Anti-Semitism And The Pro Israel Lobby — 3
On 9 July, 2014, an article was published in the Guardian by investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed titled, IDF’s Gaza assault is to control Palestinian gas, avert Israeli energy crisis. A few days later, Ahmed’s employment with the Guardian was terminated.
Johnathan Cook offers an interesting perspective in his blog about the debacle and his own experience at the Guardian. He talks about the ‘general structure of the corporate media system, including the Guardian’ and the fact that ‘It is designed to exclude almost all deeply critical voices, those that might encourage readers to question the ideological basis of the western societies in which they live and alert them to the true role of the corporations that run those societies and their media.’
He goes on to say that:
‘special factors pertain in the Guardian’s case. As Ahmed notes, in part this is related to the Guardian’s pivotal role in bringing to fruition the ultimate colonial document, the Balfour Declaration. For this reason, the Guardian has always had a strong following among liberal Jews, and that is reflected in its selection of staff at senior ranks.’
But its not just liberal Jews who follow the Guardian. Many other people see the Guardian as a liberal outlet that stands out from the crowd. But this is a misconception as we shall see in due course.
Ahmed writes about his experience with the Guardian on his own media platform. He states unequivocally:
‘After writing for The Guardian for over a year, my contract was unilaterally terminated because I wrote a piece on Gaza that was beyond the pale. In doing so, The Guardian breached the very editorial freedom the paper was obligated to protect under my contract. I’m speaking out because I believe it is in the public interest to know how a Pulitizer Prize-winning newspaper which styles itself as the world’s leading liberal voice, casually engaged in an act of censorship to shut down coverage of issues that undermined Israel’s publicised rationale for going to war.’
He goes on to say:
‘Since 2006, The Guardian has loudly trumpeted its aim to be the world’s leading liberal voice. For years, the paper has sponsored the annual Index on Censorship’s prestigious Freedom of Expression Award. The paper won the Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the National Security Agency (NSA). Generally, the newspaper goes out of its way to dress itself up as standing at the forefront of fighting censorship, particularly in the media landscape. This is why its approach to my Gaza gas story is so disturbing.’
Ahmed quotes Cook in his piece:
‘Cook’s scathing criticism of his former paper in a 2011 Counterpunch article is highly revealing, and relevant, for understanding what happened to me:
“The Guardian, like other mainstream media, is heavily invested — both financially and ideologically — in supporting the current global order. It was once able to exclude and now, in the internet age, must vilify those elements of the left whose ideas risk questioning a system of corporate power and control of which the Guardian is a key institution.
The paper’s role, like that of its rightwing cousins, is to limit the imaginative horizons of readers. While there is just enough leftwing debate to make readers believe their paper is pluralistic, the kind of radical perspectives needed to question the very foundations on which the system of Western dominance rests is either unavailable or is ridiculed.” ’
And that sums up the role of the ‘liberal’ media precisely. That’s why this particular case study is very apt in highlighting a paradox within the mainstream media, contrasting the so-called liberal outlets with the more obvious right wing output.
The Media Mirage
‘Fake news’ is a phrase that has become in vogue of late. Both critics of mainstream corporate media (MSM) and MSM itself have used the term. But what exactly is fake news?
The MSM has come under the scrutiny of academic media experts. In March 2017, a Group of academics submitted a paper on fake news titled Fake News: A Framework for Detecting and Avoiding Propaganda.
The paper notes that ‘Professional persuaders and influencers have engaged in propaganda for so long that many people no longer trust mainstream news to be communicating truthful and accurate information.’
It goes on to say that ‘Fake news appears to have at least two objectives: to act as clickbait (to drive internet traffic) for financial gain; and/or to influence public opinion through propaganda.’
However its becoming clear that the public is being less influenced by propaganda. In the UK ‘only 25% of Britons trust journalists to tell the truth, and even fewer (21%) trust politicians to tell the truth.’ And with good cause:
‘Governments rarely admit to their use of propaganda in the news, and if found out will normally excuse it as being in the interests of national security or the national interest.’
The paper outlines five forms that propaganda takes, or what it describes as ‘Organised Persuasive Communication’ (OPC). These are; lying, distortion, omission, misdirection and bullshitting. Here’s the full definition of each of these:
Deception through lying involves making a statement that is known to be untrue in order to mislead. For instance, in 2004 the US administration of George W. Bush paid actors to produce news, journalists to write propaganda, and Republican party members to pose as journalists.
Deception through distortion involves presenting a statement in a deliberately misleading way (for instance, exaggerating or de-emphasising information) to support the viewpoint being promoted. For instance, Phythian (2005) discusses British press presentation of the post-9/11 terrorist threat, some involving security or intelligence briefings or comment: by early 2005, the frequency with which these alarmist reports appeared and their use by government ministers was reportedly concerning the British security services.
Deception through omission involves withholding information to make the viewpoint being promoted more persuasive. Herring and Robinson (2014) show how the British government’s published dossier on 24 September 2002 setting out its claims on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, through omission (and distortion) deliberately and deceptively portrayed a misleading picture of greater weapons capability and greater certainty than the intelligence warranted.
Deception through misdirection entails producing and disseminating true information intended to divert public attention away from other problematic issues. For instance, in 2014, the Obama administration declassified the Executive Summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the Bush-era CIA Detention and Interrogation Program. This report scapegoats the CIA for avoiding oversight procedures, and makes no demands for responsibility to be taken by the Bush administration that secretly ordered the Program; or by its lawyers that secretly legalised the Program to avoid CIA operatives from retrospectively being charged with torture. Bakir (2017) demonstrates that such misdirection influenced press demands for accountability.
