Canadian Arab News
December 10, 2009
One particular event cast a sickening pall over the entire year, and in doing so reminded us that our world became ever more violent and perverse in 2009. Although this event itself ended in January, its fallout continued and will be felt for years to come. I am referring, of course, to “Operation Cast Lead,” Israel’s attempted liquidation of the Gaza ghetto. The event is significant not only because it was premeditated slaughter, but also because it did incalculable damage did to Israel’s propaganda industry.
This second conclusion might seem strange since the strategy of fabricating Arab aggression to justify disproportionate “retribution” on civilians—or just killing them for the sake of killing them—is standard Israeli policy, one that even predates the establishment of the zionist entity.
The most infamous example occurred in the village of Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948, when zionist forces gratuitously slaughtered 254 Palestinian to terrorize other Palestinians into fleeing their homes. The Haganah later drove sound trucks through Arab areas warning: “unless you leave your homes, the fate of Deir Yassin will be your fate.”
There have literally been scores of massacres and pogroms against Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arabs, and throughout it all the hasbara industry has weathered the outrage. In large part this has been due to the absence of the world wide web and the loyal dishonesty of North America’s zionist media filters.
In Lebanon, for example, the demonized image of paramilitary Hizbullah resistance fighters was invoked repeatedly to excuse a multitude of “defensive” crimes, including the two Qana massacres (1996, 2006). It is during the latter massacre that Israel actually proclaimed genocide as self-defence.
The policy is known as the “Dahiya Doctrine,” so named because Dahiya was a suburb of Beirut that was obliterated in the summer 2006. At the time, Dan Halutz, Israel’s chief of staff said the bombardment of Lebanon was designed to “turn back the clock 20 years.”
From this one application of gratuitous destruction, we come to this statement by Gadi Eisenkot, head of Israel’s northern command:
“What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages; they are military bases. This is not a recommendation. This is a plan.” (my emphasis)
We can see how this embrace of mass murder as national policy applies equally to Cast Lead because Yoav Galant, Israel’s commanding officer in the south, virtually echoed Halutz: “[Our aim is to] send Gaza decades into the past.”
In Gaza, there was no Hizbullah. There was no resistance force. There was no force to attack. Not even the rusty boilerplate “Hamas started it” could be sustained, especially since the attack took six months of planning, and Minister of Genocide Ehud Barak even admitted that Hamas rockets had nothing to with the decision to attack.
The reason has everything to do with the Palestinian government’s willingness to extend its ceasefire for another six months, despite Israel’s crippling, illegal blockade of humanitarian aid. This peace offensive could not be allowed to gain traction, so Israel committed a crime against humanity.
What can one say in the face of such perversity? When white phosphorous bombs are deliberately dropped on a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency? How much outrage can one hurl at the bombing of hospitals or the sniping of children?
So “disproportionate” was Israel’s assault that 1,800 Israelis and Palestinians, including 500 Sderot residents, signed petition calling for end to Cast Lead. Boycott movements are gaining strength. Venezuela expelled the Israeli ambassador and Qatar broke off diplomatic relations. No amount of self-defence double-talk can excuse what Israel did,as if it ever could.
Because we live in such perverse times, Cast Lead also figured in more than one of my columns, and here are three of my favourites from the past year.
Jan. 24: “Exposing Israel’s war crimes is child’s play”
Israeli genocide does not equal self-defence
This cartoon came from my satire of Bernie Farber, one of the Israel Lobby’s most odious Canadian hasbarats. Instead of merely showing him to be a zionist clown that defends genocide, I turned him into a real clown, “Bozo Bernie Fubar,” and had him try to convince children to sympathize with Israel’s need for genocide. The children’s reaction, as well as the great cartoons by Carlos Latuff, skewered Farber and Israel’s claims of self-defence far better than a regular column could have.
Oct. 25: “Bombastic, bullying and preposterous —
Netanyahu epitomizes the toxic hasbarat”
Netanyahu the hasbarat
The second column (right) dealt directly with the growing enfeeblement of hasbara, Israeli propaganda. It focused on Benjamin Netanyahu’s bizarre Holocaust®–infused screed, in which he thundered at the UN for having the temerity to suggest that Israel committed war crimes during Cast Lead. Not only did Netanyahu make himself look ridiculous, not hard to do, but he actually contradicted fundamental Israeli propaganda.
The point was, and is, that hasbarats are forced to go to increasingly brazen, self-destructive lengths to flog discredited notions of Israeli legitimacy. The result is that they are more of an embarrassment to Israel than an asset, and as such the end of Israel cannot be far off.
This was the second time I used “hasbarat” in a column to describe a dedicated liar for Israel. I’m pleased that this linguistic invention has been widely embraced and is found all over the Internet.
May 11: “Address by UN Secretary–General Ban Ki-Moon on the 60th Anniversary of Israel’s Admission”
Ban Ki-Moon calls for Israrel’s expulsion
Third, my spoof of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon was the unquestioned highlight of the year. Though the speech was fictitious, the research it contained on the illegitimacy of Israel’s entry into the UN was historically accurate.
The idea that Ban could belatedly call for Israel’s expulsion, especially after Cast Lead, sent the Lobby and its minions into hysterics. They harangued the UN to denounce the “speech” (it didn’t), reported it to the U.S. Senate, and the Jewish media were pestered into investigating it.
You know something is seriously wrong with Israel’s propaganda when one modest satire can cause such panic. Well, life is only going to get worse for Israel. Since these columns were written, events have turned decidedly against Israel, and bode ill for the future of hasbara:
• The European Union put forth a resolution to recognize the 1967 borders, including a divided Jerusalem.Though zionist pressure has (so far) cowed the EU into watering down its decision, Sweden, which holds the presidency is adamant that the 1967 borders be respected.
• A recent Pew Research Center survey on America’s Place in the World found that two thirds of the members of the Council on Foreign Relations believe that the U.S. has gone overboard in favouring Israel. The CFR’s negative views of Israel are twice that of the general public.
• American Jews are becoming less enamoured of Israel, thanks to Israeli websites. It seems that news sources like Ha’aretz are having an unfortunate, salubrious effect on Jewish minds. As increasing numbers of U.S. Jews read direct accounts of Israel’s atrocities, they build up a healthy resistance to hasbara. In response, hasbarats are appealing to English-speakers in Israel to pick up the hasbara reins to convince people that life in Israel is good!
The perversity is palpable. Clearly, we are back in 1933. Just as zionists at that time helped the Nazis sabotage negative reports of anti-Jewish persecution, zionists are now sabotaging Jewish media reporting on anti-Arab persecution, like Cast Lead.
Let’s see the hasbarats tackle that one!
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