AANS: ''Explosive (not really): Israeli propaganda campaign''

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: Explosive (not really): Israeli propaganda campaig...: "'Declassified files from a Senate investigation into Israeli-funded covert public relations and lobbying activity in the United States were..."

AANS is for the Angry Arab News Service

Flotilla Audios Doctored By Israel And Reported As Facts By The Israeli Press

From Max Blumenthal.

The IDF’s propaganda is increasingly unbelievable, yet the media is enthusiastically playing along. This audio, which purports to show flotilla passengers telling the IDF to “go back to Auschwitz,” appears to have been doctored by the IDF General Press Office or someone connected to it.

Israel Admits It Altered Flotilla Audio.

BUT THER CLARIFICATION IS ANOTHER LIE writes Max Blumenthal.

Did Israel deliberately murdered civilians aboard Freedom Flotilla?

From this detached account of facts by the Free Gaza team, it looks like Israel deliberately murdered civilians aboard the Freedom Flotilla. This is why they don't want an international investigation, and this is why, having confiscated all video recordings by the journalists that were on the ships, they are able to broadcast their own story, so much fabricated that it is altering their sense of reality...

Photo credit

Hamas Or No Hamas: From The Moment It Withdrew From Gaza Israel Wanted War

By Chris McGreal, The Guardian

Buttu says that from the day the Israelis withdrew from Gaza, they set about ensuring that it would fail economically. "When the Israelis pulled out, we expected that the Palestinians in Gaza would at least be able to lead some sort of free life. We expected that the crossing points would be open. We didn't expect that we would have to beg to allow food in," she said.

Buttu notes that even before Hamas was elected three years ago, the Israelis were already blockading Gaza. The Palestinians had to appeal to US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, to pressure Israel to allow even a few score of trucks into Gaza each day. Israel agreed, then reneged. "This was before Hamas won the election. The whole Israeli claim is one big myth. If there wasn't already a closure policy, why did we need Rice and Wolfensohn to try to broker an agreement?" asked Buttu.

Yossi Alpher, a former official in the Mossad intelligence service and an ex-adviser on peace negotiations to the then prime minister, Ehud Barak, said the blockade of Gaza is a failed strategy that might have strengthened Hamas. "I don't think anyone can produce clear evidence that the blockade has been counterproductive, but it certainly hasn't been productive. It's very possible it's been counterproductive. It's collective punishment, humanitarian suffering. It has not caused Palestinians in Gaza to behave the way we want them to, so why do it?" he said. "I think people really believed that, if you starved Gazans, they will get Hamas to stop the attacks. It's repeating a failed policy, mindlessly."

On This Blog: Israel disdained the latest truce offered by Hamas

Treating Palestinians and Arabs in contempt and dealing only with those among them who are submissive, extracting from them humiliating concessions while continuing to expand illegal settlements, taking more land, more from Jerusalem, more from this, and more from that, one may wonder what are Israel and the US, the mightier, gaining with this strategy ? The rage of those who are weaker ? Their defeat ? No, not only this. What we are witnessing with this strategyis the progressive transformation, with frightening meticulousness, of a situation that could be potentially negociated into an explosive, unmanageable one.

The intentional derailing of peace in the ME.

Me, my neighbour, Israel, and the Palestinians

I have a dog. I have been walking this dog for more than ten years now in a neighbourhood park every morning. Over these years,I have got to know so many wonderful people with dogs. We developped friendships, shared our domestic stories, discussed film, culture, politics, and everything else.

Many of the people I know in this park are Jewish and most of them are very careful when discussing with me ME politics, as I am with them. But one of them, whom I see sporadically, sent me the following chain email yesterday (I am not reproducing the entire email):

this is very upsetting, please read.
----- Original Message -----
From: --------
To: ----------
Sent: November-25-08 2:16 PM
----- Subject: Fw: UN to Mourn 60 Years of Israel's Existence

UN to Mourn 60 Years of Israel 's Existence Anne Bayefsky - Nov 21,
2008 Eye on the U.N.


NEW YORK - This Monday, November 24th, the UN will commemorate its annual
International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People with a film
depicting Jews as Nazi-equivalents and a public exhibit mourning the sixty
years of Israel 's existence.

"The event is an annual reminder that the UN's real agenda is to
delegitimize the birth - and the perseverance - of the state of Israel ,"
said Anne Bayefsky, Editor of EYEontheUN.org.
...
As in years past, there will be a formal meeting Monday morning of the
Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a film, an
afternoon meeting of the General Assembly on the "Question of Palestine,"
and the opening of a public exhibit in the entrance to the UN's New York
headquarters.
...
The General Assembly is scheduled to adopt another six resolutions
condemning only Israel for violations of human rights. The total number of
resolutions criticizing Israel expected to be adopted at this fall's General
Assembly is 20, as compared to only four resolutions critical of human
rights records in any of the remaining 191 UN member nations.

