Hasbara spam alert

[Al-khiyal]

Hasbara spam alert

January 9, 2009 -- The hasbara brigade strikes again! You always hear about Israeli attempts at media manipulation. Everyone knows it's going on but usually the process happens through cyber insurgents like those involved with Giyus (and its media monitoring software, Megaphone). Now, we know that the Israeli foreign ministry itself is orchestrating propaganda efforts designed to flood news websites with pro-Israel arguments and information.

A reader of my blog has received the following email which documents both the efforts and the agency that originated them. The solicitation to become a pro-Israel "media volunteer" also includes a list of media links which the ministry would like addressed by pro-Israel comments:

Dear friends,

We hold the [sic] military supremacy, yet fail the battle over the international media. We need to buy time for the IDF to succeed, and the least we can do is spare some (additional) minutes on the net. The ministry of foreign affairs is putting great efforts in balancing the media, but we all know it's a battle of numbers. The more we post, blog, talkback, vote – the more likely we gain positive sentiment.

I was asked by the ministry of foreign affairs to arrange a network of volunteers, who are willing to contribute to this effort. If you're up to it you will receive a daily messages & media package as well as targets.

If you wish to participate, please respond to this email.

My friend did so and received this official communique from the ministry with talking points about Operation Cast Lead which s/he was to use in her/his propaganda efforts. Among the links was was a Peter Beaumont Cif piece. The following were identified as "target sites": the Times, the Guardian, Sky News, BBC, Yahoo!News, Huffington Post, and the Dutch Telegraaf. Also targeted were other media sites in Dutch, Spanish, German and French considered critical of the invasion.

Locally, here in Seattle, peace activists held a rally at our federal building attended by 500 protesters. In the foreign ministry communique issued the next day, activists were directed to comment in the Seattle Post Intelligencer's article about the demonstration. The comment thread for the article is riddled with clear hasbara "plants" who distort the balance and tone of the discussion with their programmed arguments, making it much more favorable than it otherwise would be.

Here the foreign ministry's coordinator describes a meeting he attended at the government's offical office:

Hi all,

I had a meeting in the ministry of foreign affairs today, and was very happy to hear that their metrics show that Israel's position in the internet is getting better every day. It means that you're doing a good job! MFA are concerned with the biased public opinion in Europe. So please focus your efforts on European media.

What can you do to help?

- Identify internet battle-grounds in different languages, and let me know

- Comment/post/vote in the listed links and others; you can use the material attached below

- Write letters to authors and editors. Identify yourself as a local resident

- Have your friends join this activity

This message was meant to encourage the pro-Israel activists in their work:

World governments are still patient with Israel's justified operation in Gaza. The [sic] public opinion, on the other hand, is impatient, to say the least. This gap will soon close – it always does.

It is our goal to shift the public opinion, as conveyed in the internet; avoiding, or at least minimising, sanctions by world leaders. We need to buy the IDF enough time to achieve its goals.

Besides the talking points provided by the foreign ministry to the pro-Israel web activists, they are offered online pro-Israel material to link to in their comments such as these:

Bicom.org.uk/

Aish HaTorah's What Really Happened in the Middle East

YouTube video: Amid Gaza violence, Israeli and Palestinian doctors save baby's life -

CNN's Amanpour interviews Tzipi Livni

Military incursion should be seen as part of War on Terror

Blog from Southern Israel, Morit Rozen

Remember when the defence department was paying public relations companies and Iraqi newspapers to insert articles praising the Iraq war? The companies also attempted to plant coverage favorable to the US military in US newspapers. There rightly was a media uproar about the manipulation. We'll see whether the same happens over this.

The foreign ministry shouldn't get a pass on this one. It may view such hasbara as maximising its efforts to "explain" Israel's position in the world media. I view it as a cynical attempt to flood the web and news media with favorable flackery in a vain attempt to tilt public opinion toward Israel. Not only does it do Israel a disservice, it stains every legitimate effort that the ministry might make to explain Israel to the world, since no one will believe a word it says knowing it engages in such outright propaganda.

Not to mention that this is such cheap penny-ante stuff. What do they gain by this? How effective can it be and how many can be convinced? By the way, I've even noticed the hasbaraniks in my own blog. You can see them a mile away because they've never published a comment before yet write something like: "I've enjoyed your blog for a long time, but anyone with a brain in their head knows that Hamas is out to destroy Israel blah, blah blah." Pretty formulaic stuff. Also, you can Google a few phrases of the comment and if you find it appears elsewhere on the web you know you either have a hasbaranik or someone who has repetition compulsion.

In some instances, western media may intentionally or unintentionally fall victim to manipulation. Tony Karon points out that pro-Israel journalist-historian Michael Oren has published several stories since the Gaza incursion began in US media outlets like the New Republic and Los Angeles Times. He is also on active duty with the IDF in Gaza serving as a public affairs officer liasing with foreign media. You will find nothing noting this in the Los Angeles Times op ed. In effect, the media is allowing advocates like Oren to pass themselves off as disinterested experts when they are anything but. It behooves editors to do some due diligence when they publish any piece that advocates for one side or the other to determine whether there may be conflicts of interest or other unacknowledged factors influencing a commentator's judgment.

It seems we are now well and truly in the world of Propaganda 2.0.

