms of their mothers in the Nazi gas chambers or in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews_in_the_First_Crusade#Emicho" target="_blank">Mainz during the First Crusades</a>.   There is no difference for the settlerists between Jew hatred from the  ancient past or present.  For the settlers and those who sell their  message, there is nothing better than to brand the Palestinian people as  Nazis, and its terrorist acts (for Palestinians as a <em>collective entity</em> are guilty of such murders) as expressions of a wish to genocide.  No,  Bibi hasn’t said this, but you can be sure there are settlers and their  leaders who have before and are now.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no historical proof in any of this.  As I’ve written many times here, Palestinian terror is <em>political </em>in  nature and not religious.  Though settler terror against Palestinians  is a mix of politically and religiously motivated, the violence of the  Israeli state in the form of the IDF is largely (though not wholly)  political.  When the conflict is fully resolved <em>politically </em>then  there will no longer be violence from either side.  To claim otherwise  is to be a propagandist for jihad, whether Jewish or Muslim.</p>
<p>What every Jew and every Israeli has to ask him or herself is: if the  settlers want to take us down the road of perpetual Jewish jiahd  against Islam, will we follow?</p>
<blockquote><p><em>How did the decision to publish the photos come about?</em></p>
<p>From Saturday night, when I found out about the terrible event…we  started checking to see if there was any documentation and what happened  to it. I started receiving reports that the family apparently would not  object [to publishing the images].  I sent messengers to the family to  make sure that nothing was done in the heat of the moment. The family  had some deliberations and they agreed.</p>
<p>…We held a professional consultation with people from the Foreign  Ministry and from the Prime Minister’s Office. Not everyone thought the  way I did, that the photos should be published, but everyone was  starting to realize that, in this case, it was necessary to act in an  unusual manner. The majority felt that since all red lines had been  crossed, it would be impossible to just carry on normally, and so we  decided to publish the photos.</p>
<p>Every time the topic of public relations and information in Israel  and abroad is raised, I’m always asked – why don’t we publish the  photos? I say with a bit of cynicism that I can already answer this  question in several languages. I always explained that there was the  matter of the family and a desire not to cause further suffering – and  also that we are not like them, we are not like the Palestinians.</p></blockquote>
<p>“We are not like them.”  Just how are we not like them?  We don’t  butcher their children as they butcher ours?  We don’t exploit our own  dead to score points in the international propaganda war as they do?  Of  course we do.  In fact, one of my Israeli readers sent me images of  Israeli dead from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27ale_Akrabim_massacre" target="_blank">Maaleh Akravim terror attack</a> going all the way back to 1954.  And for those interested in terror porn it’s available to you, where else, but on the <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+before+2000/Which+Came+First-+Terrorism+or+Occupation+-+Major.htm" target="_blank">ministry of foreign affairs website</a>.   So to act as if this was the first time any Israeli government decided  to do what Edelstein’s ministry did is ahistorical and a lie (though  perhaps one based on ignorance since I doubt Edelstein is the brightest  bulb in the box).</p>
<blockquote><p><em>So are we like the Palestinians now?</em></p>
<p>No, there is a huge difference. They have no problem issuing such  photos a few minutes after the incident, without asking the family and  without blurring anything out. It is also needless to say that, in some  cases, fabricated images are released too.</p>
<p><em>Israel always criticizes the Arab press for airing photos of  damage from IDF attacks in an endless loop, which leads to incitement  and hatred. What is the difference here?</em></p>
<p>There is a big difference. I remember photos of a girl being brought  into a hospital in Gaza without a stretcher, of course. They held her in  their arms so that everyone will see her and air the picture over and  over, as a kind of background image. This is something that causes  hatred, whose purpose is to incite more than to shock.</p></blockquote>
<p>And releasing the images of the murdered Fogel family is NOT intended  to cause hatred and its purpose is not to shock??!  Then what is its  purpose?  This is a perfect example of the propagandist who deliberately  ignores the impact of his own actions.  He so believes in his own  victimization and that he is merely responding to evils perpetrated upon  his own people, that he simply cannot grasp that he is doing precisely  what the other side does.  This is a case of willful blindness.  It’s as  if the entire Israeli government along with much of the country is the  blind leading the blind.  They kill us.  We don’t kill them.  They  exploit their dead.  We don’t exploit ours (except in response to them).</p>
<p>Another point to consider is Edelstein’s absolute inability to  understand that it isn’t the image that incites hate, but the IDF’s  murder of thousands of Palestinian civilians, some of them in  cold-blood, that provokes Palestinian rage.  To break this down to its  simplest form: <em>pictures don’t kill, weapons d</em>o.  Whether they be your own guns turned on others or the knives of your enemy turned on you.</p>
<p>Here’s more from Edelstein:</p>
<blockquote><p>I also don’t put it on Israeli television and ask  everyone to watch it. I have no problem with a journalist who decides  not to print the image, but I want him to deal with it on his own and  always remember the picture. If he doesn’t remember it, then he is less  of a person than I thought.</p></blockquote>
<p>Oh, he’ll remember the picture all right…along with his conviction  that any government which would deliberately exploit such images for  short-term political gain is a bankrupt one, both morally and  politically.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>There have been numerous horrific attacks in the  past. Why specifically after the attack in Itamar was the decision made  to distribute the photos?</em></p>
