Selling Operation Warm Winter

Israel's formidable propaganda mill has been working overtime to sell 'Operation Warm Winter', the Israeli Occupation Forces' moniker for that outfit's bloodiest rampage ever in the Gaza Ghetto. Despite its exquisite designation, penned no doubt by the same PR poet who gave us 'Operation Summer Rains' (June 2006), the sheer savagery of Israel's latest 'incursion' into the Gaza Strip necessitated a redoubled PR effort.

According to Israel's Ynet news.com, "Foreign Minister Livni and the executive director of the foreign minister's office have sent an official manual of PR messages...to all 97 Israeli consulates and embassies abroad...In accordance with the newly published PR manual, Israel's official representatives and spokespersons must now stress to the foreign press that 'since Wednesday of last week more than 150 rockets and missiles were fired at Israel, leaving more than 250,000 of its citizens at the mercy of incessant rocket salvos. In its efforts to protect its citizens and prevent these attacks, Israel has launched a military offensive, during the course of which Palestinian civilians are also injured. This, in spite of the great efforts and care with which IDF soldiers conduct their operations'... Foreign Ministry Spokesman Aryeh Mekel spoke to Ynet regarding this new PR campaign, and highlighted its chief talking points. 'The Palestinians fire Qassam rockets at civilian population centers, hospitals, schools and other civilian targets. The IDF, conversely, operates in Gaza with the strict aim of targeting terror groups and their infrastructure. IDF soldiers do not target Palestinian civilians, but they are sometimes inadvertently injured or killed during IDF operations, which is unfortunate." (Al-Jazeera in Israel's crosshairs, Neta Sela, 3/2/08)

The PR manual and its talking points didn't take long to reach Israel's local lobbyists and media hounds, and their message could be read on the March 4 letters page of Murdoch's flagship, The Australian. As it happens, the report cards from Hasbara Quarters (HQ) on the efforts of the following two, found their way into my hands:-

"David Knoll, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies: "...rocket attacks from Gaza against Israel...that are bringing suffering to Israeli civilians...the rocket fire escalated...Israel has responded in an effort to destroy the rocket launchers...the daily attacks on Israeli civilians...Israel's use of force...to prevent further attacks on its civilians..."

"6/10 David. It's good as far as it goes: you've framed it well, with the Palestinians eternally attacking us innocent bystanders, forcing us, ever so reluctantly, to defend ourselves, although I must say there's no special merit in getting the framing right, it's so instinctive by now that we've practically got the whole of the mainstream media acting as an echo chamber for our spin. I also liked your excellent mantra-like repetition of 'rocket attacks'/'Israeli civilians', designed to drown out completely any dim awareness of our own infinitely superior and vastly more destructive barrages, rocketings, bombings, shootings (and God knows what else state-of-the-art ordinance we're unleashing), but you didn't say anything about how terrible Israel feels about the odd, Palestinian civilian klutz who happens to get in the way of our carefully targeted, terrorist only-seeking projectiles. Look, I know it's all bullshit and it sticks in your craw, but the kudos we get for at least sounding human is worth its weight in (American) gold. So stick to the script next time, OK? Plus, and I shouldn't have to pick you up on this, you told a porkie, to whit, "Israel is using force only when all else has failed." As you and I both know, but few who read The Australian would, Hamas has a history of proposing and unilaterally observing ceasefires, which we're constantly knocking back. You can never be too careful about these things. Fingers crossed, David.

"Paul Rozental, Melbourne, Vic: "...Hamas...spoiling for a fight...Hamas has set a course to launch attacks on Israel, day by day picking off and terrorising Israeli civilians and soldiers over the border...many rockets are launched against Israel from urban Palestinian centres...civilian populations into the firing line - Israeli civilians, because the rockets are indiscriminately launched towards Israeli towns, and Palestinian civilians because to expect any country not to respond to a source of fire is unrealistic."

"7/10, Paul. Framing's fine, you've got the 'rockets' and the 'Israeli civilians' front stage, and you've included a reference to Palestinian civilians, albeit rather oblique and half-hearted, but, sorry to say, you do have a terrible tendency to overwrite, to whit, "Hamas set a course to launch attacks on Israel, day by day picking off and terrorising Israeli civilians and soldiers over the border, with the goal of grinding Israel down. [You should have stopped there, Paul, but no, you just had to go on, didn't you?] Worse, Hamas has knowingly sacrificed Palestinian lives and economy on the altar of world sympathy. The Palestinians are drunk with the success of their publicity game and blind to the abyss into which it has plunged." I'm still trying to get my head around that last bit: a "publicity game" plunging into an "abyss?!" And like David you just had to throw in a porkie, didn't you? That bit where you write that "Israel's September 2005 withdrawal from Gaza raised hopes for the dawning of two states side-by-side. But not as far as Hamas was concerned, it was spoiling for a fight. Hamas set a course to launch attacks..." Fine by me, but what if some hostile smartarse out there seizes on it and fires back a letter explaining that, no, actually Hamas had been abiding by a unilateral ceasefire for over a year and only began taking pot shots at us when provoked to do so by those Palestinian klutzes picknicking on the Gaza beach who insisted on getting in the way of some of our smart shells. We can't afford to lead with our chin in this way. Leave that to that dear old klutz, Sheridan."

Unfortunately for Australia's hasbara hacks and their kind the world over, elements in the Olmert Government are getting caught out - straying from the script and causing cracks in Israel's propaganda firewall.

It began with Interior Minister, Meir Sheetrit, reported in The Jerusalem Post on 11/2/08 as calling on the IDF to "'take off its the gloves', head into Gaza with armored tractors and raze an entire neighborhood..." (IDF should wipe out parts of Gaza) So much for keeping Warsaw Ghetto analogising at bay. I bet Sheetrit's in deepshit.

Now we've got the Deputy Defence Minister, Matan Vilnai, saying that the Palestinians were "bringing upon themselves a greater shoah [Holocaust] because we will use all our strength in every way we deem appropriate, whether in air strikes or on the ground." The propaganda mill is in damage control: "As one Israeli blog commentator put it: 'This is a disastrous case of the foot-in-mouth disease, all too common among the contemporary breed of Israeli politicians. Terrible timing, too. Mr Vilnai's camp released a statement saying the former army officer had only meant to imply a disaster. Tom Gross, a media affairs columnist for the National Review Online, said there was a major difference between a shoah and the Shoah. 'It is like confusing a 'white house' with 'the White House' he wrote." ('Shoah' an admission, Arabs say, Sydney Morning Herald, 3/3/08)

Seems like the semantic games used to explain away every slip of the Israeli mask cannot any longer hold back the rush to mind and print of World War II analogies, whether Holocaust, Warsaw Ghetto, Lidice, or concentration camp - not even in the minds and words of Israeli perpetrators themselves.