Deception through bullshitting is where the communicator pretends to have concern for the truth but is actually indifferent to it, and so feels free to espouse both falsehoods and truths — whichever is most useful to conveying the desired impression. For instance, the Trump administration’s deployment of ‘alternative facts’ to describe the size of Trump’s presidential inauguration crowd in January 2017, appears to be an example of bull-shitting. Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, claimed that this was ‘the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe’. When the mainstream press proved the (small) size of the crowd with visuals, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway responded that Spicer had used ‘alternative facts’: a more precise term would have been ‘bull-shit’. Indeed, supporters of Trump interviewed by Channel 4 News afterwards said that they were unconcerned about whether or not he had actually lied on this precise issue, saying: ‘This is typical of the press to obsess on points of trivia. … We take Trump seriously but not literally’
The Paper makes this observation:
‘Both the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and the Public Relations and Communication Association, maintain general ethical guidelines, but there is no independent mechanism for either evaluating the guidelines or enforcing them.’
There is one particular outlet though isn’t part of what would normally be regarded as the MSM. Indeed it isn’t a corporation in a general sense, even though it has the term in its name. Its supposed to be a public institution with a penchant for fairness and impartiality. But there is now abundant evidence that the BBC Charter that underpins everything that the corporation stands for isn’t worth the paper its printed on.
The BBC, unlike other MSM outlets in the UK, does not rely on advertising revenue. Yet the BBC is seen by many as a voice for the establishment. The broadcaster has come under similar academic scrutiny and has found to be widely biased in its reporting. A useful study conducted by Cardiff University highlights this, along with other studies noted below.
Over the past few years though, an alternative voice has been emerging, with numerous independent media outlets offering an alternative view. One particular institution that has been running since 2001 has:
‘been describing how mainstream newspapers and broadcasters operate as a propaganda system for the elite interests that dominate modern society. The costs of their disinformation in terms of human and animal suffering, and environmental breakdown, are incalculable. We show how news and commentary are ‘filtered’ by the media’s profit-orientation, by its dependence on advertisers, parent companies, wealthy owners and official news sources.’
Media Lens offers a critical analysis of MSM output. It illustrates how the MSM has distorted the narrative in favour of Israel.
On 24 July 2014, Media Lens published ‘Disgustingly Biased’ — The Corporate Media On The Gaza Massacre. The article particularly singled out the BBC’s reporting on the issue. It pointed out how the BBC focused on rocket attacks from Hamas, ignoring the fact that the strip was under bombardment from one of the most powerful military forces on the planet.
Compared to the rising Palestinian death toll, Israeli casualties were only regarded as newsworthy. As the article notes:
‘The BBC has also implied that ‘Rockets fired from Gaza’ are comparable to ‘Gaza targets hit by Israel’. Readers are to understand that attempted attacks by unguided, low-tech rockets are comparable to actual bombings by state of the art bombs, missiles and shells. The BBC’s source? ‘Israel Defence Forces.’
On July 21, BBC News at Ten presenter Huw Edwards asked a colleague live on air:
‘…the Israelis saying they’ll carry on as long as necessary to stop the Hamas rocket attacks. Do you detect any signs at all that there’s a hope of a coming together in the next few days or weeks, or not?’
In other words, BBC News presented Hamas rocket attacks as the stumbling block to peace, exactly conforming to Israeli state propaganda.’
Another point of contention was Israels so called ‘Iron Dome’ defence system:
‘The Iron Dome system’s ability to knock Hamas missiles out of the sky has been a remarkable achievement for Israel during this crisis. The success rate is quite phenomenal.'
But:
‘Back in the real world, weapons experts Ted Postol of MIT and Richard Lloyd of Tesla Laboratory, argue that claims for Iron Dome are wildly exaggerated, estimating a success rate of less than 5 per cent. Peter Coy of Bloomberg Businessweek comments:
‘Lloyd e-mailed me a copy of a 28-page analysis that’s the most detailed critique yet of the holes in the Iron Dome system — holes so big that, if he’s right, would justify calling it Iron Sieve.’ ’
There was clear evidence of war crimes committed by Israel:
‘Even indisputable evidence here and here that Israel had fired on hospitals in Gaza, major war crimes, brought little outrage from politicians and media. Jonathan Whittall, Head of Humanitarian Analysis at Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), reminded the world (citing MSF General Director Christopher Stokes on the crisis in Libya in 2012):
‘Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.’ ’
Commenting on the ‘cycle of violence’ often noted in the MSM, the article points out:
‘The US media watchdog, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, observed that the current conflict ‘is usually traced back to the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers on the West Bank. When their bodies were found on June 30, Israel “retaliated” by attacking Gaza. The July 2 killing of a Palestinian teenager, allegedly a revenge murder by Israeli extremists, was reported as further escalating the conflict.’
On the BBC’s News at Ten (July 23), reporter Quentin Sommerville commented (at 14:31):
‘The kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, blamed on Hamas, sparked this conflict.’ ’
But the reality was:
‘NBC News correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin supplied a rare example of dissent:
‘But even before the kidnapping of three Israeli-Jewish teenagers and killing of the Palestinian teenager last week, two Palestinians were killed back in May and didn’t trigger the kind of international outcry and international outrage that the killing of the three Israeli teens have.’
