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Jewish World Review May 11, 2007 / 23 Iyar, 5766 Why are Israel and her allies continuing to frame debates and policies based on enemy propaganda? By Caroline B. Glick
On the face of it, Ya'alon's statement beggars belief. It doesn't take a
genius to understand what Israel's problem is. All a person has to do is
take a look at Palestinian "educational" television where Mickey Mouse
exhorts kindergarteners to become mass murderers, destroy Israel, and bring
about Islamic world domination to know that Palestinian society seeks
Israel's destruction and Islamic global supremacy.
And the Palestinians are not alone. The Arab and Muslim world supports their
goals. The Syrian government threatens war with Israel everyday. Hizbullah
and Iran issue daily calls for Israel's annihilation. Egypt and Saudi
Arabiaare the central clearinghouses for genocidal anti-Semitism
replete with
Holocaust denial and Nazi-propaganda characterizing Jews as sub-human filth
which the Muslim world must unite to snuff out.
Opposing all this is the State of Israel and its citizens. Since we are not
interested in being annihilated and don't like it when people insult us, it
should be fairly clear that Israel must be strong in order to defend itself
and to prevent our enemies from acquiring the ability to carry out their
evil designs.
But as Ya'alon points out, for the past fifteen years, this obvious
predicament has rarely been mentioned. It certainly has not informed the
policies of Israel's governments.
So it would seem that if we wish to solve our problems, the first question
that must be addressed is why are we ignoring reality?
Over the past week, three events exposed the causes of this national flight
of fancy. First, last week, B'tselem and Hamoked published a joint report
entitled, "Utterly Forbidden: The Torture And Ill-Treatment Of Palestinian
Detainees." The report purports to detail 73 testimonies of Palestinian
prisoners claiming to have been tortured by IDF soldiers and Shin Bet
agents.
The report was extensively and dispassionately covered by the Israeli media.
The fact of its publication was the first item on Israel Radio's hourly news
updates for several hours running. The impression given by the coverage was
that there was no reason to doubt the veracity of the report's findings.
The press reports made no mention of the fact that B'tselem and Hamoked are
radical leftist organizations with documented histories of falsifying and
distorting data. No mention was made of the funding these groups receive
from European countries. Representatives of B'tselem and Hamoked were not
asked why their report does not identify any of the alleged victims and so
makes it impossible for the Justice Ministry to investigate any of their
claims. Moreover, the media made light of the fact that the alleged victims
are terrorists who were arrested and interrogated for their role in planning
and carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens.
This Wednesday, another report received similar sympathetic coverage. The
World Bank published a report claiming that Palestinian poverty in Judea and
Samaria is the direct result of IDF checkpoints and roadblocks. Rather than
substantively examine the allegations, in repeated broadcasts, Israel Radio
gave the impression that the World Bank's allegations were credible.
The fact of the matter is that the World Bank's findings, as well as its
methodology and sources are grossly prejudicial to Israel. The World Bank
based its claims on reports by the radical leftist Israeli organizations
B'tselem, Hamoked, Peace Now, Yesh Din, and Bimkom; the blatantly anti
Israel UN Organization for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs; and Amnesty
International.
While placing the full measure of blame for Palestinian economic failure on
the IDF, the World Bank report completely ignores the fact that the
Palestinians are waging a terror war against Israeli society and that the
IDF has the responsibility to defend the state and its citizens from murder.
An indication of the report's extreme prejudice is found in the fact that
the word "terror" is never mentioned.
The fact of the matter is that roadblocks are a vital component of the IDF's
success in preventing terror attacks from being carried out in Judea and
Samaria. In 2006 alone, security forces arrested 45 suicide bombers in Judea
and Samaria en route to their murderous missions. Many of them were
intercepted at roadblocks. Others were captured because the presence of
roadblocks forced them to travel in a manner that facilitated their capture.
In placing the blame on Israel for the Palestinians' economic failure, the
World Bank also ignored the fact that the Palestinian Authority is a
kleptocracy. But this is not surprising. Since the PA was established in
1994, the World Bank has played a central role in ignoring and so enabling
Palestinian leaders to abscond with hundreds of millions of dollars in
international aid money. Far from fulfilling their duty to oversee the use
of development funds, World Bank officials have turned a blind eye to their
diversion to private accounts controlled by the late Yassir Arafat and his
deputies who used the pilfered funds to enrich themselves and raise terror
militias.
