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Israel, Gaza and the propaganda war

Demosthenes said:
Right so why not devote yourself to pressing for sanctions against the UK.
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I supect the basis of your loonery is a dislike of the Muslims to your North
It need to be pointed out that we have never had an Archbishop as our leader since the Dark ages and as such are less prone to religious bigotry
 
Claim: There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. (Various Israeli politicians, generals and ambassadors)

Evidence: "I keep the children away from the windows because the F-16s are in the air; I forbid them to play below because it's dangerous. They're bombing us from the sea and from the east, they're bombing us from the air. When the telephone works, people tell us about relatives or friends who were killed. My wife cries all the time. At night she hugs the children and cries. It's cold and the windows are open; there's fire and smoke in open areas; at home there's no water, no electricity, no heating gas. And you [the Israelis] say there's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tell me, are you normal?"
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052606.html



Status: True or False ???
 
21 years ago

On the 4th Feb 1988, david Mellor, then a junior member of Margaret Thatchers Government visited a refugee camp in Gaza, then occupied gy Israel. What he saw made him flip out completely, I can remember watching it on TV and thinking "he's a alright, what the fucks he doing working for HER???". he shouted at an Israeli Colonel saying, "You cant treat people like this, its appalling, etc" all in fornt of the cameras
Here is the NY Times version - the Israeli Govt trots out the same crap as it trots out now
Mellor was part of the most divissive Govt this country had seen for many a year, not exactly averse to keeping the poor in their place, but EVEN HE couldn't stomach what he saw - enough to drive an experienced politician apeshit.
Looking back on it now, I think we have slipped a long way down a slippery slope of accepting that its OK to degrade people of different belief and skin colour provided they are in another land. I cant think of a single member of the current cabinet who would act so honestly or with such basic humanity any more - ruining his own career in the process, but just unable to stop the truth from coming out
 
Off another thread.

FridgeMagnet said:
They blatantly are, but bare-faced lies are rather par for the course... you'll only see them unpicked in the media very slowly which lets them be ignored.
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Aye... Lie, across the nation, truth, boots on, thingy :(

Time for some short catty retorts to the propaganda.

But.. their lies would make the Israeli state Nakba deniers, wouldn't it?

Shoah deniers, even, given the deputy defence minister's threat in February u75 (BBC)
 
Dunno how it'll look in the cold light of day, but I suspect this "-denier" meme has legs.

Anyone know any German MPs? I have a plan...
 
From EI:

Yosefa Loshitzky said:
Israel's blonde bombshells and real bombs in Gaza

"I reiterate that we will treat the population [of Gaza] with silk gloves"

- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

I am not sure that most people understand the meaning of the name "Operation Cast Lead" chosen by Israel for its murderous and criminal attack on Gaza. The name is borrowed from a Hebrew nursery rhyme which was (and may still be) very popular among Israeli children in the 1950s. In this song, a father promises to his child a special Hannukah gift: "a cast lead sevivon." Sevivon, in Hebrew (A dreidel in Yiddish) is a four-sided spinning top, played with during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Somebody, in the Israeli army, who apparently feels nostalgic about his childhood, decided that if Israeli kids would enjoy a sevivon cast from lead there is no reason why Palestinian children would not appreciate it too. After all Operation Cast Lead is not the first (and unfortunately, will not be the last) of Israel's cruel war games.

The cynicism embedded in the name, selected for what Ari Shavit, one of Israel's most celebrated commentators, called "an intelligent, impressive operation," is symptomatic to the cold, meticulous and calculated cruelty with which this attack was "designed," "executed" and "marketed" to the world. As the perpetrators themselves proudly boast, Operation Cast Lead is not only a great military victory but also a success story of Israeli hasbara (meaning in Hebrew, explanation, but practically referring to misinformation, spin and lies).

This great victory, as some (but not enough) noticed, prominent among them, Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, is targeted against the "wretched of the world." They are first, second and third generation refugees (originating from the area currently being rocketed from Gaza), the poorest people in the world, crammed in one of the most densely-populated areas on the planet, already starved and weakened by months of Israeli blockade. The sanitized language of the western media calls it "a disproportionate reaction." But the ground zero that it creates for the Palestinians, who, over the last decades, have achieved the dubious honor of becoming the world's quintessential victims, should be a "shock and awe" for any person who has not, as yet, lost his or her basic humanity and sense of justice.