Corporate media have generally not identified these deaths as initiating a ‘cycle of violence’.’
So, the Palestinians are responsible for starting the conflict and of course they get the blame for prolonging it. Electric intifada is cited:
‘[T]he two Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad have set forth ten conditions for a ceasefire and ten-year truce with Israel.
‘They include an end to all armed hostilities, the end of the siege of Gaza, and the construction of internationally supervised air and seaports.’
Abunimah explained the rationale behind these conditions:
‘It’s the siege, stupid. Talk to virtually anyone in Gaza and they will tell you the same. The siege is living death, slowly crushing the life out of Gaza. It has to end.
‘This is a main reason why Hamas did not accede to the attempt by Israel, through its ally the Egyptian dictatorship, to impose a unilateral “ceasefire” about which Hamas says it was never even consulted, hearing about the initiative only through the media.’
There can be little doubt that media fabrication of events such as Gaza comes from the very top:
‘The bias in failing to report the brutalisation of a trapped, impoverished people under occupation is staggering. Many might wonder why journalists fail to speak out. But several journalists who have exposed Israeli actions, and media bias favouring Israel, have been punished.’
Media Lens sums up:
‘For in truth, biased US-UK journalism is empowering the Israeli government’s effort to terrorise the Palestinian people into accepting gradual genocide as their land and resources are stolen. As we have discussed here (see also Gideon Levy here), the hidden backstory is that this land grab can not be conducted under conditions of peace. It requires Perpetual War; a phoney, one-sided ‘war’ dominated by Israel’s perennial trump card: high-tech military power supplied by that eternal ‘peace broker’, the United States.’
In December 2014, Media Lens published the article ‘Grievous Censorship’ By The Guardian: Israel, Gaza And The Termination Of Nafeez Ahmed’s Blog.
The article covers Ahmed’s controversial dismissal from the Guardian, despite the fact he was one of the most popular writers at the paper. Since Ahmed’s dismissal, the Guardian has been reticent to engage with the issue. Indeed, as noted in the article:
‘several journalists have told Ahmed that Freedland is, in effect, the paper’s ‘gatekeeper’ on the Middle East conflict. It certainly takes no deep reading of Freedland’s own output to detect a strong pro-Israel leaning. Jonathan Cook — who, as mentioned, used to work for the Guardian, and is now an independent journalist based in Nazareth — knows this only too well. He points to ‘the Guardian’s historic and current support for the state of Israel’, steered and maintained in large part by Freedland who holds ‘ugly, chauvinist opinions about Israel’. It was ironically appropriate that Freedland should be one of the recipients of this year’s Orwell Prize.’
Summing up the debacle:
‘with the Guardian under mounting public pressure — and perhaps even internally from some of its own journalists — the paper’s parent company issued a terse PR statement in a clear attempt at damage limitation. As if pulled from the pages of Orwell’s 1984, the Guardian Media Group intoned:
‘[Ahmed] has never been on the staff of the Guardian. His Guardian blog — Earth Insight — was about the link between the environment and geopolitics, but we took the decision to end the blog when a number of his posts on a range of subjects strayed too far from this brief.’
No explanation was deemed necessary as to what constituted ‘too far’. But then, as Noam Chomsky once said, there are limits to permissible debate in even the most ‘liberal’ media: ‘This far, and no further.’ The powerful pro-Israel lobby helps to keep British politics, including media coverage, within these ‘acceptable’ bounds. In the absence of an informed Guardian whistleblower emerging, we cannot know exactly why Ahmed’s contract was terminated so abruptly. But the paper’s swift and drastic response to his insightful piece on Israel’s war for Gaza’s gas is glaring and highly significant.’
Media Lens digs down into what really makes the Guardian tick. Far from being liberal:
‘the paper is owned by the Guardian Media Group which is run by a high-powered Board comprising elite, well-connected people from the worlds of banking, insurance, advertising, multinational consumer goods companies, telecommunications, information technology giants, venture investment firms, media, marketing services, the World Economic Forum, and other sectors of big business, finance and industry. This is not a Board staffed by radically nonconformist environmental, human rights and peace campaigners, trade unionists, NHS campaigners, housing collectives; nor anyone else who might threaten the status quo. As Ahmed observes:
‘If this is the state of The Guardian, undoubtedly one of the better newspapers, then clearly we have a serious problem with the media. Ultimately, mainstream media remains under the undue influence of powerful special interests, whether financial, corporate or ideological.’
He concludes, crucially:
‘Given the scale of the converging crises we face in terms of climate change, energy volatility, financial crisis, rampant inequality, proliferating species extinctions, insane ocean acidification, food crisis, foreign policy militarism, and the rise of the police-state — and given the bankruptcy of much of the media in illuminating the real causes of these crises and their potential solutions, we need new reliable and accountable sources of news and information.’ ’
Another target for the Israel Lobby is Academia. Media Lens scrutinizes the attack on free speech. It considers a conference that was planned by the university of Southampton and the subsequent cancellation:
‘intense pressure from the Israel lobby about the airing of ‘anti-Semitic views’ has torpedoed the University of Southampton’s earlier stated commitment to uphold ‘freedom of speech within the law’. In a classic piece of bureaucratic hand-wringing, the university issued a corporate-style statement on 1 April that leaned heavily on the pretext of ‘health and safety’ to kill off the conference. This happened a mere two weeks before the conference, planned months earlier in consultation with the university, was due to begin.’
