Check this out. Israel 21c is a pro-Israel p.r. organization. "A Focus Beyond," its motto, says it all.
ISRAEL21c – a New Paradigm for Pro-Israel Communications
ISRAEL21c’s mission is to focus media and public attention on the 21st century Israel that exists beyond the conflict.
Its board is headed by a former president of AIPAC, Amy Friedkin, and includes Cheryl Fishbein, of the UJA Federation, the big Jewish community/pro-Israel organization. From the looks of it, it's a transnational organization too. Now look at Israel 21c's youtube channel. You see a piece on how Israelis are happier than other people.
Well guess who's working with Israeli 21c? CNN. It runs newsish Israel 21c reports, like this one about environmentalists at the Dead Sea. (Maybe that's why I saw Aaron Cohen, an Israeli SWAT team guy, on CNN all afternoon the other day during the hostage crisis?) Israel 21c brags:
It was only last year that CNN accepted ISRAEL21c as an affiliate of its World Report program. Since then, we are proud to report an impressive 15 news features produced by ISRAEL21c that have appeared on CNN, reaching millions of viewers worldwide...
[O]ther features that have appeared earlier in the year include a piece on Hebrew University's new approach to learning, by treating passengers travelling on the Israel Rail Service to a series of lectures by the institution's top scientists.
Other encouraging stories chosen by CNN this year describe a mixed Jewish-Arab choir that practices its message of coexistence out loud, and a group of Palestinian and Israeli midwives working together to ensure that pregnant mothers in Israel and the Palestinian territories have safe and natural births.
Rather than portraying Israel as a place of conflict and strife, these stories have highlighted Israeli accomplishments in science and technology, arts and culture, and philanthropy.
They depict what ISRAEL21c works to reveal - the true, myriad faces of Israel, beyond the conflict.
Heck, any news organization gets tips from propaganda orgs. We do. But to publish them directly without indicating as much? Your media... your Israel lobby... working hand in glove.
I wonder if CNN’s Situation Room Kingpin, that ex-Israeli reporter with the intense stare of a furious [expletive deleted] (Hi Wolf) will give this the rigorous examination it needs? No need to reply to this rhetorical question, of course.
Wolf Blitzer and Norman Finkelstein in 1989
link to youtube.com
Blitzer is as vile and a liar as he is today. Not much has changed in the last 20 years.
That video only shows that the same talking applied by Israeli hasbara have always been just that, talking points, detached from the reality on the ground.
It’s also interesting to hear Blitzer’s racist self-congratulatory celebration of Zionism. This is the same scumbag who wasn’t even born in the holy land and who pretends as though he and his overlords have an inalienable right to it. All the while, he ignores the fact that Israel was built on the backs, sweat and blood of Palestinians.
How much more self-entitled can a despicable creature become? I guess we know the answer to that question.
I’m glad Professor Finkelstein was there to shine a light onto Blitzer’s lies, obfuscations and spin. Blitzer reminds me of RW – same tactics, same rhetoric.
Oh, jezuss. The ultimate branding coup for Israel? Take over CNN World Report? That’s like Hill Knowlton producing US News as an arm of BBC World.
In fact, that’s not too different from what Hill Knowlton actually did to create the Persian War ( Read Second Front by John MacArthur, publisher of Harper’s and Ben H. Bagdikian, dean of J School at Berkeley…will take your breath away.)
Not to sound like Witty or wondering jew, but… this is news?
This happens all the time, and has been the case for decades.
Still, don’t get me wrong, it’s vital to hang a lampshade on specific incidents like this. I’m only being facetious because I’ve been in a bad state lately and need some levity. ;)
Here’s my problem. “[O]ther features that have appeared earlier in the year include a piece on Hebrew University’s new approach to learning, by treating passengers travelling on the Israel Rail Service to a series of lectures by the institution’s top scientists.”
If this is true, and I guess it is, it makes me wish America could emulate some of the best aspects of Israel. Propaganda? Maybe. But if it’s true, it makes me jealous.
Why can’t the damned government just pull back from those territories it has no right to and let the Palestinian people go?
MRW, my breath was taken away back then and still remember (thanks to 20/20) the Hill Knowlton master con with the televised Senate hearing that had the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter impersonate a nurse sobbing in for the Senators about having witnessed the babies left on the floor by the Iraqi soldiers to cart off the incubators. It was Hill Knowlton’s clincher that had the American public (including me) clamoring for an attack on Iraq. I still haven’t gotten over how the American government lied to its people. Most here were probably too young back then to know what I’m talking about.
That’s why CNN’s ratings are plunging so precipitously. High-octane Israeli hasbara disguised as “news.”. Maybe they could merge with the NY Times and they could go halfies on the bankruptcy filing as intensely biased news media continue to los any scintilla of objectivity. Drudge Report trumpeted that the evening news broadcasts collectively hit an all-time low this summer. It’s not simply that news has become a freebie on the Internet, it’s also that everyone knows you can’t trust the MSM in any way, shape or form.
Most cynically, it’s the people from outfits like Israel 21c who’ve known this all along . . . The Internet savvy are just waking up to the mass distortion.
Contact CNN
link to cnn.com
Conflict? What conflict? Do they mean the occupation – the one-sided oppression? When did that become a conflict? “Conflict” insinuates that the other party has an equal or comparable share in the wrongdoing. But you tell me, does the daily Palestinian wrongdoing equal even a modicum of the daily Israeli wrongdoing?
This is why Israel’s PR strategy will eventually collapse – because the strategy is heavily flawed. The internet is the best source of education in the world today and whitewashing Israeli crimes with words like “conflict” and security “fence” and “closed military zones” is insulting the audience’s intelligence. People appreciate honesty and when they know you are lying to them they are no longer interested in what you have to say. The lobby is all about PR. And the best/only way to beat the lobby is with counter-PR on an equal if not greater scale.
Back to the mission statement: “…focus media and public attention on the 21st century Israel that exists beyond the conflict” says, to me anyway, looking past the occupation, Israel is actually a remarkable place. That’s just like saying ‘looking past the fact that he’s a serial rapist who has caused misery and suffering to many, many, women, Joe’s actually quite a decent chap.’
Anyone who’s been watching CNN’s news reporting over the last decade has seen its turn towards the dark side.
I would take that a step further and say that from its very inception, CNN was the lap dog of the establishment, providing nothing but propaganda and sensationalism. CNN’s claim to fame came in 1991 when during the Gulf War, it provided General Swartzkoff with a platform from which to spread his propaganda. That became the hallmark of 24/7 news channels. They became transcribers of the elite, pumping unchallenged lies through the airwaves (or in CNN’s case through copper wire).