If there’s one thing Israel is good at, it’s public relations. Forget military successes – we’re down to fighting barely-armed teenagers, and not doing all that a good job at it. Forget “Silly-Con Wadi”: Much of what the Israeli hi-tech sector deals in is espionage and monitoring. The orange groves are long gone, too, replaced by pricey apartment buildings.
But we’re really, really good at is PR. None better. Remember Rhodesia? Bet you needed Google for that one. Apartheid South Africa? We started the same year, but they croaked 25 years ago. They died mostly of international hostility. The Zionist state, a good friend of both late regimes, is still around and kicking.
Of course, it wouldn’t be easy with American know-how and experience. Remember the movie Exodus? It painted an unforgettable picture of silent, strong, Aryan-looking Jews fighting the dastardly British (with the aid of an anti-British Irish exile, to boot). Then, once the battle is done, they return to their Kibbutzim. It’s one hell of a piece of a propaganda, touching on all the right themes: Hatred of British imperialism, Westerners fighting Barbarians (perhaps the oldest theme of their old), and the image of the warrior-peasant returning to the field. Shades of Cincinnatus and George Washington.
None of this was true, even at the time. Ari Ben Cannan (Lion Son of Canaan, a name so preposterous even hardcore Zionists would shudder at it), as a topos, may have existed for a while; but he hasn’t been around for 40 years or more.
If you want to think of a better metaphor for Israel, don’t think of Spartan farmer-soldiers, not just because the Spartans didn’t farm and were pretty sucky soldiers (though they did excel at PR – we’re still suffering from it), but because a better metaphor would be 1950s Alabama, with an air force.
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The basic premise of Israel, as understood by many Americans, is:
- It’s a Jewish country fighting for survival.
- The Jews here kick ass, unlike their pale, nerdy cousins from abroad.
- You don’t mess with the Zohan.
- It’s a secular, liberal country.
Wrong on all counts, but it does provide a shadow of reality. The average Israeli is xenophobic and racist (it’s a good argument of which derives from which) on a level which would make a Trump rally go pale. The racism comes from the form of Jewish Orthodoxy practiced in Israel, and yes – most Israelis are some shade of religious. Secular Jews here have belatedly understood they’re on their way to becoming an endangered species, which is why anti-secular rabbis are suddenly news. They’ve always been anti-secular, anti-women, anti-gay – but the comfortable world of the secular Jews have been shaken to the core by understanding this may be the last secular generation, so there is much whining and great gnashing of teeth.
Ah, yes – the rabbis have always been anti-Gentile, as well. But, then again, so are most of the great Israeli liberals. A useful acid test is asking them would they approve of their children marrying a non-Jew. Ask it, and wait for the uncomfortable silence. Violating the sacred blood is still taboo, it’s a terribly important one – and it is what leaves our good liberals with no effective anti-toxins against the religious right.
Most Israeli Jews haven’t spoken to an Israeli Palestinian, since we live apart, and the latter face insurmountable hurdles in renting an apartment or finding a job that will treat them decently. Jewish racism is prevalent in everyday life.
The most sacred institute is the army, even as it deteriorates and becomes a national tragedy: the army is too big for the country, and is the main reason why most of us won’t have a chance of social services when we grow old. Why does support for the army grow, even as the army fails time and again, and then demands more money?
An American friend of a friend showed me the light more than a decade ago: When I described how Israelis have been indoctrinated to fear a second Holocaust, and that they have to trust the army to save them, she said simply: “So, criticism of the army is Holocaust denial?” Bingo.
Israeli society has been described by many – including by President Rivlin, the gods preserve him – as not a society but a collective of mutually hostile tribes: Secular Jews, Orthodox Jews, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Palestinians. There are, of course, social tensions as well: A fifth of our children live under the poverty line. Israel is the second-poorest country in the OECD, after Mexico. The levels of inequality are staggering, and one of the major issues of the 2011 social justice movement was the rule of the “18 families” – an oligarchy of robber-barons, who made much of their money by influencing the government to give them all sorts of benefits.
Severe inequality, of course, is not unknown in other would-be democratic countries. The problem here, the ideal was Ari Ben Cannaan: people were supposed to make sacrifices – for instance, be conscripted for three years – but were promised equality. The Jews, anyway. Needless to say, no such equality ever existed; but under Netanyahu and Sharon, not even the illusion of equality remained, and the government stressed a libertarian economy.