<p>It is true that we have experienced quite a few horrors, but at the  same time, slaughtering an entire family in their sleep, including  children and an infant is, thank God – even according to the standards  of these wicked people – something out of the ordinary. There also  appears to be an accumulation of things here, with an understanding that  words can kill and there must be a response.</p></blockquote>
<p>Again with the incitement themes: it was the Palestinians who made  the killer act, who poisoned his mind with hate.  Not the murder and  maiming of scores of Palestinian villagers by Itamar goons and those of  other extremist settlements.</p>
<blockquote><p>Recently, a kind of dialogue has emerged to the effect  that IDF soldiers are clearly murderers, rapists and looters. This is  the feeling that exists around the world and I’m not speaking about  [just] the Palestinian Authority.</p></blockquote>
<p>Well, as for the first and last, there are surely more than enough  examples of this.  But as for rapists, Edelstein has clearly been  smoking a bit too much of the hasbara weed.  If there are accusations of  rape against the contemporary IDF, they’re made by the most those who  lack any credibility.  Though it is possible Edelstein is talking about  the War of Independence when even a right wing historian like Benny  Morris concedes there were instances of rape by the Palmach.  But for  Edelstein to raise this claim here is merely to invoke solidarity in his  fellow Israeli readers for the allegedly terribly injustices  perpetrated upon Israel in the world press and on the world stage.</p>
<blockquote><p>In this atmosphere, of wild incitement against and  demonization of Israel, there needs to be a shocking reaction [to the  attack] that will cause people to recognize the reality here. We are not  doing this out of hysteria and panic, but in a thoughtful way – to  convey this image to the same people who think that words do not kill.</p></blockquote>
<p>No, surely not out of hysteria or panic.  Because the <em>hasbara </em>war  is going so very well for Israel.  So well that it can stand above the  fray and act wisely and dispassionately.  So that it needn’t milk every  situation for potential points scored in the propaganda wars.  And as  for “thoughtful,” if this is what thoughtful is in an Israeli context,  then it’s no wonder that Israel’s Occupation pathology has proceeded to  the advanced state of deterioration that it has.</p>
<blockquote><p>I don’t think that every politician who says that Israeli  policy is militant incites murder, but the cries that Israel is “an  apartheid state” and “a state of occupation” can lead murderers to think  that, by carrying out their murderous crimes, they are freedom  fighters.</p>
<p><em>Do you know if the media around the world used the photos?</em></p>
<p>The emphasis is on the foreign media. I know that in Israel, apart  from a few people for whom not everything makes sense, you don’t have to  convince anyone to use horrific images.</p></blockquote>
<p>Pity the poor lefty extremist editor or pinko peace activist who  rejects such images because he simply can’t “make sense” of the fact  that the nation NEEDS these images splashed all over the pages of the  world’s newspapers.  I’d venture to say that there are more than a few  such deluded souls even in an Israel debased by Occupation, who couldn’t  be convinced of the efficacy of doing precisely what this propaganda  minister did.</p>
<blockquote><p>I also knew that because of the disaster in Japan and the  barrage of reports from there, it would not be a lead photo on the  front page of The New York Times. The possibility that the images would  not be published was also considered. But the mere fact that an editor  or senior analyst would receive the photos and look at them and carry  out a discussion – I’m certain that this had an effect, and these are  the people who shape public opinion. I am sure that whoever has not lost  their humanity, will in the future be more careful with regard to  Israel.</p></blockquote>
<p>What kind of “discussion” does he think that Bill Keller had about  whether to run these photos beyond: “Run these?  Are you kiddin’?”  As  for editors “losing their humanity,” I’m sure that the next time Yuli  Edelstein’s ministry sends anything to any self-respecting journalist  they’ll hold it up by two fingers to make sure it doesn’t stink to high  heaven before even opening the package.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>In the event of another terrorist attack, should we expect the publication of such photos?</em></p>
<p>Definitely not after every attack. First of all, the family’s wishes  will be the determining factor and every case will be considered  separately. But at the same time … we will have to think about the  specific sort of documentation. The photos taken this time were taken  for the purpose of the investigation, not for the needs of the press.</p></blockquote>
<p>Extraordinary that the Israeli police or whoever investigates such a  crime would allow the images to be circulated around the world in such a  way.  There is such a thing as polluting the scene of the crime and  polluting Israel’s case on the world stage.  Edelstein has done this  with the collusion of investigators who should’ve known better.</p>
<blockquote><p>Next time – let there never be a next time and let it  never happen – I hope we will be prepared with a photographer who has a  media-oriented approach, instead of an investigative focus.</p></blockquote>
<p>Yes, next time let’s have a designated photographer hired by the  propaganda ministry whose job it will be to monitor the settler radios  for terror activity and get there before the police and ‘shoot’ the  bloodiest pictures possible.  And instead of waiting, let’s use the  latest technology to distribute these images directly from the camera to  newsrooms throughout the world.  Why even wait and get the family of  the victim’s approval?  Don’t the needs of the state trump mere human  feeling or sorrow?</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/03/14/israeli-settler-minister-we-published-pictures-of-corpses-for-hasbara/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+richardsilverstein%2FZOfh+%28+Tikun+Olam-%D7%AA%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%9F+%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%9D%3A+Make+the+World+a+Better+Place%29">Source</a>.</p>
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