Needless to say, MP’s with certain viewpoints were quick to condemn the conference with typical biased rhetoric.
Organisers of the event condemned the university’s decision to cancel the event saying that:
‘The stakes for academic public space, for academic freedom and for freedom of speech are too high. The message it sends to other academic institutions and to students all over the world is grave and depressing. It will potentially make campuses obedient and depoliticised, distant and docile corporate spaces.'
The article goes on to say:
‘Many academics have protested the university’s decision. David Gurnham, the Director of Research at the university’s School of Law, wrote in an email to vice-chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam:
‘It seems to me outrageous that you seem to have allowed the bullying and threats of the Israeli lobby to prevent the perfectly lawful and legitimate exercise of free speech and academic debate. I understand that the police had reported that they would be perfectly able and willing to deal with any security concerns at the event: this ought to be good enough.
‘Cancelling the event in this way makes the University look weak, spineless and reactionary. I am proud to be a member of academic staff here, but your decision to withdraw support for a conference in this manner makes me, and I’m sure very many others like me, seriously question the University’s commitment to open and free debate.’
(More letters of protest from academics can be read here.)’
MSM reporting on the issue was almost non existent. That stands in dramatic contrast to the outpouring of sentiment a few months earlier following the Charlie Hebdo attacks:
‘What happened to all those grand declarations from editorial offices, under the banner ‘Je suis Charlie’, to uphold freedom of speech and the ‘right to offend’? The journalists and cartoonists who were murdered at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris were, we were told, ‘martyrs for freedom of speech’. The atrocity was ‘a war declared on civilisation’, ‘an attack on the free world’, ‘an assault on journalists and free speech’. A Guardian editorial proclaimed:
‘If there is a right to free speech, implicit within it there has to be a right to offend. Any society that’s serious about liberty has to defend the free flow of ugly words, even ugly sentiments.’
Where is the outpouring of dismay now from liberal commentators across the British media at the actions of the pro-Israel lobby? Where are the comment pieces decrying this latest attack on free speech? When it comes to Israel, the ‘right to offend’ is quietly dropped.’
Media Lens gives John Pilger the last word:
‘The journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, whose powerful documentary Palestine Is Still The Issue is a must-see, told Media Lens (email, April 3, 2015):
‘Israel is a gangster state. It holds the world record in the breach and defiance of international law. It regularly massacres and terrorises the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza, which even David Cameron has described as an “open prison”. Its courts uphold racism as state policy. It has re-elected a congenital liar as its prime minister. Its historians have long revealed the criminality of its beginning — the theft of land, the murder and brutalising of the indigenous population.’
‘What Israel has, however, are powerful collaborators, who, even at the lowest rung, are able to intimidate institutional bureaucrats and others with the specious slur of anti-Semitism. In Britain, the Jewish Chronicle and the Board of Deputies operate this barely disguised smear as efficiently as a metronome. They, and others, have now helped silence a much needed conference on Israel at the University of Southampton. But they should not be wholly blamed. The collusion of the university authorities as they run up the false flag of “security concerns” is to blame; and the memory of every murdered child in Gaza is now their spectre. And along with the so-called “lobby”, they cannot win.’
‘The rest of humanity has long recognised the truth about Israel, as every international survey shows. With exquisite timing, student unions across the UK are joining the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that is sweeping country after country, including the United States. The craven decision of Southampton will speed its progress; nothing is surer.’ ’
The specter of Charlie Hebdo is a classic example of corporate, political and media hypocrisy. An article by Glen Greenwald in The Intercept dramatically highlights this.
After the attacks — as noted above — free speech was defended to the hilt. It was fine to parody Muslims. It was after all free speech, even if some people were offended. Below is a tweet posted by Piers Morgan:
Fast forward to post hurricane Harvey:
It would appear then that freedom of speech is a rather inclusive club, as Greenwald notes:
‘For the crime of mocking white Americans, vehement scorn for Charlie Hedbo was commonplace yesterday. “An evil, despicable cover,” opined National Review’s Tiana Lowe, who nonetheless added that “the losers at Charlie Hebdo have a God-given right to publish it.” Infowars’ Paul Joseph Watson, long a fan of Charlie Hebdo’s anti-Muslim cartoons and an advocate of the duty to republish its content, yesterday announced that, actually, one may hate and denounce the cartoons while still supporting the cartoonists’ free speech rights: “The Charlie Hebdo cover is offensive & dumb, and I fully support their right to be as offensive & dumb as they like.” ’
He continues:
‘It’s almost as if the glorification and praise for Charlie Hebdo that became morally mandatory in 2015 had nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with love of the anti-Islam content of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons. This new rule that one must not only defend Charlie Hebdo’s free speech rights but also honor and praise its work seems to have disappeared rather instantly, violently even, as soon as its targets stopped being Muslims and began being white Americans.’
And that pretty much sums up the situation with Israel. Free speech and democracy is only valid if it fits in with the establishment narrative. The MSM makes sure that narrative is adhered to, with some help from the Israel Lobby.
Spinwatch has monitored the activities of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) producing the the Giving Peace A Chance? report (see above). Right from the beginning, BICOM has set an agenda of influencing the media. And it has done so in a professional, well organised manner.
Using public relations professionals and lobbyists, it has developed a clear communications strategy that has been broadly successful. The Spinwatch report reveals the methodology and tactics used by BICOM.
