Tag: hasbara

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We are sailing … Freedom Flotilla to Gaza

As the Freedom Flotilla heads for Gaza, the Israel hasbara machine is in full flight, with scary promotional vids peppering Youtube replete with powerdressing blue suit, gold tie and shifty eyes accompanied on twitter with a cascade of spammy tweets aimed at whomever brings up the flotilla term – messages of gourmet dining in Gaza abound.

Ban Ki-Moon, figurehead of the US owned UN puppet theatre, wags his finger and fails to counteract counteract the spin and outrageous lies about aid to Gaza spewing from all orifices of the glutaginous Israeli Foreign Ministry. As Ali Abunimah [@avinunu] points out, if Ban Ki-Moon had any integrity, he’d be on the flotilla instead of issuing empty statements. Israeli panderer, Cyprus refuses to allow the flotilla to enter its territorial waters – wouldn’t want to jeopardise the illicit irreligious Israeli wedding business.

Meanwhile, in the fascist-operated ziocolony, Amira Hass relates the terrible story of Palestinian children abused whilst detained after kidnapping by the Israeli IOF.

There’s protests against the Israeli government on the 3rd June outside every Israeli embassy in the world from 12.00 – 14.00. If you can’t make it, send an email, or phone the Israeli consulate in your country.

You can follow the journey of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza live on the web at http://witnessgaza.com/.

Several folks are, like us, watching the flailing desperate hasbara attempts of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. ISM counteracts the pernicious Zionism slime effectively:

Israel claims that there is no ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Every international aid organization working in Gaza has documented this crisis in stark detail. Just released earlier this week, Amnesty International’s Annual Human Rights Report stated that Israeli’s siege on Gaza has “deepened the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Mass unemployment, extreme poverty, food insecurity and food price rises caused by shortages left four out of five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid. The scope of the blockade and statements made by Israeli officials about its purpose showed that it was being imposed as a form of collective punishment of Gazans, a flagrant violation of international law.”[1]

Israel claims that its blockade is directed simply at the Hamas government in Gaza, and is limited to so-called ’security’ items. Yet When U.S. Senator John Kerry visited Gaza last year, he was shocked to discover that the Israeli blockade included staple food items such as lentils, macaroni and tomato paste.[2] Furthermore, Gisha, the Israeli Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, has documented numerous official Israeli government statements that the blockade is intended to put ‘pressure’ on Gaza’s population, and collective punishment of civilians is an illegal act under international law.[3]

Israel claims that if we wish to send aid to Gaza, all we need do is go through ‘official channels,’ give the aid to them and they will deliver it. This statement is both ridiculous and offensive. Their blockade, their ‘official channels,’ is what is directly causing the humanitarian crisis in the first place.

According to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: “Palestinians in Gaza are being actually ’starved to death,’ receiving fewer calories per day than people in the poorest parts of Africa. This is an atrocity that is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. It is a crime… an abomination that this is allowed to go on. Tragically, the international community at large ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are treated more like animals than human beings.”[4]

Israel claims that we refused to deliver a letter and package from POW Gilad Shalit’s father. This is a blatant lie. We were first contacted by lawyers representing Shalit’s family Wednesday evening, just hours before we were set to depart from Greece. Irish Senator Mark Daly (Kerry), one of 35 parliamentarians joining our flotilla, agreed to carry any letter and to attempt to deliver it to Shalit or, if that request was denied, deliver it to officials in the Hamas government. As of this writing, the lawyers have not responded to Sen. Daly, electing instead to attempt to smear us in the Israeli press.[5] We have always called for the release of all political prisoners in this conflict, including the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli jails, among them hundreds of child prisoners.[6]

Most despicably of all, Israel claims that we are violating international law by sailing unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid to a people desperately in need. These claims only demonstrate how degenerate the political discourse in Israel has become.

In Counterpunch, in addition to annihilating the hasbara machine’s current claims, lawyer James Marc Leas refers back to Israel’s lies in November 08, when it attempted to justify its attack on Gaza.

However, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs own website “One Month of Calm Along the Israel-Gaza Border.” provides evidence that Israel successfully stopped rocket fire on June 19, 2008 with an Egyptian brokered ceasefire. Then the Israeli military launched an attack on Gaza on November 4, 2008 ending that ceasefire. Then, according to another Ministry of Foreign Affairs website , during the Israeli government’s 22 day Operation Cast Lead attack on Gaza that started on December 27, 2008, 776 rockets and morters landed in Israeli territory, a doubling of the intensity of rocket fire from Gaza from the previous peak, until a new cease fire was announced on January 18. Thus, it was Israeli government action that belies its supposed concern about the safety of Israeli civilians.

Finally, Jeff Halper from ICAHD clears up any doubts folks may have about Israel’s motivations:

“It is simply not true that there is no humanitarian crisis. Actually two-thirds of the people of Gaza live in what the World Health Organization calls food insecurity,” Halper said. “More than 10 percent of the children suffer from chronic malnutrition. Goods like bananas, chocolate, beans and fresh meat are prohibited in Gaza. Each person in Gaza gets about half of the required calories for a normal life.”

“There are great problems with babies, iron deficiency with pregnant women. This is a controlled experiment in how to keep people hungry, to punish them, to keep them just a centimeter above the line of starvation,” the activist said.

“The thing behind it – and it’s true of the West Bank as well – that Israel is trying to impose a permanent occupation. Everything that Israel is doing is attempt to break the resistance and the will of Palestinian people, so in the end they give up and accept whatever Israel wants. But that is not succeeding”.

Again we are comfortably esconced in our Facebook cranny along with our near 1100 friends, a number which is matched with 1100 odd twitter followers, who are not necessarily the same folks. It was an interesting process to be reinstated to Facebook and our re-emergence marks the commencementt of a new online experiment – self-branding rather than brand branding 🙂 Enjoy!

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NGO Monitor – monitoring the monitor

NGO Monitor is an Israeli organisation “founded jointly by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an organization which says it has “developed and implemented an array of cutting-edge programs to present Israel’s case to the world”,[4] and the U.S.-based [5] Wechsler Family Foundation.”

This unholy alliance also runs the ICA [Institute for Contemporary Affairs] in Jerusalem which “provides a forum for discussion of Israel’s strategic, defense and national security challenges”.

Thus NGO Monitor is clearly a hasbara conglomerate. Ironically, it is subsidised by the US taxpayer to undermine the work of peace organisations in Israel and Palestine in the interests of the Israeli and US economic elite.

One of its co-sponsors is the Wechsler foundation, a non-profit [sic], tax-exempt US organisation.

The foundation’s contact is Harry C Wechsler. Is this the same person as the ex CIA officer mentioned in regard to the Boston Systematics/Alltel/Vince Foster/PROMIS software affair?

The Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem claims NGO Monitor is “an organization that attempts to frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a one sided skewed narrative. NGO Monitor is run by pro-Israeli contributors, is funded by pro-Israeli groups, and has a proven track record of smearing Palestinian supported groups while refusing to report on pro-Israeli organizations.”

The ARI took NGO Monitor to court and won in 2007.

UPDATE:

Here’s the NGO Monitor International Advisory Board:

Elie Wiesel
Professor Alan Dershowitz
Sir Martin Gilbert
R. James Woolsey
Tom Gross
Michael Gove MP
Douglas Murray
Judea Pearl
Elliott Abrams
Harry Wechsler
Nina Rosenwald

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Hasbara reaches a pinnacle with the Goldstone Report

The Israeli New York Consulate response to the Goldstone Report is a case study in deception. I’ve posted a comment which has not as yet, after three days waiting at their checkpoint, been published, now published. Here it is:

I notice you are still regurgitating the same hasbara about “thousands” of Hamas rockets despite this information including confirmation from your own ex-Shin Bet chief about the efficacy of the ceasefire from June 08:

“Time magazine in a report published four days earlier on December 15 backed The Associated Press report, and calculated the ceasefire, until the Israeli military raid, had resulted in a dramatic decline in projectile attacks.

