Telling Lies - The The one and only strategy of anti-Zionists

For a truthful person, demonizing Israel is difficult. How can one convincingly denounce a liberal democracy that is surrounded by despotic regimes, especially one that treats even its enemies better than the despotic neighbours treat their own citizens? How can one denounce a country that is a major contributor of humanitarian aid to the world despite being unfairly singled out and demonized by most of the world? How can one refuse Israel’s right to exist on land occupied by Jews for over three millennia? How can one not support a tiny nation that stands up to all the regional bullies? Easy: lie, then lie, and then lie some more. That is in fact the only logical strategy in this circumstance, and what’s more, because it is used at a massive and an overwhelming scale, it works!

The whole anti-Zionist enterprise is based on lies, as the Simon Wiesenthal Center has demonstrated (the lies that Israel was created by European guilt over the Nazi Holocaust, that Israel is the main stumbling block to achieving a Two-State solution, that Israeli policies are the cause of worldwide antisemitism, etc), but the lies go much further than a shaky ideological foundation. Fabrications about supposed crimes by Israel are frequent and unrelenting. Anti-Zionists clearly know that the accusations are always much more widely broadcasted than the refutations that inevitably follow sooner or later. They know that no matter how much effort is employed in defending Israel, frequent lies damage the reputation of Israel beyond repair.


Lots and lots of lies

Honest Reporting summarized five well-known and elaborate lies about Israel: the killing of Palestinian Muhammad Al-Dura, the Jenin “massacre”, the killing of seven members of a Palestinian family in Gaza Beach, fabricated stories during the 2006 Lebanon war, and the claim of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Palestinian Media Watch documented some of the lies against Israel: the lies that it spreads AIDS and drugs, that it murdered Arafat, that it plans to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque, that it steals organs from Palestinians, that it abuses prisoners, that it plans to rid Jerusalem of non-Jews, that it murders and poisons, that it seeks rule from Euphrates to Nile, and others.

One of the best known and most successful lie is the claim that Israel purposely attacked the American intelligence ship USS Liberty. This lie has absolutely no basis, but it still lingers, partly because the prize is too big to ignore: creating a rift between Israel and its most consistent ally.

Routine and habitual

Lying is a routine and automatic part of the anti-Zionist discourse. Listing all lies against Israel would be far beyond the scope of this blog. In December 2013, Barry Rubin estimated that “about 10 to 20 slanders (at least) are issued against Israel each day”. A recent lie is the false accusation that Israel tried to drown Gaza. Another recent lie is a fake picture of a Palestinian being chased by Israeli police officers. Lying about Israel has become so routine among anti-Zionists, that they often don’t even bother trying to obtain accurate information. For example, during the last war between Israel and Hamas, pictures from Syria were widely used with the claim that they came from Gaza.

Israel’s involvement is not even required in order to fabricate lies about Israel. The claim that ISIS is an Israeli invention controlled by Mossad has now travelled the world more times that one cares to count. These are in fact the most effective lies; since Israel has nothing to do with ISIS, it is impossible to present counter evidence for such claims. What can one show as evidence? A blank page?

The practice of lying is used by anti-Zionists not only against Israel but also extensively against those who dare defend it. Alan Dershowitz is a world-famous lawyer who so strongly supports human rights and especially freedom of speech that he has defended, often pro bono, the free speech of communists, Neo-Nazis, anti-Israel fanatics, and Holocaust deniers, while vehemently refuting their opinions. Yet, because he supports Israel, Dershowitz is routinely and wrongly accused of supporting torture, which is a flagrant perversion of his actual position.

High benefits at little cost

But why wouldn’t the anti-Zionists lie? After all, the President of the Palestinian Authority, in front of the whole world at the United Nations General Assembly, blatantly lied about Israel committing genocide in Gaza, and received little criticism for it. Not only do anti-Israel lies work, but they also only carry very minimal costs. In the modern world of the Internet and a mass media with lowered standards, lying is the tool of choice for those who have no legitimate claim, especially when there is already a widespread bias against the accused (Israel) and a pervasive willingness to assume the worst about its actions.

The accusation of “genocide” levelled against Israel wasn’t invented by Abbas of course. He just repeats what the legion of anti-Zionists regurgitate in social media incessantly. Despite the lack of a shred of evidence that Israel is engaged in any sort of genocide, despite the obvious idiocy of claiming genocide while the Palestinian population grows by leaps and bounds, the liars do not relent. The accusation of genocide is a powerful weapon because not only would it be a horrible crime, if it were true, but it is bound to cause pain to most Jews since practically all Jews have family who perished in the Holocaust, and they cannot bear the thought that Jews would do anything that even resembles the Holocaust.

