Propping up the Cause against the Palestinians

You have already heard this from many interviewees on the broadcast media who purport to be independent and even objective, as well as from official Israeli spokespersons.

[“Hamas’] senior leaders completely abandoned the population and are concerned only in saving their own skiins.”

“. . . mosques, institutions and private homes were being used by Hamas as bases of operation and arms caches. The entire terror infrastructure is located in the heart of the civilian population which acts as a human shield.”

“Hamas has placed almost a million Israeli civilians within its range of fire (about 15% of its total population!) No country in the world would agree to daily fire at its civilians’ homes.

“Stopping [Operation Cast Lead] midway will not only lead to a resumption of terrorism but will also serve as encouragement to Hamas and other extremist elements in the region.”

“There is today no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip . . .(in the course of the past week 400 trucks and 10 ambulances entered the Gaza Strip from Israel.)”

“The figures we have indicate that the percentage of casualties among univolved civilians stands at about 12% (50 out of 400 killed), much lower than any similar event such as NATO’s bombing in Kosovo or Afghanistan.”


A communique sent by the Israeli foreign Ministry to “media volunteers” who are asked to flood blogs, websites and media with these points if they respond to this email:

“Dear friends,
We hold the [sic] military supremacy, yet fail the battle over the international media. We need to buy time for the IDF to succeed, and the least we can do is spare some (additional) minutes on the net. The ministry of foreign affairs is putting great efforts in balancing the media, but we all know it's a battle of numbers. The more we post, blog, talkback, vote – the more likely we gain positive sentiment.”

As you can see from reading many media blog threads which do not even originate any discussion of the Gaza War, they are often sidetracked into it, presumably frequently by volunteers who have taken up the invitation.

My Arab friends have often, and still do, bewail the Palestinians’ apparent inabilty to produce rational and reasoned counter-argument, let alone similar counter-propaganda . . .But then, may not in the end, the views and opinions of those who honestly believe in their cause, the reports of eyewitnesses, outweigh the manufactured propaganda and partial representations?

We can hope so; propagandists seldom seem to remember that the most effective propaganda is truth and the evidence of truth.

See The Guardian