In 2002, BICOM hired ‘the prestigious US pollsters and political strategists Stanley Greenberg and Frank Luntz to work on a ‘quantitative and qualitative’ research programme examining public attitudes to Israel.’ Their specialty is framing Israels case.
In 2007 they worked with UK polling and communications company Populus:
‘Populus, which provides polling and focus group data to its clients, appears to be BICOM’s most important communications consultant. Its director Rick Nye [was] a former director of the Conservative Research Department.’
Rye, along with director Lorna Fitzsimons at the time and its then Israel director Jonathan Cummings, was involved in ‘Winning the Battle of the
Narrative’. It was noted that:
‘members of the public are largely excluded from foreign policy decisions, but that nevertheless public opinion, and more particularly media opinion, can have an important indirect impact:
Whilst foreign policy decision-making includes a closed circle of people, usually consistent of the very elite of each society (politicians, advisors and renowned academics included), public opinion and atmosphere still matter. The political elites in Europe and in the US are much more tolerant towards Israel’s policies then [sic] the wider public in those same countries; however, the public’s mood and the media’s coverage (especially in the UK) determine the government’s leeway to pursue a pro-Israeli foreign policy agenda.’
Initially BICOM focused on influencing public opinion, but it quickly became apparent that that was a task best left to others:
‘In 2008 a spokesperson told the Jewish Chronicle that BICOM’s ‘main target audiences are British journalists, politicians and other senior opinion formers’ ’
Ostensibly what this means is that:
‘All this suggests that BICOM does not necessarily aim to influence UK public opinion per se. Rather its objective is to cultivate a policymaking environment in Britain that is favourable to Israel, regardless of trends in broader public opinion. It seeks to achieve this through three principle means: building and sustaining elite support in politics and the media; isolating those who campaign against Israeli policies; and, most recently, mobilising supporters of Israel, especially in the UK Jewish community.’
A key underlying principle when it come to lobbying and public relations is having friends in high places and having friends in the right places. British and US society is highly unequal. Power is vested in a small elite. As the report points out, this power can only be realized through effective networking. And building an effective well organised network ‘must span politics, business and the media and will usually be highly organised in civil society.’ And this is where BICOM comes in.
This comes back to what was discussed at the beginning of this article, something that Lorna Fitzsimons is well acquainted with. As the report notes:
‘Fitzsimons cited the work of Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, as a model for BICOM’s communication strategy and specifically his account of how to use ‘reciprocation’ as a ‘weapon of influence’. Cialdini writes that the indebtedness we instinctively feel towards those who grant us favours is ‘overpowering’ and can therefore be ‘profitably used’ as ‘a device for gaining another’s compliance’. One of his examples is that of favours, gifts or financial support given to politicians.’
Influence is a cross party affair. Certain Labour politicians, sympathetic to the cause and connected with Labour friends of Israel have been the recipients of ‘perks’. As the report notes:
‘BICOM itself paid for three Labour Party politicians to visit Israel in 2011. It paid for Michael Dugher to visit Israel again on 5–8 June 2011 as part of the shadow defence team’s review into defence procurement and also paid for the Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy and a member of his staff to visit Tel Aviv on 6–9 June 2011. That February it paid for Stephen Twigg MP, then a shadow Foreign Office minister, to fly to Israel. Twigg, who was chairman of Labour Friends of Israel from 1998 to 2001, visited Israel and the West Bank between 4 and 8 February 2011.’
Another tactic used by BICOM is pushing positive stories about Israel in order to create a good impression, whilst at same time avoiding being critical so that it can maintain sympathetic relationships with actors, especially the media:
‘BICOM’s Israel director Jonathan Cummings has argued that, ‘Harassing the media is a counter-productive tactic, which limits dialogue,’ whilst Lorna Fitzsimons has stressed that in order to exert influence through the media it is
necessary to acknowledge that Israel does ‘make mistakes’.’
Clearly the strategy has been highly successful:
‘ ‘Bicom experts have been allowed unprecedented access to the BBC to brief the corporation’s news staff on the Middle East.’
…a BICOM spokesperson told the Jewish Chronicle that the organisation ‘had worked with broadcasters including those from the BBC’s Hardtalk, Newsround and Newsnight, as well as placing articles and offering background briefings to journalists, editors and spokespeople’.’
A leaked email from BICOM CEO Lorna Fitzsimons in 2011,that was circulated by mistake, contained revelations about BICOMs relationship with key media sources. It was noted that BBC correspondent Sophie Long had participated in a trip to Israel organised by BICOM. Apparently ‘Sophie Long got in touch with BICOM to see if we could help her out with meeting in the region. Sophie is now spending three days of her trip with BICOM Israel.’
It was also revealed that:
‘Throughout the weekend, BICOM staff were in contact with a whole host of BBC and SKY news desks and journalists, ensuring that the most objectively favourable line was taken, and offering talking heads, relevant to the stories unfolding. BICOM’s Senior Analyst Dr. Noam Leshem, briefed the BBC World News Editorial Board on Saturday afternoon regarding the fall-out from the Israel Egyptian Embassy siege.’
And it would seem that Sky News changed its narrative following its interaction with BICOM, along with other news agencies no doubt.
In 2012, BICOM launched their magazine ‘Fathom’. The objective was to present a professional journalistic front for organisation. Involved in the publication was BICOM’s Senior Researcher Alan Johnson, Efraim Halevy, former director of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad, Alan Mendoza of the UK’s Henry Jackson Society and Joshua Muravchik formerly of the Washington based American Enterprise Institute.