“From the beginning of the year until June 19, Israel was struck by 2,660 projectiles fired from Gaza. From June 19, when the tahdiya went into effect, to Nov. 4, the total was 65. But on Nov. 5 a new round of “negotiations” — with weapons — began when Israel struck what it said were militants tunneling under the Gaza fence. Hamas responded with a barrage of rocket fire that has continued for most of the past month,” the Time report said.

A month earlier Yoram Cohen, until recently the Deputy Director of the Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet, wrote a similar account for the Washington Institute.

“Last week, Israeli forces entered Gaza, destroyed an underground border tunnel, and battled Hamas fighters, leaving several militants dead. In response, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired around eighty rockets into southern Israel, including the Israeli city of Ashkelon,” he wrote

“On June 19, 2008, Israel and Hamas began observing an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire, which was intended to last six months with an option to extend. In general, Hamas has observed the ceasefire; the number of attacks and rocket launches has decreased significantly, and Hamas has prevented other Gaza militant organizations from striking Israel,” wrote Cohen.”

Hamas has said they would cooperate with Goldstone’s recommendations.

Israel refuses to cooperate – a clear indication that it has plenty to hide.

Waiting, waiting … and in the interim, there is movement at Hasbara Central.

Nutanyahoo has announced his intention to set up an investigative committee to inquire into the findings of the Goldstone Report – Goldstone welcomed this, adding

“I would be delighted if Israel established a committee to investigate our allegations. That?s what we asked for – a transparent open investigation into our allegation I hope Hamas will also go for it.”

What is the likelihood any committee set up by Nutanyahoo will be transparent and independent?

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Israeli hip hop satirising Hasbara

The latest sinister efforts of the Israeli agitprop machine to obscure the Zionist’s state real intent and historical narrative is chronicled at the Jewish Herald-Voice.

The aim is to fight the media and web war against Israel for Israel by blogging and using social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as posting talkbalks on a range of media sites.

The task force was set up at the Israel offices of StandWithUs and IDC Herzliya, in coordination with the IDC Raphael Recanati International School, the Sammy Ofer School of Communications and the Asper New Media Fellowship. Another special “Web Situation Room” has been set up at the Jerusalem headquarters of StandWithUs. The efforts are coordinated with StandWithUs’ New York office, which is spearheading the U.S. Internet offensive. The situation rooms are linked to all the relevant authorities spokespeople and to people reporting and live-blogging on the scene as rockets fall.

They are working around the clock to respond in real-time to online criticism of Israel and to help counter misinformation about the situation. The Internet task force is made up of volunteer bloggers, including some prominent names in New Media, giving their time and energy to the cause. Within its first full day of operation, more than 3,500 activists had enlisted.

Goebbels would be envious.

Here are the facts the Hasbaraniks are currently attempting to obscure:

From the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (www.pcbs.gov.ps) and various NGOs:

* 1,334 killed, one-third of them children (more children than ‘militants’ were killed)
* 5,450 injured, one-third of them children
* 100,000 displaced, 50,000 made homeless
* 4,100 residential homes and buildings destroyed, 17,000 damaged (together accounting for 14 percent of all buildings in Gaza)
* 29 destroyed educational institutions, including the American International School
* 92 destroyed or damaged mosques
* 1,500 destroyed shops, factories and other commercial facilities
* 20 destroyed ambulances
* 35-60% of agricultural land ruined
* $1.9 billion in total estimated damages

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CNN exposes Hasbara attempt

Speaking of hasbara, Regev appears to need a serious brush up course if he thinks the world will find his latest rubbish plausible.

One of my favourite in situ hasbara debunkers, Gideon Levy is characteristically scathing about the choice of political candidates offered to Israeli voters in their forthcoming Feb 10 elections.

Jabalia

“Ground Zero”
20th January 2009

Earlier this week, following the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip, residents returned to some of the areas which had become no-go zones during the attacks, such as Jabalia just outside Gaza City. On Tuesday 20th January, ISM Gaza Strip volunteers joined a university professor as he visited his house in the east of Jabalia. We were shown from room to room around the bombed-out shell of what had once been a beautiful home. When asked if he and his family would continue to live there, he replied calmly that it was their right to and that they would never leave their land.