But you can’t have both libertarianism and conscription, “each to his own and the devil take the hindmost” economic policy and the demands of a bloated military. So tensions rise. The Jews are then promised by the government that their Jewishness will always secure them a better place, at least officially; that’s what the Nationality Law was all about. And when you have no future and all you have is your Jewishness, racism and xenophobia rise. So does the oppression of the non-Jews. The government is corrupt to the bone? Yes, but it’s anti-Arab.
So, will we see a Palestinian Martin Luther King? Ayman Odeh tried, of sorts, last week. He said he was willing to be a partner in a Blue-White coalition. The offer was immediately shot down by Blue-White: They are going after the average-racist vote, and they can’t be seen to be consorting with Arabs.
Yet, if there will be a Dr. King, he will be facing not some Bull Connor with water hoses and attack dogs, but police and army who have been trained – indeed, raised from birth – that shooting Palestinians is not only okay, but also essential and, to some extent, their destiny. And Alabama, when all is said and done, was a part of the US. Israel is independent. And it’s very likely no one will do much if another massacre takes place.
We will still be the masters of spin, after all.
Nice work, brother.
But Israel is an empire.
Israel-USA, Israel-GB, Israel-France, etc.
‘So, will we see a Palestinian Martin Luther King? Ayman Odeh tried, of sorts, last week. He said he was willing to be a partner in a Blue-White coalition. The offer was immediately shot down by Blue-White: They are going after the average-racist vote, and they can’t be seen to be consorting with Arabs.
Yet, if there will be a Dr. King, he will be facing not some Bull Connor with water hoses and attack dogs, but police and army who have been trained – indeed, raised from birth – that shooting Palestinians is not only okay, but also essential and, to some extent, their destiny. And Alabama, when all is said and done, was a part of the US. Israel is independent. And it’s very likely no one will do much if another massacre takes place.’
The zionist state, described to a ‘T’ in under 20 paragraphs. Thank you Yossi Gurvitz – every paragraph truthful testimony to it’s pathology and criminality. What do we do now? Wait for the Martin Luther King or Abraham Lincoln? The only Lincoln the zionist state has ever had has been on a par with George Lincoln Rockwell. The zionist state is bringing back the worship of Meir Kahane, not behind closed doors either but ‘into the great wide open’, only 25 short years after Kach was banned from the Knesset.
“The levels of inequality are staggering, and one of the major issues of the 2011 social justice movement was the rule of the ’18 families’ – an oligarchy of robber-barons.”
Perhaps the earliest recorded case of the Jewish leaders oppressing the rest of their community is in the Book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah 5 describes the people of Judea complaining strenuously about their leaders economically devastating them through usurious money lending. Within the leadership it was common for a money lender to also be a rabbi, which would give them enormous authority.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/nas/nehemiah/
Regarding inter-marriage, Nehemiah 13 describes forbidding marriage to non-Jews. Jews who were already married to non-Jews were required to give up their spouses and any children from those marriages. The people wept.
Nehemiah 13 also describes how all foreigners were to be excluded from Israel, which appears to be a reversal of Moses’ earlier teaching to welcome the stranger. Barring inter-marriage and limiting association with non-Jews (and unapproved ideas), would naturally help the elite maintain a tight control over the community.
Complaints in Europe about Jewish communities were often founded in economic complaints. Instead of the Jewish financial services helping a community grow, they sometimes drained the community. Unfortunately, the communities being drained did not distinguish between the money lenders and the rest of the Jewish community.
This lack of distinction would have been enabled by the Jewish leaders directing their community to stay as isolated as possible from the others (ostensibly to preserve their purity). So the outsiders, without much of a window into the Jewish community, and the money lenders being their main window, would over-generalize from the money lenders to the rest of the Jewish community. They would assume all Jews were like the few they knew.
Today, it is clear that virtually all the so-called increase in anti-Semitism is actually an increase in anti-Zionism, fraudulently mis-labeled as “anti-Semitism”. Anti-Zionism is on the increase for a simple reason. More people are learning the facts about Israel’s 70 year campaign of terrorism, mass murder, and robbery against the innocent indigenous people of Palestine. And they easily see the huge injustice being done to the Palestinians by the Israeli “robber barons”.