One of the problems of dealing with public perception is what they see on TV news. Its difficult to argue with the clear evidence being presented of an atrocity being perpetuated. In such a situation, context is everything:
‘Israel advocates during the 2008/9 assault on Gaza therefore stressed the context of the massacres, emphasising that Israel had no choice but to resort to force. Though many people were shocked by the violence displayed during Operation Cast Lead, this PR approach appears to have been largely successful in managing public understandings. A study by the Glasgow University Media Group found that only a minority of viewers blamed Israel for the killing of women and children in Gaza, whilst 63 per cent blamed either the Palestinians or both sides equally. The authors noted that:
There is a sense amongst some that the disparity between the power of each side is ‘unfair’. But what is missing from most of this audience is the Palestinian perspective… On the other hand, many elements of what is assumed to be true are exactly the points which were highlighted in Israeli public relations and reported uncritically on the news. Crucially, this can affect how audiences apportion blame and responsibility and also influence how the images of civilian casualties.’
The study noted above called More Bad News From Israel (an updated version of the original study) confirms the media bias, particularly from the BBC. This has been corroborated by further academic studies.
The report also notes the role of Rupert Murdoch’s News International (the UK subsidiary of News Corporation):
‘Murdoch has business interests in Israel and is strongly supportive of conservative Israeli politicians — he was reportedly ‘a strong political backer and close friend of’ Ariel Sharon, Israel’s hard-line former Prime Minister.
‘Journalist Eric Alterman records attending ‘a United Jewish Appeal-Federation “Humanitarian of the Year” ceremony’ for Murdoch. The award was presented, ‘I kid you not’ he wrote, by Henry Kissinger.’
According to UK chief Rabbi Lord Sacks Israel did not have ‘a better or more significant friend in the world’ in Rupert Murdoch.
There can be little doubt then of Murdoch’s pro Israel stance. Indeed according to former employee Sam Kiley:
‘Murdoch’s executives were so scared of irritating him that, when I pulled off a
little scoop by tracking, interviewing and photographing the unit in the Israeli army which killed Mohammed al-Durrah, the 12-year-old boy whose death was captured on film and became the iconic image of the conflict, I was asked to file the piece ‘without mentioning the dead kid’. After that conversation, I was left wordless, so I quit.’
An important tactic of reinforcing the narrative is isolating and discrediting detractors. This is framed as delegitimisation (of Israel). This could be interpreted as anti-Semitism, within the context of being critical of Israel.
In 2010, the Reut Institution produced the report Building a Political Firewall Against Israel’s Delegitimisation: Conceptual Framework, Version A. As Spinwatch notes:
‘It argued that ‘negation of Israel’s right to exist or of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination’ together with ‘demonisation or blatant double standards’ is a kind of ‘fundamental delegitimisation’ that ‘represents a form of anti-Semitism’.’
In response to the cultural and academic boycott, linked to the BDS movement, BICOM launched a ‘Stop the Boycott’ initiative, ‘jointly with the ‘Fair Play Campaign Group’ — itself a collaboration between the Board of Deputies
and Jewish Leadership Council founded in December 2006 to ‘coordinate activity against boycotts of Israel and other anti-Zionist campaigns’.’
Assisting BICOM with the campaign was PR firm Champollion. Champollion specialises in media affairs. It states on its website:
‘We help our clients to define and communicate their messages through print and broadcast media; from creating effective strategy through to disciplined campaign management and impactful media delivery.’
Working with populus, Champollion helped to deflect the academic boycott, as reported in PR Week:
‘In May 2007, The University and College Union (UCU) congress asked its members to ‘consider the moral implications of links with Israeli academic institutions’.
The result was ‘158 in favour of a boycott and 99 against, the union agreed to a year-long debate, in which it would consider a bar on Israeli universities.’
Outlining the plan:
‘The message of the campaign was that the proposed boycott of Israeli universities was bad for Britain, academic freedom, Palestinians and peace in the Middle East. The campaign involved working with UCU grassroots members and forming a coalition of groups and individuals from within higher education and the Jewish community. Organisations such as research university association the Russell Group and Jewish representative body the Board of Deputies joined Stop the Boycott to apply pressure on the UCU.
The plan was to make a reasonable case for active engagement with Israel to encourage the country to bring about peace in the region and statehood for Palestinians. Stop the Boycott argued that if the UCU enacted its boycott proposal, it would damage the peace process and academic freedom. The campaign was supported by high-profile figures such as Lord Melvyn Bragg and Professor Lord Robert Winston.’
Ultimately ‘the UCU announced that it had accepted legal advice that an academic boycott of Israel would be unlawful and could not be implemented.’
Spinwatch sums up the role of BICOM:
‘BICOM’s strategy is to insulate the political elite from pressure to support
Palestinian human rights. This is done especially via the media, by isolating critics of Israel and by mobilising British Jews (amongst others) in support of Israel. It is important to recognise how the attack on critics of Israel and the mobilisation of support have important mutually confirming elements. The attempt to mobilise British Jews and to dissuade critics in the Jewish community from speaking out is also very important for them as it helps to identify Jews en masse with Israel thus helps to head off criticism of Israel from non-Jews.’
