How to lose friends and alienate people

18Jul09

Hiring paid hasbaratchiks to “spew forth bullshit” online, parading out Ehud Olmert to convince Americans that opposing settlement construction is like opposing rainbows and kittens, launching a smear campaign against Human Rights Watch, one of the most conservative human rights organisations around… would it be an exaggeration to say that the Israeli Foreign Ministry is in a bit of a panic?

According to Avigdor Lieberman – advocate of “transfer”, former Kahanist and current Israeli Foreign Minister – Israel’s poor international image is its most pressing problem. That he could help matters by not being such a racist bastard doesn’t seem to have occurred to him, but he does have a point. Israel consistently ranks among the most unpopular countries in the world, and the Gaza massacre provoked a wave of opposition throughout the Middle East, Europe and even, to a surprising degree, the US.

The international boycott campaign, still in its infancy, has been chalking up some major successes, such as French company Veolia’s recent decision to pull out of the Jerusalem Light Rail Project. Even more seriously, the EU has become increasingly blunt in its opposition to settlement expansion, motivated at least in part by public pressure. Ha’aretz reports that the British government explained its partial arms-embargo on Israel as a result of “heavy pressure by both members of Parliament and human rights organizations“, including a legal challenge advanced by Public Interest Lawyers and the Palestinian human rights organisation Al Haq. Earlier this year Ha’aretz similarly reported:

“An internal Foreign Ministry document last week stated that following Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip, diplomatic bodies in a number of European countries have called for a freeze on the upgrade, citing the pressure of domestic public opinion.” [my emph.]

Last year I observed a shift in EU policy towards Israel, and it appears that shift has continued. In June the EU postponed a planned upgrade of EU-Israel ties on the grounds that “stopping … the settlements is essential”, while EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana caused a stir by advocating the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. The European Commission went even further, much to the fury of Israeli officials, with a statement warning that Israeli settlements and infrastructure in the West Bank are strangling the Palestinian economy, adding that “[i]t is the European taxpayers who pay most of the price of this dependence”. The EC later issued a partial retraction, but as Juan Cole points out, what’s remarkable is that “any office of the European Commission dared critique the colonization of the West Bank publicly and frankly in the first place”.

In the US, meanwhile, mainstream discourse on Israel/Palestine conflict is more open to dissent than ever before, with the liberal-left taking an increasingly critical position towards Israel’s occupation. In a leaked hasbara manual published by Newsweek, propaganda outfit ‘The Israel Project’ warns that Israel has “suffered greatly in the court of public opinion”. Among other things, it advises apologists for Israel to get around hostility towards the siege of Gaza by relabelling it “economic diplomacy”, and to persuade people that the settlements are legitimate by branding any attempt to dismantle them “ethnic cleansing”.

Laughable as this is, you have to feel sorry for them. With the election of Netanyahu, the appointment of Lieberman as Foreign Minister and the increasingly brutal destruction of Gaza, organisations like The Israel Project really have their work cut out for them. And when Netanyahu goes around calling German ministers Nazis and branding senior Obama officials “self-hating Jews”, that can hardly make their task any easier.

It is quite clear that on the public relations front, the momentum is swinging decidedly against Israel, and this is beginning to manifest itself in state policy. The diplomatic, legal and human rights consensus is as broad as ever, and the slightly reduced partisanship of the Obama administration has, together with Netanyahu’s unpopularity and the overt cruelty of the Gaza massacre, opened up space for this consensus to be expressed in the mainstream. We shouldn’t paint an overly rosy picture – public opinion in the US is still some way off where it needs to be, and what policy shifts we have seen remain minor and ineffectual. Nonetheless, there are clear opportunities for organisers to make progress, which is one of the reasons why the planned non-violent march on Gaza is so important.

(h/t to Dave for a few of the links)


Filed under: Activism, European Union, Israeli / Palestinian   |  8 Comments
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

8 Responses to “How to lose friends and alienate people”  

Feed for this Entry Trackback Address
  1. 1 JamieSW on July 18, 2009 said:

    One of the themes that keeps cropping up in The Israel Project’s manual is the need to construct a false equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians – what it calls “mutuality”:

    “The world sees Israel and the Palestinians on completely different plains – and this is why they allow/ignore Palestinian crimes against Israel. It’s David vs. Goliath – only this time the Palestinians are seen as David. Using the “mutual” context puts both parties on the same level – and that is important in communicating the Israeli position”.