The most popular lie about Israel is of course the accusation that it is an apartheid state. This lie is repeated often on university campuses around the world, hoping to elicit the kind of popular support that was enjoyed by the battle against the actual apartheid state of South Africa. Facts of course do not support such an accusation, but that does not stop the accusers.

The ultimate lie

The accusations of genocide and apartheid also conveniently provide anti-Zionists with seeming validation for the biggest lie of all, which is that Zionists are Nazis. Abbas does not dare repeat this lie (although he has claimed that the Zionist movement had links with the Nazis before World War II), at least not at the UN, but this lie is widely used by anti-Zionists in social media and on the Internet. Like the accusation of genocide, it has the additional effect of causing pain to Jews.

What is particularly remarkable about the anti-Zionists’ strategy isn’t only that they lie. After all, every adult has lied at one point or another. What is remarkable is that the anti-Zionists’ case against Israel is squarely and completely based on a massive and continuous stream of lies: big, small, and everything in between. If anti-Zionists were suddenly injected with a truth serum, their whole enterprise would immediately collapse like one giant house of cards.

Fighting back

To fight back, one must continue to tell the truth of course, but that is not enough. Supporters of Israel must also accept the fact that lies about Israel will continue, with as much scope and virulence as ever, just as lies against Jews have continued unabated since Jews came into existence. After all, anti-Zionists are also antisemites, and they use the same tactics against Israel as they use against Jews.

All that we can do, in addition to being ethical in the face of complete and utter immorality, is to keep Israel strong. In the end, the only reality that frustrates the liars’ extensive efforts is Israel’s tenacious and consistent strength as demonstrated by Israel’s battle cry “Am Yisrael Chai” (the people of Israel live). Let’s always remember that.



Read more: Telling lies: The one and only strategy of anti-Zionists | Fred Maroun | The Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/telling-lies-the-one-and-only-strategy-of-anti-zionists/#ixzz3T5XxLUC0
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Debunking Israel's 11 Main Myths About Gaza, Hamas and War Crimes
You've got to hand it to Israeli spinners like Mark Regev. They are masters of PR. In fact, as the Independent's Patrick Cockburn revealed over the weekend, "the playbook they are using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe".

Let's be clear: I'm no fan of Hamas, a brutal and anti-Semitic group which has been accused by Amnesty International and other NGOs of human rights abuses against the people of Gaza and of war crimes against the people of Israel. Firing rockets into civilian areas isn't justified under international law, even if it is framed as part of a (legitimate) struggle against foreign military occupation.

Having said that, however, in recent days I've been debating supporters of Israel's latest assault on Gaza on radio and on Twitter and I've been astonished not just by the sheer number of fact-free claims made by those supporters, but also by their confidence, slickness and sheer message discipline. According to the pro-Israel, pro-IDF crowd, Hamas is to blame for everything.

This, of course, is utter nonsense. To quote the late US senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."

So, in a Moynihanian spirit, here are fact-filled, evidence-based rebuttals to the 11 main myths, half-truths and self-serving 'talking points' that are repeatedly pushed by various Israeli spokespersons, both on the airwaves and on social media:
1) The Gaza Strip isn't occupied by Israel

Boston Globe: "Israeli-imposed buffer zones.. now absorb nearly 14 percent of Gaza's total land and at least 48 percent of total arable land. Similarly, the sea buffer zone covers 85 percent of the maritime area promised to Palestinians in the Oslo Accords, reducing 20 nautical miles to three." Human Rights Watch: "Israel also continues to control the population registry for residents of the Gaza Strip, years after it withdrew its ground forces and settlements there." B'Tselem, 2013: "Israel continues to maintain exclusive control of Gaza's airspace and the territorial waters, just as it has since it occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967."

2) Israel wants a ceasefire but Hamas doesn't

Al Jazeera: "Meshaal said Hamas wants the 'aggression to stop tomorrow, today, or even this minute. But [Israel must] lift the blockade with guarantees and not as a promise for future negotiations'. He added 'we will not shut the door in the face of any humanitarian ceasefire backed by a real aid programme'." Jerusalem Post: "One day after an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire accepted by Israel, but rejected by Hamas, fell through, the terrorist organization proposed a 10-year end to hostilities in return for its conditions being met by Israel, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.. Hamas's conditions were the release of re-arrested Palestinian prisoners who were let go in the Schalit deal, the opening of Gaza-Israel border crossings in order to allow citizens and goods to pass through, and international supervision of the Gazan seaport in place of the current Israeli blockade." BBC: "Israel's security cabinet has rejected a week-long Gaza ceasefire proposal put forward by US Secretary of State John Kerry 'as it stands'."

