The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs enlarged its budget for the "Brand Israel" campaign last year to an unprecedented 100 million Shekels (over $26,260,000). In an article entitled "Will we conquer the world?", translated by PULSE media, Globes found out that the Ministry's PR activity would focus on the internet, especially on social networks.
Is.Real 2011 has its own website and Facebook page, and purports to show the "real and authentic Israel". It is a "project initiated by a select group of students from Tel Aviv University who participate in the StandWithUs Fellowship". The Fellowship program "works on behalf of StandWithUs in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israeli Student Union." StandWithUs then have the gall to add that they are a-political and non-partisan. The StandWithUs organisation most recently released its 'Flotilla Facts' about the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza that include typical hasbara such as, "The flotilla organizers intend to aid and support Hamas" and this nugget, "International statistics indicate that Gazans have a higher standard of living than people in nearly all of Africa, including South Africa".
One of the participants of Is.Real 2011 is a Christian Arab Israeli (Palestinian citizen of Israel), Ayman, who was "born and raised in the village of Yassif", is into fashion, and is unashamedly camp. Also crucially, there is a gorgeous blonde: Savannah is an Australian singer-songwriter who made Aliya to Israel, while Yair grew up in a religious family in the illegal West Bank settlement of Beit Horon. Meanwhile, Shay, "the most prominent and successful female basketball player in Israel" is the perfect cultural ambassador for Israel. Indeed, they are all just that, as conveyed by the not-very-funny Professor Puppet (below). This is how you sell apartheid Israel to an increasingly critical foreign traveller and international viewer, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs knows it. That is why the docu-reality series appears to be either in, or subtitled in English.
Time to pull out the old “Apartheid IsReal” posters Law Society produced for the WCAR conference in 2001.
Cute, but it won’t work.
Sexy young people trying to look like sexy young people from Europe. Meanwhile, the UN report on the flotilla is abotu to shred StandWithUs’s “flotilla facts”.
BTW. Whatis it we’re supposed to stand with you against?
BTW. Whatis it we’re supposed to stand with you against?
JVP members like me?
JVP members like me?
And me?
“Professor Puppet.” How unintentionally appropriate and demonstrative.
Good observation Chaos.
Though they should have called him Senator Puppet, Congressman Puppet, or President Puppet.
Both my parents were born in Kfar Yasif and I’ve been there many times, on long and short visits. I was also married there, at my parents’ Greek Orthodox church.
One of the shots in the video of “Ayman” looked like it probably was Kfar Yasif, but it only lasted for a brief second. I think they showed a brief clip from Kfar Yasif and then showed longer ones from where he currently lives.
I didn’t recognize his (Hebrew) accent and mannerisms as being native to the village or the area, though. Anyone who has spent a lot of time in Galilee will tell you that the accents and mannerisms of the Palestinians there are different than Palestinians who live elsewhere.
I have a hard time believing that someone from Kfar Yasif would participate in this propaganda. Kfar Yasif has historically been one of the most fiercely independent locales in Israel. It is also fairly diverse (about 57% Christian, 40% Muslim and 3% Druze) and progressive. From wikipedia:
I personally don’t think Ayman is an Israeli-Arab from “Yassif.”
Thanks Haytham for the insights. Do you think there is a way of verifying this information through contacts in Kfar Yasif?!
I personally don’t think Ayman is an Israeli-Arab from “Yassif.”
me neither. i watched his segment. i don’t have any proof i just found it completely unconvincing and unrepresentative of palestinian israeli youth.
Does the show have a gay rights parade ?
the problem with Zionism is it needs too much effort. And in Web 2.0
there aren’t enough Zionists to pull it off.
“Israeli Foreign Ministry launches social media hasbara campaign featuring cute yellow puppet called ‘Hans von Puppet’”
Given the repeated denials on MW of Israel as being essentially a European colonial project, it is rather interesting that the puppet used by the Israelis to show that they are “real people” is German.
You got it woody – them names sure are so mideastern sounding that I’m having a real hard time pronouncing them.
Is.Real.Hasbara 2011
Ynet has it right
Lunatic fringe powerless
link to ynetnews.com
Au contraire mon ami, it is the hasbara Brand Israel campaign, which will not get far by basing its entire effort on a brazen, malicious lie that Israel is a healthy, liberal democracy – enjoy reading New Discriminatory Laws and Bills in Israel by the Adalah Centre
“Lunatic fringe powerless”
As was the lunatic fringe in the US calling for the end of Apartheid through divestment, circa 1977. Thirteen year later it was gone, and a few years later Mandella was being inaugurated as the first free President of South Africa.
lli, 26 million seems like an exorbitant amount of money to be investing in israel’s promotion. why do you think they are bothering if their detractors are just a few on the ‘lunatic fringe’? also, why do you think it requires lying about their detractors? they’d be more convincing if they didn’t take the ad hominem approach.
‘gang of jew haters’! btw, the opening of your article is instructive:
they should contact reut and the ifm, it was reut who came up w/this ‘myth’ and coined the term ‘deligitimize’. we don’t need to delegitimize israel because israel does it for us. all we need to do is expose the tactics. it makes it so much easier w/reports of 26 million dollar campaigns to counter balance a ‘non threat’. as i recall reut said our efforts were as threatening as a military threat against israel. does the reporter for ynet really think we’re all going to forget that. or maybe they assume their readers never heard of reut and their report for the goi.
interesting tho. keep saying it, i won’t make an iota of difference. apartheid sucks , israel image sucks. it’s gonna take a hella more than 26 million to change that, it’s going to take ending the occupation. you can’t buy advertising to erase oppression and apartheid. people just are not that stupid.
another awesome report from eleanor, really kickin’ some butt around here lately.
Yellow muppets/puppets powerful. And neccesary.
Weird, ugly puppet with frown and evil eyes. The backward “E” in IS.real stands for BACKWARD. As usual Israel’s attempt to seduce and dupe is a cheap failure.
Zionists can try to put lipstick on a pig and it’s still A P A R T H E I D!
While they withhold Palestinian money, seize their assets and try to starve them, they spend $26m on the tackiest, unconvincing childish rubbish which won’t be believed by anyone. If anything it proves how stupid they think people are, and how they have no idea of other people’s lives or beliefs. Like their laughable attempts at Youtube fake videos, it is crassly ignorant and risible. And yet they believe the problem is just one of propaganda. Dummies.
real oppression. real Apartheid.
real war crimes. real land-theft.
This could be fun…
hella real is all i can say. glaringly real. but it sure ain’t pretty. cute little aussie girl used as lipstick for the pig. smmmmoooch, ugly breath.
Can anyone confirm the real life existence of these people? The emphasis appears to be on the word “real,” which of course, makes me have doubts.
Oh- will this be another Marc, the gay activist???? I can’t wait!
::grabs popcorn and snuggie::
So Israel has devolved into a bizzare mixture of ‘Crank Yankers’ and ‘The Man Show’?
hahaha because imitating anything Adam Carolla does demonstrates one’s commitment to tolerance and diversity.
This “documentary” looks so goddamn fake it’s embarassing. Nice try Israel