Israel's oiled propaganda-machine was further lubricated by its self-acknowledged decision to select women as their masbirim (misinformation spokespersons) so as "to project a feminine and softer image." To add some cool glamour to Israel's hot lies, Tzipi Livni, the state's foreign minister and a natural blonde, announced, in response to calls for truce: "There is no humanitarian crisis in the [Gaza] Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce." The blonde offensive, led by the rising star of Israeli politics, was fortified by a team of peroxide blonde Israeli women, whose sex, lies and video games decorated TV screens worldwide. They explained to the sympathetic world the hardships endured by the nuclear-armed Israelis threatened by the crude rockets. After all, one Israeli was killed in the last six months, while three other Israelis (one of them a Palestinian citizen of Israel) were killed by rockets since Gaza has been turned into a slaughter-house by the silk gloves of the Israeli army.
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continued

yosefa loshitzky said:
Quick to join this sugar-coated team of blonde bombshells were Israel's most celebrated and translated writers abroad, Amos Oz and David Grossman. The two project to the international community (i.e., the so-called liberal west) what it regards as Israeli political conscience and moral voice. Both are given a special stage by prestigious western media platforms to express their opinions regarding major political events involving Israel. They are Israel's hamasbirim haleumim (the national spokespersons) a euphemism for national (or international) deceivers, who whitewash Israel's dirty laundry in the global launderette.

Grossman (slightly more to the "left" than Oz) has obtained an extra moral authority after his own tank commander son was killed in Israel's murderous attack on Lebanon in 2006. In a militaristic society, centered on the cult of the fallen soldier, a bereaved father (av shakul in Hebrew) enjoys a special status. One could have expected Grossman to "cash" in this newly gained status and come out with a more courageous stance, one that would criticize Israel's immoral massacre, rather than re-play the eternal Jewish victim, pleading "to halt" Israeli fire while promising Hamas that: "Even if you continue to fire on Israel, we will not respond by resuming combat. We will grit our teeth, just as we did throughout the period before our attack."

Israelis, in Grossman's self-adulatory discourse, are rahmanim bnei rahmanim (merciful sons of merciful fathers), dignified and righteous victims. Perhaps this is what Olmert meant when he talked about the silky touch of the Israeli gloves caressing "ordinary," non-militant Palestinians in Gaza.

One could think about a braver bereaved parent, Smadar Elhanan-Peled for example. A mother who, after losing her daughter in a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem, publicly and openly put the blame for her daughter's death on the Israeli government and its cruel policies towards the Palestinians. Her teenage daughter, unlike Grossman's son, was not a tank commander, not even a soldier but just an ordinary girl.

The well-orchestrated propaganda machinery was also equipped with Israel's most successful "secret weapons" of mass deception: playing the role of the victim again. It is not an accident, therefore, that, as the Israeli spin doctors themselves explained in an interview to The Jewish Chronicle, that: "The international media were directed to a press center set up by the foreign ministry in Sderot itself so that foreign reporters would spend as much time as possible in the main civilian area affected by Hamas rockets." The scenes of crying, panic-stricken Israelis added some excessive emotionalism which counter-balanced, but nicely complemented, the team of the icy blonde offenders.

The designation of the Gaza Strip and south Israel as a "closed military zone," and the ban on media coverage of the Gaza carnage contributes to the sanitized view of the Gaza story as manufactured by Israel. The real horror and gore is reserved for the Al Jazeera's spectators, particularly the Arab ones. Ghetto-under-siege Gaza remains almost silent and partly invisible to the rest of us. We hardly hear or see in mainstream media, testimonies from the ground.

But we are bombarded by statements and "explanations" given by Israeli officials and "international experts" who discuss the "situation" calmly and "logically." After all, unlike the hysterical, always shouting and crying Gazans, they have not been bombarded by for nine days straight. They are interviewed in their comfortable (probably leather-clad) offices. They look and sound like respectable westerners, just like "us," and their foreign minister is very calm and cool as her blonde hair obliges.