The 2008 installment of what is in essence a repeat of the "Zionism = Racism
allegation, will be the public showing of the film "La Terre Parle Arabe"
or "The Land Speaks Arabic." The film draws parallels between the Nazis'
final solution and the alleged Zionist design for Palestinians. It is commonly billed with these words: "...the late-19th century Zionists...drew up plans, put them into practice, then...used... force, often brutal."
...
The exhibit to be opened at 6 p.m. on Monday in the UN lobby - the public
entrance through which school children from across the United States and
tourists from around the world pass every day - is entitled "The Palestinians: 60 years of struggle and enduring hope." Bayefsky comments: "The "sixty years" of struggle is telling. It puts a lie to the alleged root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict as an "occupation" that began with the 1967 war. The real complaint is the alleged wrong of the creation of the State of Israel itself." She adds: "The carefully selected word "struggle" also speaks volumes. What the UN glorifies as a struggle is a series of wars launched by Arabs to annihilate the state of Israel beginning in 1948, and the ongoing "struggle" of Palestinian and other Arab terrorists dedicated to the same end."
...
"Anyone hoping to see an Israeli flag flown in addition to a Palestinian
one in celebration of the UN partition plan that approved a two-state
solution, should not hold their breath," said Anne Bayefsky, Editor of
EYEontheUN.org. She continued, "the UN tradition of mourning the creation of
the state of Israel continues."

----- End -----

For many Jews who will not be able or willing to check the truth, this is the kind of propaganda they receive in their mailbox.

I waited 24 hours before I decided that I was not going to tell this acquaintance the truth. If I do so, she won't believe me. But I did not want her to keep sending me this kind of propaganda. This morning I sent her the following mail:

Thank you for the message and the article. As you know I am from a Lebanese origin. Although I am 100% for the existence of Israel, I am not insensitive to the plight of the Palestinians. Because I value, above politics, our mutual understanding, I am asking you not to send me again this kind of message.

No hard feelings.

Love,

Hassan Nasrallah poisoned: Haaretz spreading false rumours again

At least that's what Haaretz is claiming today, that Hezbollah's leader was poisoned last week and was in critical condition.

Haaretz's source is an Iraqi website Almalaf. And Almalaf sources are western diplomats in Beirut as well as workers at international Beirut airport who noticed a team of 15 Iranian doctors 3 days ago with heavy equipment coming out from a Russian made plan Antonov 74 that landed at 11 p.m. on sunday.
And then the report goes on to claim that the same diplomatic sources told Almalaf that Nasrallah could have been shuttled to Tehran if Iranian doctors were not going to be able to save his life. The same sources reported also that they suspect that Israel is at the origin of the attempt.

Now I can't go on and translate the amount of non sense contained in Almalaf on the nature of the poison and the way Nasrallah was poisoned...on which Haaretz's report is based with some translation errors as to the time of the arrival of the Iranian doctors at Beirut's airport.

The story has no serious sources. Western diplomatic sources and airport workers reporting on two different aspects of the narrative, Nasrallah's illness and airport activity, something that cannot be cross-checked in any possible way. In addition, who would believe that Nasrallah's health would depend on doctors in Iran, and not right beside him ? And why transport Nasrallah to Tehran if heavy equipment was brought in to save him ? The whole story transpires nonsense and sensationalism.

The only attempt made by Almalaf to check the information was to call Hezbollah's secretary general who denied the story stating that Nasrallh was fine, even though, insists Almalaf, he didn't see him last week ! Almalaf claims that it is hard to verify the information given the lack of transparency in information coming from Hezbollah and that the party would never aknowledge such a thing especially since the assassination of one of his own, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus.

In a nutshell, Almalaf is just throwing a story, reverberated by Haaretz, or is it the other way around ? The story was planted in Haaretz from internal sources and offered under the disguise of western diplomatic sources and airport workers to Almalaf ?

In both ways, the story could have at least two purposes:
1. Provoke a reaction from Hezbollah as to Nasrallah's whereabouts. One may think that the party of God is not naive but it may engage in a press reaction just to dissipate doubts about its leader's health;

However, in my opinion, the most important aspect of the story is this:

2. Distract Shia in Iraq from the fact that Iraqi-born Lebanese Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah who is a top Shia cleric in Lebanon and a respected and esteemed figure among shias in Iraq wrote an edict against the coming US-Iraqi security agreement calling it 'legitimization of the US occupation' while the local top cleric Ali Al-Sistani did not come against it nor expressed himself openly on the subject. The Haaretz article mentions that the Saudi Al Watan has announced that the Iranian speaker of parliament Ali Larijani will meet Hezbollah's leader next week and convey to him Sistani's position on the US-Iraqi security agreement. For that matter read here 'Iraq won't sign US deal'.

And of course, not one single serious news source has published the story, except Haaretz, Almalaf, and exclusively other Israeli news sources like the Jerusalem Post.

Coming from Almalaf, the propaganda is understandable, but why Haaretz is spreading the rumour ? This is not the first time Haaretz engage in spreading propaganda for the state of Israel and its allies, through manipulative and unprofessional journalism.

UPDATE: Well, at last, Haaretz is maybe trying to repare its reputation because when I said not one serious source published the rumour, that was true even days after it was published by Haaretz.

Thanks Annie for this update.

Israel hires PR firm on 60th birthday for a political facelift

Acanchi, which has built its reputation on altering international perceptions of nations such as Lebanon and Bahrain, has been contracted to counter anti-Israel "mindsets". "Our research shows that Israel's brand is essentially the conflict," Ido Aharoni, head of the brand management unit within Israel's foreign ministry, told Israeli daily, Haaretz.

"Even those who recognise that Israel is in the right are not attracted to it, because they see it as a supplier of bad news. The conclusion is that it is more important for Israel to be attractive than to be right," he said.

Typical Israeli propaganda

From Angry Arab:

Typical Israeli propaganda chicanery.

A more insidious one, the Bad News Blogs project: Advertising on blogs bad news about countries who are thought to have a bias against Israel.