In the print edition of the New York Times today, Robert Mackey writes about a global twitter campaign undertaken by Israelis to highlight the case of the three teens who disappeared in the West Bank last week and are thought to have been abducted:
a group of Israelis trained to promote their country online started a#BringBackOurBoys campaign last week after three teenagers disappeared on their way home from religious schools in the occupied West Bank…
#BringBackOurBoys was started by graduates of the University of Haifa’s Ambassadors Online program, which was set up to train students to use the web for “hasbara,” a Hebrew term for public diplomacy. Part of their instruction, The Jerusalem Post reported in 2012, was learning how best “to use social networking sites to defend government policies” and “utilize online platforms to convey a pro-Israel message.”
Robert Mackey is an excellent reporter, but his definition of hasbara is incomplete. “Public diplomacy” makes it sound like Israelis are just encouraged to defend their country overseas– engage, speak out, advocate. Like Avi Mayer, who likes to say: “Just some guy living in Israel, trying to help advance the Jewish people and repair the world. No big whoop.”
But there’s a lot more to hasbara than that, and the practice deserves to be scrutinized. Hasbara, which comes from Hebrew for “explaining,” has come to mean chiefly propaganda: concerted and tireless efforts to pressure newspapers and governments whenever they say a word in favor of Palestinians or Arabs, efforts to swarm websites that make the same mistake. The activity is concerted, organized, and subsidized; and the organized component is partly concealed. Anyone who’s seen the regular shift changes in commenters at this site knows what I’m talking about.
New York Times readers are apparently not aware of this term, and they should be. Thanks to Mackey, we want Americans to start using the word hasbara with all its cynical implications. After all, other foreign words have entered our language because we need them– schadenfreude, apartheid, chutzpah, glasnost, to name a few. We need hasbara too. It describes a concerted form of propaganda that no one word in English captures.
Everytime Americans read a pro-Israel comment, we want them to think this might not just be some innocent soul moved to comment– though yes it may be that– but it could well be part of a propaganda campaign on behalf of the Israeli government.
Q: “hasbara,” a Hebrew term for public diplomacy.
R: Hasbara is as diplomatic as my Chihuahua is a guard dog. Lots of noise and that’s about it.
Congratulations to Mr. Mackey for writing the word– a giant leap! Explanations and definitions will be readily available to those whose interest is piqued.
An avalanche is to come….the propaganda will be exposed.
From wiki:
“Edward Said wrote that hasbara methods used during the Second Intifada included lunches and free trips for influential journalists; seminars for Jewish university students; invitations to congressmen; pamphlets and donation of money for election campaigns; telling photographers and writers what to photograph or write about; lecture and concert tours by prominent Israelis; frequent references to the Holocaust; advertisements in the newspapers attacking Arabs and praising Israel.[37]”
BUSTED in the NYT!
(PS– that is a VERY freaky picture. Who plays drums?)
Ironic that “Hasbara” is entirely the wrong term for something that tries to ‘justify’ rather than ‘explain’. Perhaps in itself epitomizing the nature of zionism.
Hasbara has been trained extensively, and their vicious minions recruited from many nations, especially from colleges, in Europe, Canada, and even in South Africa.
I have personally experienced just how mean, and how easily they deflect, lie, and attack, anyone who criticizes Israel. When I was a member of Huffingtonpost, we had many of these creatures bombard articles regarding the Middle East and Israeli affairs, and many of them, when unable to face facts, use to turn vicious and make personal insults, hoping to intimidate commenters who brought out facts about Israel’s evil occupation.
I have posted this before, but worth reminding everyone just how organized Israel’s internet “thugs” are. This video conference in 2002 shows their instructor, Neil Lazarus instruct their trainees, to ATTACK commenters, because explaining is not working, he also tells them “because we cannot always convince them, CONFUSE them.”
It shows how they operate, and what their agenda is. Those who do not know hasbara, do not know that these are trained, paid, and organized group of minions, supported by the Israeli foreign ministry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnFX8PZAPOs&noredirect=1
Here is an interesting article: Guide to hasbara trolls:
http://whitewraithe.wordpress.com/a-guide-to-hasbara-trolls/
For any government to pour in millions to train, brainwash, and attack, those who criticize it, must have committed a lot of crime, to make such a concerted effort, and spew it’s lies and propaganda to “confuse” the world, and attack those who write the facts. They are afraid the world (especially the Americans) will know the truth.
The guilty are afraid.
“After all, other foreign words have entered our language because we need them– schadenfreude, apartheid, chutzpah, glasnost, to name a few. ”
… humus, falafel, tabouleh…