To date, the Israeli media has not asked World Bank officials to explain why
the august international lending institution is operating as an anti-Israel
pressure group and propaganda organ.
The professional malpractice of the Israeli media came through a second time
on Wednesday when all three television stations opened their evening
broadcasts with a radical leftist propaganda film. The film portrayed a
violent altercation at a roadblock by Otniel between IDF reservists and
radical leftists and Palestinians who outnumbered the troops by a ratio of
twenty to one. The leftists and the Palestinians were forcibly confronted by
the reservists as they illegally dismantled the IDF roadblock.
It is hard to shake the impression that it was not a mere coincidence that
the group chose to assault a far-flung, lightly manned IDF roadblock on the
same day that the World Bank published its report condemning the very
existence of IDF roadblocks. Whatever the case, the media glossed over the
fact that group were not mere demonstrators. By dismantling the roadblock,
they were actively sabotaging Israel's national security and the security of
its citizens which the roadblock was erected to protect. Treating the
propaganda film as fact, the media gave the impression that the aggressors
at the scene were the soldiers, not the saboteurs.
In recent years, the once ad-hoc collaboration between leftist anti-Israel
and anti-American organizations and jihadist terror organizations has become
premeditated. In one striking example, in late March twenty Canadian
"anti-war" activists participated in a conference in Cairo with senior
members of several terrorist organizations including Hamas and Hizbullah.
The expressed goal of the Cairo Conference was to forge an alliance against
"imperialism and Zionism."
According to a report in the Ottowa Citizen, at a post-conference briefing
in Toronto on April 27, the Canadians who participated in the conference
encouraged their colleagues on the Left to cooperate with terrorist
organizations. As one speaker put it, "We have to forge a more solid and
more united anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist movement here to be able to
have something to show our brothers and sisters [in the terrorist
organizations] when we get back [to the next conference]."
These organizations and their fellow travelers in the UN and World Bank have
had an immense impact on Israeli and US policymakers. Their disinformation
campaigns have engendered the current situation where the US and Israeli
governments are basing their policies on lies while stubbornly ignoring the
reality of terror and the global jihad.
Case in point is the State Department's recently released paper calling for
Israel to dismantle roadblocks and checkpoints in Judea and Samaria and
enable free travel between Gaza and Judea and Samaria.
The report was greeted with shock by the IDF and the Shin Bet which quickly
understood that implementing the plan would be tantamount to signing the
death warrants of countless Israelis. Not only would bombers be allowed to
travel freely, by enabling free travel between Gaza and Judea and Samaria,
Israel would all but guarantee that the rockets now terrorizing residents of
the Western Negev would also threaten residents of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Despite the security services' logical opposition, the Foreign Ministry has
given the US document passing marks. On Wednesday, the Jerusalem
Post reported one official who claimed that
Israel should accept the US demand to dismantle roadblocks. As he put it,
"The Western world, with the exception of the US, sees the roadblocks and
checkpoints as a main problem here. It is considered collective punishment
that bothers everyone, but only weeds out a few terrorists."
So rather than attacking those who would deny Israel its inherent right to
safeguard its territory and the lives of its citizens, the Foreign Ministry,
which is responsible for arguing Israel's case to the world, thinks we would
be better off just letting terrorists run free and so endangering the lives
of Israeli citizens. That is, the Foreign Ministry has swallowed whole our
enemies' propaganda and is basing its positions on their false narratives of
Israeli aggression and brutality.
Similarly, Wednesday night, rather than defend the reservists for their
actions in defending the roadblock from attack, Defense Minister Amir
Peretz, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and Military
Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit hung them out to dry. Peretz
called the soldiers' behavior, "egregious and deviant." IDF officials
referred to the footage as "embarrassing." Mandelblit ordered a CID
investigation of the soldiers for their actions in defending their position.
In abandoning the reservists, the three sent a clear message that they care
more about being embraced by the media than defending the honor of their
soldiers and the reputation of the country.
All of this returns us to Ya'alon's observation that before we try to find
solutions to our problems we first must understand what they are.
As long as we continue to base our national debates and policies on enemy
propaganda, it should surprise no one that Israel finds itself in its
current dire predicament. If we are serious about solving our problems, we
must liberate ourselves from hostile forces who distort our national
conversation with the help of their Israeli media buddies.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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