As noted above in the EU lobby report, BICOM has some influence in Europe. In 2012 the Europe Israel Press Association (EIPA) was formed. Its role is similar to BICOM. Although EIPA founder Yossi Lempkowicz denied a direct relationship with BICOM, EIPA has published online material BICOM had originally published. As noted in the report:
‘Lempkowicz claimed that his cooperation with BICOM was mainly limited to ‘exchanging news, what is happening in the media in the UK’ ’
EIPA isn’t on the EU transparency register:
‘EIPA does not disclose any information about its finances. Lempkowicz would only say that it is a ‘privately-funded non-governmental organisation’. Asked why it has not signed up to the EU’s Transparency Register, he said: ‘I really don’t know.’ He also insisted that EIPA ‘is not a lobby. We do not consider ourselves a lobby.’ ’
Like other similar organisations, EIPA arranges trips to Israel for journalists. In 2014, EIPA:
‘Teamed up with the Jewish National Fund, European Jewish Association,
World Forum of Russian-speaking Jewry and the public diplomacy group known as ‘Face of Israel’, to bring journalists on an ‘intense and informative’ tour of Israel and the occupied territories, which stressed Israel’s prowess in the field of technology, according to the European Jewish Press.
The Jewish National Fund directly owns 13 per cent of the public land in Israel, most of it acquired after the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948. Over the past few years, the fund has been reaching out to influential figures in Brussels, hosting a visit to Israel by Amanda Paul, a foreign policy analyst with the European Policy Centre, a corporate financed think tank. It has also organised seminars inside the European Parliament to promote itself as an ecological organisation planting trees in the desert.’
I’ve already looked at the situation in the US in some detail with regards to the Israel Lobby. What holds true for the EU and the UK definitely holds true for the US. It could be argued that media manipulation is even more widespread in the US than anywhere else. From the perspective of the Lobby, one of the most influential Groups is the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).
Its website states:
‘Founded in 1982, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America is a media-monitoring, research and membership organization devoted to promoting accurate and balanced coverage of Israel and the Middle East. CAMERA fosters rigorous reporting, while educating news consumers about Middle East issues and the role of the media. Because public opinion ultimately shapes public policy, distorted news coverage that misleads the public can be detrimental to sound policymaking. A non-partisan organization, CAMERA takes no position with regard to American or Israeli political issues or with regard to ultimate solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict.’
Essentially CAMERA is a media watchdog that ‘systematically monitors, documents, reviews and archives Middle East coverage.’ It encourages its members to ‘write letters for publication in the print media and to communicate with correspondents, anchors and network officials in the electronic media.’
It also has a presence within academia because of the threat of ‘propagandistic assaults on Israel.’ Apparently, ‘This hostile environment can be intimidating to students seeking fair and objective information on Middle East issues.’ CAMERA was formed in 1982 by Charles Jacobs in the wake of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.
CAMERA presents a very convincing persona as a balanced objective observer of Middle East issues. But dig beneath the glossy image and a different story emerges.
Influencing social media and search engines such as Google (see above) is a tactic used a lot by lobbying groups. In 2008, CAMERA was engaged in an editing campaign on Wikipedia. Electric Intifada picks up the story:
‘A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged.
A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a “war” on Wikipedia.’
It was a clandestine campaign that was designed to quietly instill misleading and false information within Wikipedia. They also had a cover story in place:
‘Anticipating possible objections to CAMERA’s scheme, Ini conjectures that “Anti-Israel editors will seize on anything to try to discredit people who attempt to challenge their problematic assertions, and will be all too happy to pretend, and announce, that a ‘Zionist’ cabal (the same one that controls the banks and Hollywood?) is trying to hijack Wikipedia.”
To overcome obstacles, CAMRA members become ‘neutral’ editors over a period of time so that they could influence relevant debate. As to altering the content of accurate articles, EI sums up:
‘Also among the emails is a discussion about how to alter the article on the massacre of Palestinian civilians in the village of Deir Yassin by Zionist militiamen on 9 April 1948. Unable to debunk the facts of the massacre outright, the CAMERA activists hunt for quotes from “reputable historians” who can cast doubt on it. Their strategy is not dissimilar from those who attempt to present evolution, or global climate change as “controversial” regardless of the weight of the scientific evidence, simply because the facts do not accord with their belief system.
Zeq has already made extensive edits to the Wikipedia article on Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist murdered by an Israeli soldier in the occupied Gaza Strip on 16 March 2003. As a result of these and other edits Zeq has himself been a controversial figure among Wikipedia editors, suggesting his own stealth tactics may not be working.’
After EI exposed the scam, it fell apart:
‘Following EI’s report, Gilead Ini a CAMERA staffer and Wikipedia editor informed members of the group that, “Because member of this group [sic] affiliated with the anti-Israel propaganda cite [sic] Electronic Intifada decided to share the content of our discussions, I will be temporarily or permanently closing access to the group, in hopes that members’ personal contact information will not be made public.”
Meanwhile, Wikipedia administrators issued a ban on Zeq, the editor who was helping CAMERA to groom new editors to subvert Wikipedia’s quality control process. Zeq has been prohibited from editing Israel-Palestine related articles and administrators were debating further action. Based on the evidence in the emails released by EI, Wikipedia administrators accused Zeq of violating fundamental Wikipedia principles and guidelines. In response, Zeq alleged that the accusations were merely the result of a “conspiracy” which he termed “The (e-mail) protocols of the elder of CAMERA [sic].” Zeq even alleged that The EI itself “may have created the story or created the group or spoofed e-mails.” ’
Within Israel itself, the main media PR apparatus is the somewhat Orwellian Israeli National Information Directorate. Formed in the wake of the Lebanon war in 2008, The Jewish Chronicle expains the background:
‘One of the decisions taken following Israel’s failure to explain its case during the Lebanon War was the formation of a National Information Directorate within the Prime Minister’s Office, tasked with coordinating the efforts of the press bureaus in the various government departments.
