[Salon] ItWasn’tUs: How Israel can triumph over a hasbara disaster - Israel News - Haaretz.com

[Todd Pierce <tepierce@outlook.com>]

Horrible! Palestinian caskets attacking Israeli police batons! Little wonder that for Trump’s extreme support for Israeli police batons, Miriam Adelson wanted to name a book of the Bible for him.  
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> https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-how-to-triumph-over-an-hasbara-disaster-1.10800588?utm_source=traffic.outbrain.com&utm_medium=referrer&utm_campaign=outbrain_organic <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-how-to-triumph-over-an-hasbara-disaster-1.10800588?utm_source=traffic.outbrain.com&utm_medium=referrer&utm_campaign=outbrain_organic>
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> ItWasn’tUs: How Israel Can Triumph Over a Hasbara Disaster
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> Noa Landau </misc/writers/WRITER-1.4969059>May. 15, 2022
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> As I watched the broadcasts of the funeral of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, I immediately realized that what seemed like an innocent funeral procession was no less than a PR disaster. And that’s just what I told my husband: This, Moshe, is a real Hasbara disaster, consciousness terror.
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> With our own eyes we saw how her coffin perpetrated an attack on the police batons at the scene
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> With our own eyes we saw how her coffin perpetrated an attack  <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-israe-police-violence-at-al-jazeera-journalist-s-funeral-reveals-a-deep-problem-1.10799268>on the police batons at the scene, and that was without broadcasting what the coffin had done before that, and how despite Israeli restraint, Jewish sovereignty was undermined by the waving of flags and singing. And despite all the provocations – i.e., the way in which the Palestinians force us to kill them <https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israeli-police-launch-stun-grenades-at-palestinian-journalist-s-funeral-procession-1.10797839> and then also to ruin their funerals – I said to Moshe: What Israel did there might have been right, but not smart! After all, the eyes of the world …
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> And so, as an expert in designing and shaping awareness, with experience in small-scale narrative combat, I decided to enlist in the battle for public opinion, and to offer some tips to win the state’s image war, which follow:
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> 1. “Sow doubt.” If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the best of the propagandists, it’s the importance of sowing as much doubt as possible regarding the facts. After all, there’s no longer any importance to the truth. We killed, we didn’t kill. The narrative has already been determined. How did Channel 12’s Amit Segal put it? “In a certain sense it doesn’t matter at all who shot her <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-shireen-abu-akleh-was-the-voice-of-a-palestinian-generation-1.10794392>.” Or, in a similar vein, as his colleague Dana Weiss said: “From the moment it happened, it didn’t matter who fired the shot and what took place.”
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> Clashes with police erupt at Palestinian journalist's funeral procession </israel-news/.premium-israeli-police-launch-stun-grenades-at-palestinian-journalist-s-funeral-procession-1.10797839>
> Shireen Abu Akleh was more than a journalist. She was a Palestinian symbol </middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-shireen-abu-akleh-was-more-than-a-journalist-she-was-a-palestinian-symbol-1.10793083>
> Israeli police violence at Al Jazeera journalist's funeral reveals a deeper problem </israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-israe-police-violence-at-al-jazeera-journalist-s-funeral-reveals-a-deep-problem-1.10799268>
> And so we agree: It’s not important what happened. <https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-in-the-investigation-into-shireen-s-death-too-no-one-will-be-found-guilty-1.10794014> Maybe a Palestinian who was hundreds of meters away shot her? Maybe. It’s important to sow doubt as quickly as possible (insert it into the news cycle asap!) – and not to forget to feed the social media. We might change our version later, because it turned out that there was actually an Israel Defense Forces soldier there who fired his weapon in her direction. But so what if that’s what happened? And after all that, Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai still dared to claim that “Israel's credibility is not very high”? For shame.
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> 3. “Fake empathy.” As the daily Israel Hayom wrote: “Israel must convey empathetic messages, especially when it’s about a journalist with U.S. citizenship.” As for Palestinians who are not Americans, by the way, no need to even bother.
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> 3. “She chose to be in a dangerous place.” And if perish the thought, an armed Palestinian would have, say, killed Israeli investigative journalist Ilana Dayan in the field? Well, she certainly would not have been blamed for it.
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> 4. “Everything comes back to you.” The Palestinians refuse to participate in a joint investigation into the incident – what are they hiding? Ah, Israel is also refusing joint international investigations? For us, that’s allowed.
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> 5. “Framing.” If, perish the thought, it turns out that an Israeli soldier shot her? Well, that's because they force us to kill them in the war on terror. It doesn’t matter who shoots during a battle, it matters who’s right in that war (what do you mean, the "occupied" side? Let them find another way to frame it.)
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> 6. “What not to say.” Look, we did not say that it’s justified to kill her – we didn’t say that! But it is important to mention, just to mention, that in life and in death, Abu Akleh was an Hasbara PR terrorist. Hostile to Israel. Very one-sided.
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> 7. “What not to do.” In conclusion, it’s important to remember that our problem is PR. Not reality, that’s no longer important. Possibilities that are not on the agenda: Don’t kill journalists, don’t hunt down flags at a funeral and don’t attack coffins.
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> The writer is (not) the director of ItWasn’tUs, which operates by means of young digital ambassadors to sow doubts about Israel around the world.