Gurvitz helps to understand the remarkable success of the Greater Israel enterprise. Many professional organizations and think tanks complement media manipulation and constitute a very effective PR effort that prevails in America’s political system of competing interests.
Public relations and American politics are obviously studied. If Palestinian Universities are not currently offering these disciplines, they should consider doing so. Many years ago Arafat bowed to pressure to engage a PR firm but that wasn’t his cup of tea. The guy consulting with Arafat said, “He won’t listen to a thing I say.” Wondering about Abbas.
Perhaps someday there will come a Dr. King insisting on non-violence, turning the cheek and equal rights under the law. All Israelis may not be able to rise above personal entitlement but most do respect the rule of law.
“Israel” defined:
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-if-there-s-such-a-thing-as-a-murderous-culture-then-it-exists-in-israel-1.7765199
“If There’s Such a Thing as a Murderous Culture, Then It Exists in Israel”
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, August 29/19
“This is what the editor of Haaretz’s Culture and Literature supplement, Benny Ziffer, wrote on his Facebook page upon returning from paying a condolence call in the settlement of Ofra: ‘En route I looked at the Palestinian villages alongside the Jewish communities, and I thought of how for the Palestinians murder is a type of sport or enjoyment, perhaps a substitute for erotica. From that perspective we will never have anything culturally in common with them.’
“And if that weren’t enough, Ziffer also wrote, ‘Regarding this evil and undignified people living among us, we can only yearn for the land to vomit it out, because it isn’t worthy of this land, which is full of Jewish blood that it has spilled.’
“His post generated no comment. Ziffer has apparently exhausted his allotted attention. By contrast, Yaron London succeeded in raising a bigger momentary storm with less serious remarks: ‘Arabs are savages … they don’t only hate Jews, they kill their own first and foremost.’
“More than one straight line connects London and Ziffer. Their comments reflect the spirit of the times in Israel.
“Both were once considered leftists; the unbridled right still considers London to be one. Both are extraordinarily talented, brilliant intellectuals, of enviable erudition. Sometimes it’s tempting to say that because of their rare media talent their remarks should be forgiven, lest we be left with Ayala Hasson and Yaakov Bardugo. In contrast to their images as avant garde, they express what many people think, not to mention the majority opinion in Israel, which only the rules of political correctness keep from breaking out into the consensus.
“More than they are racists, London and Ziffer are disseminating lies. I was sitting in London’s studio when he said his piece; I tried to respond in real time but to no avail. So I will try here.
“We examined the past decade; those murderous, bloodletting Palestinians, have since January 2009 killed 190 Israelis. How many Palestinians were killed by Israel, the seeker of peace and goodness, which will never have anything culturally in common with the Arabs? Some 3,500. Israel was 18 times more murderous. Was it for sport? Erotic pleasure? Of course not, but the blood speaks: Israel draws far more of it.
“Is it permitted to say that it’s Israeli culture to spill blood wholesale? According to London, yes. There is something called national culture, even if it’s a culture of killing. But when one speaks about genetic characteristics, it’s racism. One can even generalize, as London said, a generalization will always be unjust to the individual and the exceptional. But it has to based on reality, and the reality is that the enlightened whites have, in the past 100 years, massacred more people than all the Muslims and savages combined. Not only were Hitler and Stalin not Muslims, since World War II the United States, the land of the free, is guilty of more killing than any other country. Most of its mass killers are decidedly non-Muslim.
“Someone who generalizes isn’t necessarily a racist. But he may turn out to be a liar. If there’s a culture of killing, it actually exists in Israel. Soldiers and policemen who shoot to kill as a first choice testify to a warped morality. Fear, hatred, self-pity, the security cult, dehumanization and an itchy trigger finger are all Israeli cultural traits that lead to this mass blood-letting, but woe unto anyone who dares define Israel as having a murderous culture. He’d be condemned as an anti-Semite. The Palestinian people, on the other hand, are one of the most restrained people in history in its violent resistance to occupation and injustice. That’s the truth, there’s no denying it.
“Israel actually likes cultural and national generalizations, especially when they glorify its image. The ‘Jewish genius,’ ‘the chosen people,’ ‘Jewish morality,’ and ‘eternal Israel,’ are evidence of baseless arrogance. Ziffer has every right to think that the Palestinians enjoy murder and London can think they are savages compared to us, the enlightened and developed. It is our right (and duty) to answer them: There are no lies more abominable than these.”