    Note that this is exactly what mainstream media outlets always do: they (at best) present a “both sides” narrative that completely misrepresents the reality of an occupier and the occupied, of the regional military power and an essentially defenceless civilian population. The New York Times, Washington Post etc. typically do this in the name of “balance”, but as TIP recognises, it actually tilts the terms of debate massively in favour of Israel.

  2. 2 JamieSW on July 19, 2009 said:

    Latest hasbara directive – “normal life” to replace “natural growth”:

    ” Although no official directive has been given, Israeli spokespeople have dropped the term “natural growth” in favor of “normal life” when discussing construction in Judea and Samaria settlements. According to sources in Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu office, the Israeli leader has refrained from using the term “natural growth” since taking office in late March, JPost reported.

    The switch is apparently based on a preference for a more neutral-sounding phrase about construction that will allow for “normal life” in the settlements. Israeli officials said that the term “natural growth” has been overused in the last few months and carries a negative connotation of Israel being deceptive about its movements via semantic tricks.”

    via Jsf.

  3. 3 Asa on July 20, 2009 said:

    Good blog post.

    I notice from your delicious feed you read the JP column about the ECHR ruling. Do you know anything about the CoE? Here’s what I wrote about it when it started going around ISM lists this morning:

    —–

    You are, of course, right to be sceptical of the Jerusalem Post, however, it does appear to be essentially true, according to this press release on the ECHR website:

    http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?action=html&documentId=852555&portal=hbkm&source=externalbydocnumber&table=F69A27FD8FB86142BF01C1166DEA398649

    The full ruling is only available in French (link via the above linked to PR). A European lawyer should look at this to see what implications this really has for us, if indeed it has any beyond France, which is unclear to me (a non-lawyer). If any ISM France comrades could pitch in with their thoughts it would help the rest of us greatly.

    In any case, I can’t see the ruling meaning anything for calls for boycott of settlement produce, which are clearly illegal in all cases (the mayor was calling for a general boycott of Israeli goods). Since the BDS campaign is strategically focused on settlement goods and arms at the moment, my guess would be that this ruling does not really pose much of an immediate problem for us. However, it could be a medium-to-long-term challenge as we win more and more victories and if the campaign moves onto a general boycott of Israeli goods.

    It is probably important to point out that (as mentioned in passing in the JPost article itself) this court is NOT part of the EU, it’s a part of the Council of Europe (a separate body from the EU), and in fact it’s the EU’s European Court of Justice that is the highest European court. This is probably why the Israeli press is not really making much of the story (at least not yet) and even the JP article was an opinion column rather than news.

    However, from my brief read of Wikipedia — yea I know — it seems things aren’t that clear cut and there is some sort of official relationship.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Justice#Relationship_with_the_Court_of_Human_Rights

    In short: IMHO, not the end of the world, a potential medium-to-long-term challenge, and we need legal opinions and advice to find out what we need to do next.

    Asa

  4. 4 JamieSW on July 20, 2009 said:

    thanks, Asa. I agree it’s not the end of the world, but it’s still fucking annoying. On the basis of the ECHR judgement, the boycott of apartheid S. Africa would have been illegal too, and any attempt to boycott Nazi Germany would have been condemned as an infringement of the “rights of German producers”.

    I’m not familiar with the precise details and status of the ECHR, though Wiki describes it as “the highest European court for human rights and fundamental freedoms”. Hopefully or a lawyer or someone with more expertise on these matters will produce an analysis/explanation of the ruling’s implications soon.

  5. 5 Asa on July 21, 2009 said:

    Yea we need legal advice. And you’re right: WTF is us up with that crap about the “rights of Israeli producers”? Very strange.

  6. 6 Asa on July 25, 2009 said:

    A (a non-lawyer) commenter on JSF sheds more light on this. Worth reading the whole thing, but the key facts seem to be:

    “1) M. Willem made his call for boycott in his official capacity as mayor of a village;
    2) his call for boycott applied to the actions of the local governmental authority;
    3) economic boycotts of foreign countries are a matter of foreign policy;
    4) international economic boycotts must be sanctioned by the UN Security Council;
    5) France has a legitimate interest in curtailing the making of foreign policy which may be prejudicial by sub-national governmental authorities.”

    and:

    “Based on that reasoning, I can’t see how this case can possibly set precedent for anyone other than French sub-national elected politicians holding executive office.”

    http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2009/07/some-corrections-on-europe.html

  7. 7 JamieSW on July 25, 2009 said:

    thanks, Asa. I read that post – very helpful. I wish I could the read the judgement itself but alas, mon français n’est pas très bon.


  1. 1 The latest anti-Hamas meme: “child brides” (updated) « The Heathlander

Leave a Reply