As we made our way up the hill through the orange grove beyond the professor’s house, we encountered evidence of where tanks had been positioned – churned up ground, tank tracks, uprooted olive trees. At the top of the hill, from where the Green Line was clearly visible, we began to see homes which had been totally destroyed, several stories concertinaed. Families sat together on the rubble of their homes. Children collected firewood from the dismembered limbs of fruit trees.

At first it seemed as though it was ‘just’ a cluster of ten or fifteen destroyed houses, which would have been bad enough in its own right. However, as we continued walking it became apparent that the devastation extended into the next street and the next, more and more destroyed and damaged homes following one another. This entire neighbourhood on this easternmost edge of Jabalia had been virtually wiped off the face of the earth. It resembled the site of some massive natural disaster. However this ground zero was entirely man-made.

The gouged-out windows of some of the homes still standing were filled with dark green sand bags. This was a sign these houses had been used by the Israelis as sniper positions. One could barely imagine how the situation must have been in this neighbourhood when it was under attack.

We met a blind woman who had been held prisoner for 11 days in one room of her home, along with a paralysed man, whilst Israeli soldiers used it as a base. Terrified and expecting to be killed at any time, they were given water twice during their ordeal. When the Red Crescent evacuated them, the woman said she could finally breathe for the first time since the soldiers arrived. The walls had been daubed with Hebrew graffiti, empty plastic food trays were strewn around and the stairway stank of urine.

In the wake of a Gazan holocaust, thousands of people are finding themselves in truly desperate situations. A traumatized but resilient population is somehow beginning to pick up the pieces. Merely continuing to exist is a form of resistance.

– Photo & text courtesy of Rafahkid

This war unmasked Livni, the woman who had promised us “different politics.” She, who as foreign minister was supposed to show Israel’s sunny side to the world, chose to present an arrogant, violent and brutal face. During the war she boasted that Israel was acting “savagely,” threatened to let Hamas “have it” and announced that the cease-fire would come into effect “whenever Israel decides.”

As far as she was concerned, there was no world, no United States and Europe, no UN Security Council, and no bleeding and defeated other side – only Israel will decide. No foreign minister has ever spoken like this before.

In her pathetic attempts to assume a masculine, militaristic, even macho, posture of someone who would know what to say if the telephone rang at 3 A.M., Livni was exposed as a failed foreign minister, whose words and deeds are no different from those espoused by the radical militaristic men around her. No self-respecting voter who considers himself an upstanding centrist could vote for her. Whoever votes for Kadima will be voting for the right, which is eager to embark on any war and risk the accompanying crimes.

Voting for Labor also means voting for the war and its horrors. This war’s marshal, Ehud Barak, has forever deprived himself of the moral right to talk of coexistence, political arrangements and diplomacy. If he really believed in them, he would have given them a chance before going to war, not afterward. Barak took the army to war and Barak must pay for it, together with his “left-wing” party, which joined the most radical, far-right parties in supporting the move to outlaw Israel’s Arab parties.

Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu, Livni and Barak are one – they all voted in support of an undemocratic decision. And don’t be alarmed by Lieberman – he, too, only talks. But at least he does so honestly, while Barak fires off salvos and deceives.

Granted, these impostors still enjoy the support of world leaders, but for many people around the globe, they have become war-mongers and suspected war criminals. Their diplomatic immunity will protect them – but who wants those leaders, with their bloodied hands, to represent us?

No less severe is the fact that there are no ideological differences between the candidates. Let Barak and Livni step up and explain what the hell sets them apart. What ideological argument are they conducting, apart from bickering on who should be credited for the war?

Facing them is Netanyahu – what does he have to offer? “Economic peace.” After this war, which wasn’t enough as far as he is concerned, his doctrine sounds even more ludicrous than ever.

This is how we’re going into elections – with three leading parties that are hardly different from each other.

We always used to say, “There aren’t any moderates in the Arab world.” Now we are the ones who don’t have any. Vote as you will, but don’t fool yourself. Every ballot cast for Kadima, Labor and Likud is an endorsement of the last war and a vote for the next one.

Who are the *real* terrorists again?