In the course of the current “March for Israel” in Washington, DC, Al Jazeera interviewed a assured younger man from Connecticut concerning the conflict in Gaza. Draped in an Israeli flag, Charlie appeared able to reply any query.
He made it clear from the outset that the continued conflict just isn’t “Hamas vs Israel”, however “Hamas vs the whole world”. He mentioned he regrets youngsters’s deaths and prays for harmless lives misplaced. However he had little question about who’s answerable for the demise of civilians in Gaza. Whereas Israel does all the things to keep away from civilian casualties, he mentioned, Iran-backed Palestinian terrorists bomb their very own hospitals, use civilians as human shields, and even place youngsters subsequent to rocket launchers. Iran and its proxies are the supply of all evil in Palestine and the area, he added.
Charlie has clearly carried out his homework. He has studied the Israel Mission’s “Global Language Dictionary [PDF]”, memorised its traces, and repeated them verbatim, not lacking a beat. The playbook was created in 2009 after Israel’s first conflict on the besieged Gaza Strip, to information Israel’s supporters on how finest to talk to the media concerning the battle. Impressed by Israel’s main spin docs, equivalent to Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s directed at younger activists, in addition to politicians, pundits, journalists and extra. It tells its readers what to say, and what to not say, alerting them to phrases that needs to be used and others that mustn’t.
Certainly one of my favorite tidbits within the playbook, as I wrote again in 2014, goes like this: “Avoid talking about borders in terms of pre- or post-1967, because it only serves to remind Americans of Israel’s military history. Particularly on the left, this does you harm.” And when civilian casualties mount throughout wartime in Gaza, the playbook recommends speaking empathetically alongside these traces of “All human life is precious”, however emphasising that “it is a tragedy that Iran-backed Hamas shoots rockets at our civilians while hiding in their own” and that this “causes tragic deaths on both sides”.
Sounds acquainted?
Like Charlie, I’ve additionally studied the spin playbook, albeit for various causes. The playbook helps me detect extra simply the spin in writings, speeches, and interviews.
Take the interview that Republican US presidential candidate Chris Christie gave to CNN the day after the “March for Israel”. He repeated the identical soundbites that Charlie invoked the day earlier than, albeit with much less tact. Having had forgotten to say “evil Iran” in his solutions, he clumsily rushed to insert it earlier than the top of the interview, as if he was being examined.
Like Charlie and Chris, Joe additionally loves the playbook. President Biden and his minions within the US administration have eagerly embraced its suggestion to focus on Israel’s “right, indeed obligation, to defend itself” in opposition to the assaults of a “terrorist” organisation at each alternative. Since October 7, the USA president has usually deflected criticism of US complicity within the killing of 1000’s of Palestinian youngsters, by accusing Hamas of, you guessed it, “using civilians as human shields”, and even repeating false Israeli claims about Hamas “cutting babies’ heads off” and “burning women and children alive”.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken went additional, insisting that US officers stand behind Israel‘s declare that Hamas is utilizing civilian amenities equivalent to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as “command centers”, and including that “What we know across the board is that Hamas embeds itself in civilian infrastructure – in and under apartment buildings, in and under hospitals, in and under schools – and it uses people as human shields”, and therefore, incriminating tens of 1000’s of docs, nurses, lecturers and others in conflict crimes. All of which has so far proved to be not more than propaganda utilized by Israel to justify its bombings of hospitals and colleges.
On Saturday, in an opinion article on the US imaginative and prescient for post-conflict Gaza revealed within the Washington Submit, Biden wrote to the spirit and textual content of the playbook. The president omitted any point out of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, the siege of Gaza, or any single a part of the tortured historical past of Palestine in favour of increasingly more of the empty previous rhetoric about “shared future” and “two states” that obfuscates the fact on the bottom, and serves to justify the unraveling collective punishment and genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza.
Thoughts you, the playbook actively encourages its readers to speak in favour of the “two state solution”, and repeat the mantra “two homes for two peoples”, as a result of, “given the overwhelming American support for a two-state solution, it will make support much easier and faster if you set the tone for all discussions by articulating Israel’s shared vision for the ultimate goal of two peoples, living side by side in a lasting and secure peace”. However then once more, and right here comes the punchline: “In the name of gaining credibility for why you might later say that ‘a two-state solution isn’t achievable overnight’, you should start with language [that signals] how your goals align with the public’s”.
President Biden just isn’t the one world chief who seems to be following Israel’s 2009 playbook to a T. Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has additionally been very cautious to not sway removed from the rules issued by Israel’s spin docs. Requested by an opposition MP whether or not he would urge Israel to finish its “collective punishment” of civilians in Gaza, Sunak responded:
“I actually believe that we should support Israel’s right to defend itself and to go after Hamas and recognising that they [Israel] face a vicious enemy that embeds itself behind civilians.”
For his half, United Nations Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres didn’t toe the road as blindly because the US president and British PM, and was slammed for it. After condemning Hamas’s October 7 assault on southern Israel, he ventured to remind the UN Safety Council attendees that, “It is important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
Oh! The nerve, the audacity! How dare the UNSG state the plain; “in what world” does he stay? He should “resign”, or so the Israeli diplomats shot again, in accordance with the Israeli playbook, which clearly states, “the primary Palestinian public relations goal is to demonstrate that the so-called ‘hopelessness of the oppressed Palestinians’ is what causes them to go out and kill children. This must be challenged immediately, aggressively, and directly.”
Historical past has no place in at the moment’s political spin on the subject of Palestinians. Their tortured previous – and current – is an inconvenience to the spinners that should be averted in any respect prices.
In his warmongering Washington Submit opinion piece, President Biden doubled on his earlier harmful theological pronouncement about Hamas’s “pure, unadulterated evil”, which might solely be defined besides by its very nature. The truth that Hamas is a product of the Israeli occupation, established in response to Israel’s decades-long repression and disposition should be ignored and discounted, come what might.
In a nutshell, Israel has the proper, certainly the duty to defend itself and its racist occupation; the proper to defend its army occupation and racist apartheid, based on the cynics and spinners, however the Palestinians don’t have any such proper to defend themselves, not to mention resist their occupiers, by any means, even essentially the most peaceable means, like boycott and divestment.
Fortuitously, the lies have lastly caught up with the liars, as increasingly more Western journalists, pundits and officers began to doubt the spin and query the Israeli spinners, even ridicule them, for his or her poor performances, doctored proof, and vulgar lies. Quickly, they are going to begin to query the spinners’ total deception concerning the conflict, its conduct and root causes.