The Directorate, which has been up and running for eight months, began planning six months ago for a Gaza operation. A forum with representatives of the press offices of the Foreign and Defence ministries, the IDF Spokesman Unit and other agencies held numerous meetings to decide on the message.’
What this article reveals is a well orchestrated PR initiative that is already geared up long before any offensive planned by Israel actually takes place. In other words PR planning takes place hand in glove with military planning.
Epilogue
In this report, I’ve explored the relationship between the various actors that constitute what is broadly known as the Israel Lobby, how it has developed and evolved in the wake of the Second Palestinian intifada and then subsequently in response to the emerging BDS movement.
In recent years the effectiveness of BDS has increased significantly as I’ll briefly explore here.
On its website BDS states that:
‘Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.
Israel is occupying and colonising Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes. Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law.’
The Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS was made in July 2005. Following the Gaza attacks in 2014, support for BDS began to expand. The reasons for this include the severity of the attacks compared to previous incursions by Israel, increased social media presence allowing people to push images of the ongoing massacre around the world and increasing mistrust of MSM reporting, including the emergence of alternative media sources. Suffice to say, the Israel Lobby went into overdrive in an attempt at damage limitation.
A BDS article from 2016, documents the efforts of the lobby:
‘Having so far failed to stop the rising number of concerned citizens joining the BDS movement, Israel and its lobby groups have desperately launched an unprecedented, well-funded global campaign to silence Palestinian narratives and criminalize BDS advocacy. This repressive attack is designed to disrupt attempts to hold Israel accountable for its systematic violations of international law and its regime of occupation, apartheid and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people. The Israeli government has recently allocated $26M in this year’s budget to anti-BDS activities.’
Of particular concern was the threat of a violent backlash against the organisation:
‘As Amnesty International has noted, “An especially alarming statement came from Israeli Minister of Transport, Intelligence and Atomic Energy Yisrael Katz who called on Israel to engage in ‘targeted civil eliminations’ of BDS leaders with the help of Israeli intelligence”.’
The article points out that there is also the sophisticated use of Israeli intelligence services in conjunction with other international services to monitor activities of Groups associated with BDS. There has also been attempts to outlaw BDS in various countries.
In 2016, Al Jazeera engaged in an undercover investigation that revealed the influence of the Israel Lobby in the UK, producing a series of documentaries called The Lobby. It was a groundbreaking investigation that exposed direct Israeli influence on the UK political establishment emanating from the Israeli Embassy in London.
One of the most significant developments in support of BDS is Jewish Groups coming to the fore. The Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has become an influential alternative voice for Jews in the US (and elsewhere). It 2009 mission statement states:
‘JVP opposes anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab bigotry and oppression. JVP seeks an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem; security and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians; a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on principles established in international law; an end to violence against civilians; and peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East.’
JVP has published the book On Antisemitism that seeks discourse on the distorted charge of anti-Semitism that has become the vanguard of the Israel Lobby.
Another important Jewish organisation is the International Jewish Anti Zionist Network (IJAN). Their intentions are clearly set out in their 2008 charter:
‘We are an international network of Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to struggles for human emancipation, of which the liberation of the Palestinian people and land is an indispensable part. Our commitment is to the dismantling of Israeli apartheid, the return of Palestinian refugees, and the ending of the Israeli colonization of historic Palestine.
‘Zionism — the founding and current ideology that manifested in the State of Israel — took root in the era of European colonialism and was spread in the aftermath of the Nazi genocide. Zionism has been nourished by the most violent and oppressive histories of the nineteenth Century, at the expense of the many strains of Jewish commitment to liberation. To reclaim them, and a place in the vibrant popular movements of our time, Zionism, in all its forms, must be stopped.’
In 2015, IJAN published a comprehensive report The Business of Backlash: The Attack on the Palestinian Movement and Other Movements for Social Justice, which:
‘reveals the financing behind the attacks across the United States against those who have been organizing in support of Palestine. This long awaited 124 page report, which synthesizes thousands of pages of tax returns, demonstrates that a small handful of individuals, including right-wing donors Sheldon Adelson, the Koch Brothers, Newton and Rochelle Becker, the Sarah Scaife foundation and the Bradley foundation are responsible for a huge portion of this funding. These same donors, many of whom earned their wealth from or are invested in industries that profit from war and instability in the Middle East, are involved in attacks on other progressive causes.’
I’m not going to get into a detailed discussion of the Report here. Many of the issues covered already here are analysed in depth by the report.
Suffice to say the prominence of Jewish campaign Groups fighting for Palestinian rights makes a mockery of the anti-Semitism charge. The fact that many of those citing the charge are themselves anti-Semites and confirmed racists makes it even more preposterous. There is also the fact that many of Israels most prominent critics are actually Jews, some of them Israeli Jews.
At the end of the day the assertion by Israel that it is a Jewish State is a self proclamation. There has been no provision or recognition of this what so ever by the broad religion of Judaism. The declaration of Jewish State is as much a myth as the charges of anti-Semitism.
The fact that Israel has managed to maintain its Peter Pan existence for almost 70 years with impunity is something of a miracle. But the times are changing. People are catching a glimpse of the Israeli Never Never Land and its not a pretty sight.