A pioneering study by the Glasgow University Media Group on media coverage of conflicts, taught us that if you look respectable and calm you must be right. The Palestinians, by contrast, usually interviewed when they are in a state of shock, look disheveled, disoriented, slightly hysterical. And they are always surrounded by chaos and disorder. The buildings around are destroyed, debris is scattered everywhere, and the noise is unbearable (not to mention that they speak this incomprehensible language). Is something wrong with them? Also, even when they are not "extremists" they are always on the defense, almost apologetic, trying to convince us that they are not terrorists, not even militants, just ordinary people who want to survive, if not to enjoy this life. This makes them look even more suspicious.

After all, if they are not terrorists, what are they doing in Gaza? Gaza, we should remember, was declared as "hostile entity" by Israel in September of 2007. And since only the powerful have the power to define, even if their definitions amount to tautologies or oxymorons, they are still the accepted ones. According to this perverse logic, produced in Fortress Israel and marketed to the whole world, any Gazan deserves to die. Furthermore, despite the fact that Israel claims to attack only Hamas and not the Palestinians (conveniently oblivious to the fact that, as David Boardman reminds us, the majority of Palestinians voted democratically for Hamas), it still clings to its old law of blood, according to which, as John Berger observes: "One Israeli life is worth a hundred Palestinian lives." So if in the course of the last six months, one Israeli died as a result of a Hamas rocket attack, it is perfectly logical that in a week 500 Palestinians will lose their lives and thousands more will be injured. This is what the Israelis view as a policy of deterrence.

We should not forget, however, that behind this cruel apparatus of sex, lies and video war games, a more "primitive," "organic," and tribal cruelty, usually well hidden from the scrutiny of the outside world, is operating. Most people in the west do not realize the indifference, and more disturbingly, the joy with which Israelis receive news about the suffering of Arabs and particularly Palestinians. It is more common in the west to see Arab and Muslim crowds "dancing on the roofs" when missiles or rockets hit Israel (as was the case during the 1991 Gulf War) but it is less common to see or hear Israelis cheered at the plight of suffering Palestinians and Arabs. More than once, I have encountered a jovial taxi driver applauding the good news that he has just heard. "Let them all die in agony" was a standard reaction that I have become accustomed to hear on a day-to-day basis while I was still living in Israel.

It was also not uncommon in my Jerusalem neighborhood -- even prior to the onset of the second Palestinian intifada -- to see Israeli Border Police brutally harass poor old Palestinians who came to collect some "valuables" from the garbage bins of the affluent Jews. Time and again it happened in front of a popular Jerusalem cafe, where people were sipping their lattes, completely oblivious to the unfolding drama. Nobody, among these beautiful people, seemed to be bothered by these scenes, or to suffer from some disturbing reflections on the transfer of guilt.

Israel's cruelty -- manifested through its use (or rather abuse) of language, and creative "strategy" of "re-branding" its continuous assaults on the Palestinians as a war of defense, using their tautological logic to justify the extermination of an "entity" which they designate as "hostile" -- should be interpreted in the spirit of Giorgio Agamben. The influential Italian philosopher argued in relation to the Nazi death camps that the "correct question to pose concerning the horrors committed in the camps is, therefore, not the hypocritical one of how crimes of such atrocity could be committed against human beings" but what were "the juridical procedures and deployments of power by which human beings could be so completely deprived of their rights and prerogatives that no act committed against them could appear any longer as a crime."

We may well ask the same question today when listening to Israel's blonde bombshells explain the bombs tearing apart the people of Gaza.
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Thanks for that.