[Al-khiyal]

Winning the media war

January 10, 2009 -- One of the things that annoyed Israel about the second Lebanon war was that it ended prematurely – without a clean Israeli victory against Hezbollah. The Jewish state considered that this, in part, was the result of a lily-livered international community balking at the sight of more than 1,000 civilian deaths – not to mention the devastation of Lebanese infrastructure – and deciding that enough was enough. Consequently, one of the recommendations of an Israeli committee investigating the war was that Israel set up an information/propaganda coordination body, to keep those pesky liberals on message even when bloody images of the victims of Israeli assaults were relayed across world media.

Israel's war on Gaza was the first time we saw the "hasbara" directive in action. A body set up to spin (or "explain", if you like) the country's justifications for the war, it tightly coordinated key messages and worked on so many levels – mainstream media as well as diplomatic channels, friendship leagues, YouTube, Twitter and the blogosphere – that the effect was epidemic. It got world media repeating the Israeli government's core messages practically verbatim. Those messages boil down to, and I'm paraphrasing here: "Hamas is a vile terrorist group; they started it, and you must support Israel's defensive war because we're civilised, just like you." For just one glimmer of the success rate, check how many of the US media talking heads collated by the Daily Show use the Israeli government's own analogy to explain the assaults on Gaza.

Palestinians didn't stand a chance against such coordination. Media monitors chastised the disproportionate use of Israel spokespeople over Palestinian ones in coverage of the assault. Campaigners gloomily forwarded emails with the message: "What we're up against." One email comprised a "language guide" issued by the Israel Project, advising supporters of how best to describe Hamas's "Iran-backed war on Israel". Another came from (or was forwarded by) an Israeli overseas mission, urging supporters to vote in a German newspaper's online poll on Gaza. The email warned that the longer the conflict continued, "more people here will be overwhelmed with mercy for poor Hamasnikkim".

Indeed, that's a core discussion within the Israeli media: how long have we got before the world forces us to stop? Reports, especially in the first week, comprised interviews with Israeli correspondents in Europe and the US commenting on how well the media had swallowed the Israeli message.

While Israeli PR is strong and strategic, Palestinian PR is hopeless. The rift between the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and the Hamas government in Gaza means that there are no clear messages and no real capacity to counter Israeli officials. Mustafa Barghouti, an independent Palestinian MP and former information minister, holds this to be as a result of incompetence and a lack of political clarity. He says that Hamas don't know how to do media, while the PA "did not behave as it should, as a representative of all the Palestinian people. Their messages were either absent, weak or delayed". He laments the continued split between Fatah and Hamas. "They don't realise that in such a moment of crisis when their people are being slaughtered, they have to rise above it."

Palestinian commentators point to an obvious imbalance: Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza since the start of the war, effectively pulling the blinds over events within the strip. But Palestinian analyst Ghassan Khatib says there is another factor at play in the overall media skew. "Even if the Palestinian side came up with proper messages, Hamas has been successfully labelled by Israel as a terrorist group and is portrayed in the western media in a manner similar to al-Qaida," he says. As a result, western audiences are more prepared to sympathise with Israel – because it fits the "us or them" binary to which post 9/11 ears are attuned.

What all this shows us is how well Israel understands how western media works, how best to utilise its blind spots and prejudices. Israel clearly has the vision, the networking capacity and the resources to use world media to full effect. If I were the marketing manager of an ailing global product, I'd be taking notes. And we can only wonder what such talents could achieve if only the end goal were really peace, not war.

[Al-khiyal]

Thought-police is here

July 10, 2009 -- The Foreign Ministry unveiled a new plan this week: Paying talkbackers to post pro-Israel responses on websites worldwide. A total of NIS 600,000 (roughly $150,000) will be earmarked to the establishment of an “Internet warfare” squad. The Foreign Ministry intends to hire young people who speak at least one language and who study communication, political science, or law – or alternately, Israelis with military experience gained at units dealing with information analysis. Beyond the fact that these job requirements reveal a basic lack of understanding in respect to the dynamics of the online discourse – the project’s manager argued that “adults don’t know how to blog” – they are not too relevant either. An effective talkbacker does not need a law degree or military experience. He merely needs to care about the subject he writes about. The sad truth is that had Israeli citizens believed that their State is doing the right thing, they would have made sure to explain it out of their own accord. Without being paid. Foreign Ministry officials are fighting what they see as a terrible and scary monster: the Palestinian public relations monster. Yet nothing can be done to defeat it, regardless of how many foolish inventions will be introduced and how many bright communication students will be hired. The reason is that good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved. Yet nonetheless, the Foreign Ministry wants to try to change the situation. And they have willing partners. “Where do I submit a CV?” wrote one respondent. “I’m fluent in several languages and I’m able to spew forth bull**** for hours on end.”

Anti-democratic initiative

Any attempt to plant talkbacks online must fail. Especially if the State is behind it. Not only because it’s easy to identify responses made on behalf of someone, but also because it’s anti-democratic. When the Israel Electric Company or other companies do it, it’s annoying. Yet when the State does it, it’s dangerous. Imposters on behalf of the government are threatening free discourse even if they only wander through the virtual space. The Internet was meant to serve as an open platform for dialogue between people, rather than as a propaganda means. Something worrisome is happening here lately. We see the accumulation of silencing attempts. The Nakba Law, the bill calling for a ban on protests outside the homes of politicians, Lieberman’s Loyalty Law, and the biometric information database. The free speech hunting season is on. Thankfully we have the Internet, and it enables us to identify processes, discuss them, warn about them, and join forces against them. We can assume that soon we’ll see the establishment of a website opposed to this new initiative, unless such site already exists. Perhaps even a group on Facebook. I wonder whether all its members will be Foreign Ministry agents, or whether it will also include some real people. This is not a police state: This is a thought-police state.