With the threat of yet another Israeli war in the Middle East looming, Israeli propaganda is likely to start raising its ugly head, writes Ramzy Baroud* And so it begins. Trial balloons have already been sent out bearing supposedly unrehearsed comments by former Israeli army general and current minister Yossi Peled, suggesting another war is on its way. More recently, Israel's ultra-right and unabashedly racist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in the case of war. Israel has, with one exception, determined the time and place of all of its wars with the Arabs. The one time when Israeli forces were attacked was in 1973, an Arab attempt to regain territories that were captured by Israel in 1967. When Lieberman told an audience at Bar Ilan University his "message that should go out to the ruler of Syria from Israel" he was effectively saying that Israel will topple the Syrian government when it decides the time is ripe. Considering Peled's earlier statement that war is imminent, the only possible conclusion is that "regime" in Syria is high on Israel's agenda. It is the last chance of fulfilling the US neoconservative vision of yesteryear. This inference should have sent shockwaves throughout the world, and especially in the US media which knows full well by now the price of past Israeli-neoconservative follies. So why does the Western mainstream media, especially in the US, continue to guard Israel's image when the country's belligerence is so blatant? And if some in the media are indeed well-intentioned in their coverage why do they continually fail to point out Israel's criminality and aggression? Floating among political and media analysts is the assertion that Israel has greater mastery of media wars than the Arabs. The National Information Directorate, an Israeli propaganda centre that was established a few months prior to the devastating Israeli war on Gaza last year, is often cited in this respect. Ironically, the centre was established after recommendations made by an Israeli inquiry into the equally bloody Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006. Independent war inquiries often chastise the army for violations of human rights, rather than recommending the establishment of a propaganda body to justify the crimes committed against civilians. Even so, this hasbara should have had little impact on the Western media's depiction of Israeli crimes and hostilities towards its neighbours. Some claim Israel's media success story is the brainchild of Israel's own media expertise under very specific circumstances: that Israeli spokespersons are articulate and charming, Palestinian retaliations to Israeli crimes in Gaza are vile and gruesome; that the Israeli media blackout was so successful that Western journalists had no other way of finding any credible, decipherable facts; that there are no Arab spokespersons who are well-informed and articulate enough to present even the semblance of a coherent narrative to challenge the one offered by Israel. None of the above is convincing. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak is as faltering in English as he is in his mother-tongue. The Palestinian resistance merely killed 13 Israelis, 10 of whom were soldiers -- and recently "regreted" the killing of the three civilians -- while Israel killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. The Israeli media blackout of Gaza during the war -- which continues even now -- hardly prevented footage and reports from being beamed to all corners of the earth, thanks to the valiant efforts of Arab media and independent reporters, photographers and cameramen from all over the world, supplemented by the United Nations' and other independent groups' findings. All of this meant the scope of the tragedy was known to all. And finally, eloquent Palestinian and Arab academics, diplomats and activists can be found in every major Western city and reputable university or research institute. Yet somehow it was Israel that "claim[ed] success in the PR war", according to Anshel Pfeffer in the Jewish Chronicle, days after the initial Israel attack on Gaza. Pfeffer quoted Avi Pazner, Israel's former ambassador to Italy and France, and "one of the officials drafted in to present Israel's case to the world media," claiming that "whenever Israel is bombing, it is hard to explain our position to the world... but at least this time everything was ready and in place." Utter nonsense. As somehow who has been grilled and challenged in the media for making such outrageous statements as "Israel must learn to respect international human rights," I cannot take seriously the media's claims to objectivity. If this were the norm, no Israeli hasbara campaign could have even dented public perceptions of the criminal war. No unfeeling Israeli army spokesperson could possibly explain the logic of the wanton destruction of Gaza, as hungry civilians were chased in an open air prison with nowhere to escape and no one to come to their rescue. Israeli officials continue to congratulate themselves on a job well done, and must be preparing yet another marvellous hasbara campaign to justify the killings that are yet to come. However, there are some things that are becoming increasingly obvious, at least to the rest of us. First, the secret of Israeli success, if any, was not its own doing, but rather stemmed from the media's decision, made years ago, to protect Israel's image. Second, despite the fanfare and self- congratulating commentary, Israel has now largely lost the media war, and the tide since the Gaza war has been turning, thanks to the under-funded but solid and increasingly determined efforts of independent media groups, intellectuals, journalists, civil society activists, artists, poets, bloggers, ordinary people and those in the media who possess the courage to challenge Israel's hasbara. * The writer is editor of PalestineChronicle.com.