Israel's oiled propaganda-machine was further lubricated by its self-acknowledged decision to select women as their masbirim (misinformation spokespersons) so as "to project a feminine and softer image." To add some cool glamour to Israel's hot lies, Tzipi Livni, the state's foreign minister and a natural blonde, announced, in response to calls for truce: "There is no humanitarian crisis in the [Gaza] Strip, and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce." The blonde offensive, led by the rising star of Israeli politics, was fortified by a team of peroxide blonde Israeli women, whose sex, lies and video games decorated TV screens worldwide. They explained to the sympathetic world the hardships endured by the nuclear-armed Israelis threatened by the crude rockets. After all, one Israeli was killed in the last six months, while three other Israelis (one of them a Palestinian citizen of Israel) were killed by rockets since Gaza has been turned into a slaughter-house by the silk gloves of the Israeli army.
Click to expand...
 
A few of the News articles/statements

from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP) web site
at:

http://www.pflp.ps/english/

Occupation forces targeting health workers, preventing medical aid to
wounded

The scorched-earth bombing, the massive military invasion, and the
targeting of women and children by the Israeli occupation forces is
continuing for the tenth day as of January 5, 2009.

The Israeli army continued to target homes, killing an entire family -
a mother, father and five children - as they slept in the middle of
the night. 70 martyrs fell in the last 48 hours of the ground
invasion, making the total number of martyrs 509 and the total number
of wounded 2450 during the ongoing aggression against our people in Gaza.

The destruction of the civilian infrastructure and the closing of
Gaza's borders and the siege have also continued, as the occupation
declared that Gaza's borders - including the Rafah crossing with Egypt
- would remain closed "for the length of the operation," cutting off
the access of the people of Gaza to medical aid, food aid and other
emergency supplies. Tens of aid trucks from people around the world,
particularly containing medical assistance and supplies, are being
held at Rafah crossing and not permitted to enter.

Targeting of medical workers

The Israeli occupation forces have also continued to target medical
workers and ambulances, often preventing wounded Palestinians from
receiving emergency care.

Arafah Abduldayim, a volunteer ambulance driver, was murdered by the
occupation forces as he drove an ambulance to Al-Awda Hospital on
January 4, 2009. Two others were injured in the occupation attack.

In addition, the poisoning of our environment and destruction of
resources through bombing oil reserves and sewage systems has also
continued.

<editor: ton of text snipped>
 
ViolentPanda said:
Unfortunately many people believe (contrary to the historical record) the discourse that places the state of Israel as eternal victim rather than aggressor. Bear in mind that people like Dravinian "know" the "truth", even though they're entirely ignorant of the actual history.
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:rolleyes: Tory stalker is still a Tory stalker.

I never claimed ot know anything, what I said was that Spion was trying to turn this into a Chicken and Egg argument and using this to justify the actions of one group.

I was pointing out that the killing of innocents isn't what bothers him, it is purely that Israel is better at it then Palestine that bothers him.

He has chosen to support the underdog whether or not that underdog is as much a bastard as the stronger force.

He has no argument beyond that of a six year old, tehy hit me first, so I am justified in shooting rockets at them, and when they get pissed of and bomb the fuck out of me, that isn't justified cause they are better at it.

What fucking stupidity is that? That is the argument of a child.

I am pointing it out, so now of course, I am some sort of Israeli sympathiser.

Cause that is how black and white this argument is to you.

The difference?

I have condemned Israel's behaviour, I have said that what they do is wrong and needs to change.

You wankers can't bring yourself to say the same about Palestine.

Because you are biased, and it colours your thinking, cause you are stupid toss pots.
 
Claim: Israel's invasion of Gaza is a response to unprovoked rocket attacks

Status: FALSE

The Israeli Haaretz, November 5, 2008: “Israel Defense Forces troops yesterday killed a Hamas gunman and wounded two others in the first armed clash in the Gaza Strip since a cease-fire was declared there in June. […] An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops had entered the territory.”


The Israeli Yediot Ahronot, November 5, 2008: “For the first time since the ceasefire took effect in June, IDF forces operated deep in the Gaza Strip Tuesday night.”


The Times (UK), November 5, 2008: “A five-month truce between Israel and the Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip was foundering yesterday after Israeli special forces entered the besieged territory and fought.”


Amnesty International, November 10, 2008: “A spate of Israeli and Palestinian attacks and counter-attacks in the past 24 hours could spell the end of a five-and-a-half-month ceasefire. […] The killing of six Palestinian militants in Gaza by Israeli forces in a ground incursion and air strikes on 4 November was followed by a barrage of dozens of Palestinian rockets.”