3) Israel, unlike Hamas, doesn't deliberately target civilians

The Guardian: "It was there that the second [Israeli] shell hit the beach, those firing apparently adjusting their fire to target the fleeing survivors. As it exploded, journalists standing by the terrace wall shouted: 'They are only children.'" UN high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay: "A number of incidents, along with the high number of civilian deaths, belies the [Israeli] claim that all necessary precautions are being taken to protect civilian lives." United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, 2009: "The tactics used by the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza offensive are consistent with previous practices, most recently during the Lebanon war in 2006. A concept known as the Dahiya doctrine emerged then, involving the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations. The Mission concludes from a review of the facts on the ground that it.. appears to have been precisely what was put into practice."

4) Only Hamas is guilty of war crimes, not Israel

Human Rights Watch: "Israeli forces may also have knowingly or recklessly attacked people who were clearly civilians, such as young boys, and civilian structures, including a hospital - laws-of-war violations that are indicative of war crimes." Amnesty International: "Deliberately attacking a civilian home is a war crime, and the overwhelming scale of destruction of civilian homes, in some cases with entire families inside them, points to a distressing pattern of repeated violations of the laws of war."

5) Hamas use the civilians of Gaza as 'human shields'

Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor: "I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel's accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields." The Guardian: "In the past week, the Guardian has seen large numbers of people fleeing different neighbourhoods.. and no evidence that Hamas had compelled them to stay." The Independent: "Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields." Reuters, 2013: "A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields."

6) This current Gaza conflict began with Hamas rocket fire on 30 June 2014

Times of Israel: "Hamas operatives were behind a large volley of rockets which slammed into Israel Monday morning, the first time in years the Islamist group has directly challenged the Jewish state, according to Israeli defense officials.. The security sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, assessed that Hamas had probably launched the barrage in revenge for an Israeli airstrike several hours earlier which killed one person and injured three more.. Hamas hasn't fired rockets into Israel since Operation Pillar of Defense ended in November 2012." The Nation: "During ten days of Operation Brother's Keeper in the West Bank [before the start of the Gaza conflict], Israel arrested approximately 800 Palestinians without charge or trial, killed nine civilians and raided nearly 1,300 residential, commercial and public buildings. Its military operation targeted Hamas members released during the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in 2011."

7) Hamas has never stopped firing rockets into Israel

Jewish Daily Forward: "Hamas hadn't fired a single rocket since [2012 Gaza conflict], and had largely suppressed fire by smaller jihadi groups. Rocket firings, averaging 240 per month in 2007, dropped to five per month in 2013." International Crisis Group: "Fewer rockets were fired from Gaza in 2013 than in any year since 2001, and nearly all those that were fired between the November 2012 ceasefire and the current crisis were launched by groups other than Hamas; the Israeli security establishment testified to the aggressive anti-rocket efforts made by the new police force Hamas established specifically for that purpose.. As Israel (and Egypt) rolled back the 2012 understandings - some of which were implemented spottily at best - so too did Hamas roll back its anti rocket efforts."

Hamas provoked Israel by kidnapping and killing three Israeli teenagers

Jewish Daily Forward: "The [Israeli] government had known almost from the beginning that the boys were dead. It maintained the fiction that it hoped to find them alive as a pretext to dismantle Hamas' West Bank operations.. Nor was that the only fib. It was clear from the beginning that the kidnappers weren't acting on orders from Hamas leadership in Gaza or Damascus. Hamas' Hebron branch -- more a crime family than a clandestine organization -- had a history of acting without the leaders' knowledge, sometimes against their interests." BBC correspondent Jon Donnison: "Israeli police MickeyRosenfeld tells me men who killed 3 Israeli teens def lone cell, hamas affiliated but not operating under leadership.. Seems to contradict the line from Netanyahu government."

9) Hamas rule, not Israel's blockade, is to blame for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip

US State Department cable: "Israeli officials have confirmed to Embassy officials on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.. Israeli officials have confirmed.. on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge." The Guardian: "The Israeli military made precise calculations of Gaza's daily calorie needs to avoid malnutrition during a blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory between 2007 and mid-2010, according to files the defence ministry released on Wednesday under a court order.. The Israeli advocacy group Gisha.. waged a long court battle to release the document. Its members say Israel calculated the calorie needs for Gaza's population so as to restrict the quantity of food it allowed in."

