Accusations of propaganda and lies in essays about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as related commentary have been thrown back and forth for years. But the treatment of critics of Israel on blogs and elsewhere reveal that there is some universality in the repeated themes and techniques used to condemn them, and it exceeds the faltering charge of anti-Semitism. It is an enlightening subject for those who, like Jonathan Cook, a freelance British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, have confronted it.
Jonathan Cook specializes in covering the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in particular. He is the author of the recent book Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is here.
The preface to Jonathan Cook’s article, The Propaganda Machine, is a small treatise on the topic of Israeli hasbara (propaganda) and its purveyors, which deserves to be shared. Although Cook mainly discusses CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, the same knowledge could be gained from a study of the GIYUS or The Israel Project sites where one can find staple defenses and rationalizations for Israel’s spotty history, its brutal actions against the Palestinian people, its military occupation and the ongoing colonialism that it supports. All of these sites, claiming accuracy or not, are purveyors of Israeli hasbara.
As cook explains in his preface,
I published an article entitled Kosher in Tehran on the (British) Guardian’s popular blogsite Comment is Free on 7 August 2007 (the same piece is archived on my own site as “Israel’s Jewish problem in Tehran”). Like most articles criticising Israel on Comment is Free, it — or rather I — was greeted with much abuse from the Israeli apologists who frequent the site. Which is one reason, I suppose, why it is worth publishing there. If the “hasbara” crowd are so determined to shout invective every time criticism of Israel appears on Comment is Free, then it is a sign either that the site is influential or, at the very least, that they think it is influential.
(Aside here, the article Jonathan Cook is referring to, which was about Iran’s 3,000 year old Jewish community, that has for the most part refused to emigrate to Israel, is available on through the link provided.)
All of which encouraged me to air on the same site some simple observations about the purpose of hasbara and its effects on the freedom of journalists, particularly in the US, to publish news and views critical of Israel. That involved mentioning my own experiences at the hands of the Israel lobby and pointing out how a well-respected newspaper, the International Herald Tribune, caved in to such pressure. I do not believe my experience is unique, or special; in fact, I know it is not.
The results, again particularly in the US, are clear: the media is profoundly fearful of allowing articles seriously critical of Israel to be published, and any journalist who dares or manages to sneak such a piece past the editors is in for a career-damaging bashing afterwards. Obviously this is an assault of the highest order on freedom of speech in the West about our support for one country, Israel, and its involvement in regional confrontations that are increasingly having global consequences. It ensures that a whole realm of US-assisted foreign policy, conducted by Israel, is entirely off-limits to debate in the mainstream American media, even more so than US foreign policy itself.
(On a related side note: the original article mentioned here, “Kosher in Tehran”, was offered by the Institute of Middle East Understanding as an op-ed to all the main newspapers in the US. Every one of them rejected it. Interestingly, an obscure web page on the Camera site that published attacks on me over two articles I published in the Tribune in 2003 and 2004 shot up the Google ranking on a search of my name. Does that mean US newspaper editors, unsure of who I was, checked first to see if the Israel lobby had had a problem with me in the past? We will never know, of course.)
Unfortunately, and with no little irony, the editors at Comment is Free excised the last part of my article, in which I discussed my own experiences, even if briefly given the length restrictions on articles. Exceptionally, therefore, I am archiving the submitted article rather than the published one. Anyone who wants to read the version on Comment is Free can do so here.
Anyone interested to learn more about my run-in with the Israel lobby can find Camera’s letter of complaint to the Tribune in 2003 and my response here.
(Aside, the article, which appeared on The Electronic Intifada, 30 August 2003 in defense of Cook is entitled, CAMERA’s half-baked attack on Cook, and was written by Nigel Parry.
The first few paragraphs read:
There has been considerable discussion over the years of the Zionist lobby’s role in putting pressure on public figures, particularly American politicians, to ensure their support for Israel. What has been much less analysed is the insidious role of the lobby in intimidating journalists and media organisations in an attempt to silence dissident voices on the Middle East.
In the rare event of articles critical of Israel breaking into the mainstream US media, a flood of denunciations from letter writers and Zionist lobby groups usually follows. Editors insist that their coverage is not affected by such tactics. But the truth is that these well-financed groups believe it is worth investing huge amounts of time, energy, and money in organising these campaigns.
Unfortunately, as far I can see, Abraham Foxman’s pro forma letter on the Anti-Defamation League’s website is no longer available in its archives.
My letter responding to the “largest mailbag in the Tribune’s history”, as the comment editor told me at the time, over the 2004 story can be found here.
The article which Cook subsequently wrote, The Propaganda Machine, will have to wait until another day.
Reprinted with permission.