The Guardian, November 5, 2008: “Hamas militants fired more than 35 rockets into Israel today, hours after the Israeli army killed six people inside the Gaza Strip in the first major exchange of fire since a truce took effect in June.”


The Independent, November 5, 2008: “Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip fired more than 35 rockets towards Israel today, the army and the Islamist group said, hours after the Israeli army killed six militants in the coastal territory.”

From http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarks...the-6-month-ceasefire-in-israelpalestine.html
 
Claim: Israel military intend to destroy only Hamas 'operative' homes
On Fri 2nd Jan, Israel claimed it destroyed homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...raeli-attacks-target-hamas-homes-1221806.html

Status: False

We learn on 5th Jan from the Director of the Ahli Arab Hospital that all Gazans have received leaflets and telephone calls from Israeli Military saying "You have to leave your home, we will attack it.'. Director Suhalia Tarazi asks "Where should the 700,000 people in Gaza City go???"
http://gazasiege.blogspot.com/2009/01/urgent-report-from-ahli-arab-hospital.html
 
At least the propaganda war has taken a casualty:

Czech Prime Minister’s spokesman, Jiri Potuznik, reportedly said about Israel's land operations, "At the moment, from the perspective of the last days, we understand this step as a defensive, not offensive, action."

This statement was widely reported in the press in Israel and Europe as the official stance of the EU Presidency.

Potuznik was immediately informed by activists about the evidence provided by highly respected human rights organisations that the Israeli military operations so far have involved serious international crimes, and that lawyers in several countries will try to bring the perpetrators of these suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice.

Within a couple of hours Potuznik apologized, and confirmed that "Immediate and permanent ceasefire is clearly a goal for all EU countires“. Potuznik promised to do his best to ‘correct media outputs of my comment‘.

As a consequence Potuznik offered his resignation as spokesman.

Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate, Daniel Machover is attorney and co-founder of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights.
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nino_savatte said:
"Some sources"? Would these be Israeli sources by any chance, Mr Regev? :hmm:
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Or even a suspect PAL source, to draw IL into war crime, eagerly sacrificing more civilians for the militants' cause.

We'll can't tell. All I know is that only IL has the power to act as-one-body. Gazan PALs are unable to act-as-one.
 
The total number of daeths will be huge
Gaza
Area - comparative: slightly more than twice the size of Washington, DC

Form this ;https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/gz.html

Another "interesting" fact or two from this CIA document
Population: 1,500,202 (July 2008 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 44.7% (male 343,988/female 325,856)
15-64 years: 52.7% (male 403,855/female 386,681)
65 years and over: 2.7% (male 16,196/female 23,626) (2008 est.)

Median age: total: 17.2 years
male: 17 years
female: 17.4 years (2008 est.)

The Irsealis KNEW they'd be slaughtering plenty of kids - avaerage age 17
Only someone with no heart at all could defend this
 
Zachor said:
Terrible. But according to some sources Hamas have been storing rockets underneath the hospital (a war crime).
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Was that before or after they did the mass rape thing and bit babies heads off?
It must have been after they summoned up the Devil and drove nails thru their cocks to get used to pain

You'd believe anything wouldn't you?
Except the facts
 
Zachor said:
Terrible. But according to some sources Hamas have been storing rockets underneath the hospital (a war crime).
Click to expand...

I'm starting to see a theme emerging.

Hospitals always have oxygen tanks, oxygen, propane and acetylene tanks are the main source of "casings" for Qassam "missiles", so Zachor's "sources" are either indulging in pre-emptive strikes (legally iffy) or they're going to pull the old "but we thought they were missiles!" schtick that's already getting over-used in this series of massacres.
 
ViolentPanda said:
I'm starting to see a theme emerging.
Click to expand...
me too:

1. Unsubstantiated lies
2. A failure to engage with any evidence presented to him
3. A man who clearly has no morals whatsoever except 'might is right'
4. A bit of an inadequate character who gets his kicks cheering on mass murder - ie, a sad troll
 
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