10) The Israeli government, unlike Hamas, wants a two-state solution

Times of Israel: "[Netanyahu] made explicitly clear that he could never, ever, countenance a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank.. Amid the current conflict, he elaborated, 'I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.'"

11) All serious analysts agree it was Hamas, and not Israel, that started this current conflict

Nathan Thrall, senior Mid East analyst at the International Crisis Group, writing in the New York Times: "The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement." Henry Siegman, former national director, American Jewish Congress, writing for Politico: "Israel's assault on Gaza.. was not triggered by Hamas' rockets directed at Israel but by Israel's determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honoring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy."
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/gaza-israel_b_5624401.html

Lies and more lies fed to people so they can begin to be anti Jewish as Stassi is now.
So agaian why does Hamas not build bomb shelters Stassi?

BULLSHIT, Didge !!!

I WOULDN"T TRUST any 'Zionist' as far as I could kick him..
Anymore than I could trust an Islamist, an Evangelist or a politician.


THEY LIE just as badly as any of their enemies.
IT'S the "nature of the beast".. They know no better...

OH, and I note that your reference for that trash-talking blog is an Israeli Propaganda site. Figures..

Lone Wolf wrote:

BULLSHIT, Didge  !!!

I WOULDN"T TRUST any 'Zionist' as far as I could kick him..
Anymore than I could trust an Islamist, an Evangelist or a politician.


THEY LIE just as badly as any of their enemies.
IT'S the "nature of the beast"..   They know no better...

OH, and I note that your reference for that trash-talking blog is an Israeli Propaganda site. Figures..

You trust Islamists more then Bee.
Well that is an admission then.
I don't proclaim to think Zionists have any claim, but there are not genocidal maniacs like Hamas who have vowed to wipe out the Jews and teach all children to hate and wish to kill Jews the same.
Seriously some of you lefties really have not the first clue what you are on about.
You ignore all these facts and have sympathy for an extremist group that has vowed to wipe out the Jews.
Says it all really.

Israel are NOT homicidal maniacs? This from B'tselem which is a JEWISH organisation in Israel:



You'll notice right away that the overwhelming majority of the deaths are Palestinian, and have been for the almost 14 years since B'Tselem began tracking. Overall, the group has recorded 8,166 conflict-related deaths, of which 7,065 are Palestinian and 1,101 Israeli. That means 87 percent of deaths have been Palestinian and only 13 percent Israeli. Put another way, for every 15 people killed in the conflict, 13 are Palestinian and two are Israeli. (Statistics for the past two months are from United Nations Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs.

That number is even more staggering when you consider that there are about twice as many Israelis as there are Palestinians. This means, very roughly, that a Palestinian person has been 15 times more likely to be killed by the conflict than an Israeli person. Of course the conflict impacts Palestinians and Israelis far beyond just conflict deaths, but these statistics help show how utterly disproportionate the conflict has become in its toll.

The disparity has widened dramatically over time. Since January 2005, when the conflict began to change dramatically, it has killed 4,006 people, of whom 168 have been Israeli and 3,838 Palestinian. That means that, since January 2005, only four percent of those killed have been Israeli, and 96 percent Palestinian. Since January 2005, in other words, the conflict has killed 23 Palestinians for every one Israeli it claims.

Still, even though Israelis are killed at a far lower rate than are Palestinians, that does not make Israeli deaths any less real or traumatic. Here are just the Israelis killed in the conflict



This chart shows just the 1,101 Israeli deaths in the conflict since September 2000. Of those, 744 were civilians and 357 security forces, meaning that an Israeli killed in the conflict is much more likely to be a civilian than uniformed — a legacy of the bus bombings and other terrorist attacks frequent during the early 2000s. But the most striking thing about this chart may be how dramatically the rate of Israeli deaths has declined since the early 2000s, with many months passing with no deaths at all. Here are a few bigger-picture lessons from these two charts.

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/14/5898581/chart-israel-palestine-conflict-deaths

Bearing in mind this was done in July and there have been many, many Palestinian deaths since then.

So we are backed to the death count again.
Do you really want to go here after last time Stassi
How many Israeli's have been killed an injured since its creation?

Please, pretty please go down the road of stupidity on body counts which only a left wing twat would do.