This doesn’t go specifically to the subject of “hasbara” in the U.S., so I added a couple examples of that below.
Quote from article: "Tel Aviv has, at home and abroad, an impressive number of ambassadors and propagandists (of varying degrees of talent), who speak the language of the country where they’re based, can navigate the intricacies of its politics and media, and put across their government’s often misleading message.
. . .
"Lastly, unlike in other Western countries, there is strict censorship in Israel – though the general support for the army’s objectives means it’s far from vital. Israeli academic Sebastian Ben Daniel has described ‘a parody of journalism’ in which ‘constant exaltation of the army and willingness to take the IDF spokesperson’s pronouncements at face value erroneously convince the public that all is swell [sic].’ These reporters, he adds, ‘often just repeat what the spokesperson tells them, sometimes removing the attribution to him and publishing the messages as news items’ (7).
(TP-sounds like "New Right journalists," a “parody of journalism,” who “often just repeat what the spokesperson tells them,” as with J.D. Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy being presented as “Restrainers” in their calls that “no restraint can be imposed upon Israel,” in essence. As here from last week with Vance and Ramaswamy: https://quincyinst.org/events/what-a-foreign-policy-for-the-middle-class-looks-like/
Given their affiliation with Israeli Military Industrialist, Peter Thiel, and how he spends his money on influence operations (hasbara) like fellow Oligarch Charles Koch does, it is not a surprise they would be continuing the successful hasbara efforts begun by Charles Koch as anti-BDS legislation years ago.
BLUF: "Prominent among such connections are Peter Thiel, the co-founder of tech giants PayPal and Palantir and a rightwing mega-donor, andLeonard Leo, the activist who has marshaled unprecedented sums in his push to stock federal courts with conservative judges.
"Ramaswamy is a Yale Law School friend of JD Vance, the author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy who enjoyed success in finance before entering politics. At Yale, Vance and Ramaswamy attended what the New Yorker called an “intimate lunch seminar for select students” that was hosted by Thiel. Last year, backed by Thiel and espousing hard-right Trumpist views, Vance won a US Senate seat in Ohio."
BLUF: "Ramaswamy, who co-founded an anti-ESG investment firm with Thiel’s backing, is more optimistic about techno-reactionaries’ ability to gain power through the ballot box. The key is to disdain voters by telling them whatever they want to hear regardless of how much it contradicts reality. It might work and, even if it doesn’t, Ramaswamy will have had fun trying.”
I think this is evidence of where one of their two main "patróns” stands on Israeli fascism:
Israeli Lt Col Nissim Revch (right) and Lt Col Olivier Rafowicz (left) point to alleged Palestinian positions in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, 30 April 2002
Mike Nelson · AFP · Getty
t was a textbook display of shamelessness. As rockets traced white lines across the night sky on New Year’s Eve last year Colonel Olivier Rafowicz gave vent to his outrage on the news: ‘For those wondering why Israel has to eliminate Hamas, here’s your answer. Hamas terrorists are indiscriminately bombing Israeli cities on the stroke of midnight as we begin the new year. Israel is duty-bound to eliminate this threat once and for all.’
There were no reported Israeli casualties, but on 31 December the IDF’s bombing of Gaza continued uninterrupted, causing up to 300 deaths, just like any other day. A few days later, the total number of ‘neutralised’ Palestinians, at least a third of them children, passed 22,000. Meanwhile on Christmas Eve, Israel’s airstrike on the Maghazi refugee camp had killed a hundred. About this, Rafowicz said nothing.
Rafowicz is a French-born reserve officer in the IDF and former head of the Paris delegation of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which helps French citizens emigrate. Since 7 October he has been a frequent IDF spokesman on French media, a role he also played in earlier wars against Gaza. In 2015 he joined Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party (Israel is Our Home) at a time when Lieberman as foreign minister was considering ‘transferring’ some of Israel’s Palestinian citizens from the country – a crime under international law.
Adopting this far-right position has not stopped Rafowicz developing friendly relations with the French government and media. He has a seemingly open invitation to television and radio studios and little fear of being closely questioned. His wife’s connections must help: Roxane Rouas-Rafowicz is on the executive committee of MEDEF, the French employers’ federation, and heads the StudioFact Media Group, which works with the national public broadcaster France Télévisions, LCP (the parliamentary channel) and RTBF, Belgium’s French-language broadcaster. She produced a documentary, Hamas: Blood and Weapons, for the public broadcaster France 2 which was shown on 24 October. Unsurprisingly, it defended the same Israeli position as her husband.
There’s been little reaction in the small world of Parisian media to these facts, revealed on journalist Jacques-Marie Bourget’s blog (1). In 2022 the daily Le Parisien acquired a 30% stake in StudioFact. Meanwhile, its coverage of Gaza has been entirely biased, as the media observatory Acrimed has reported: ‘Between 8 October and 20 December, the word “bombing” did not appear on any of its 74 front pages, although, with 18 headlines and 19 banners, the war in the Middle East occupied significant space.’ Le Parisien, Acrimed notes, represents ‘only one viewpoint: how the Israeli government sees and presents Gaza to the rest of the world. Over more than two months, not a single face of a Palestinian civilian featured on [its] front page. Not one’ (2).
‘Lie, my friends, lie’
Voltaire once wrote that ‘lying is not a vice unless it does harm. It is a very great virtue when it does good … One must lie like the devil, not timidly, not just for a time, but boldly and always. Lie, my friends, lie. I will pay you back in kind one day.’ This could be the mantra of all military leaders everywhere, but Israel has elevated its deployment to an art unmatched in so-called democratic countries, with the firmly held belief that it is the paragon of just law, justice and lying ‘for the good’. With an added advantage that other states lack: Western officials and media start from the assumption that Israel tells the truth.
Rafowicz utters falsehoods shamelessly, with the confidence of someone who knows he’ll rarely be cross-questioned: he has repeated inventions about 7 October and its aftermath: a pregnant woman being disembowelled and Israeli children kept in cages (3). He denied, in the face of all evidence, that the IDF was responsible for the deaths during the ‘flour massacre’ on 29 February, in which more than a hundred civilians were shot dead. Yet, despite his demonstrable lies, he still receives a warm, indulgent welcome from many French media outlets that seldom challenge his statements. So why stop?
It is remarkable, and it has been remarked, that Israeli influences are making themselves felt to an extent in circles close to the news
Charles de Gaulle
none
Rafowicz has a trump card in the form of the egregious Bernard-Henri Lévy, of whom he said: ‘For virtually every major international crisis that pits Israel against its neighbours, BHL joins me and is here on the ground’(4). BHL is the man who has covered the wars against Gaza perched on a tank turret and from an Israeli command centre, always embedded with the army. He has never seen anything untoward: no crimes, no violations of international law. In defence of his support, he wields the crude argument that the IDF is ‘the world’s most moral army’.
This is the same rhetoric, the same sophistry used in Le Figaro in October 1960 by then-prestigious supporters of the French army in Algeria who denounced its National Liberation Front (FLN) and their French allies in terms that could, with slight adjustment, be applied to Palestine today: ‘It’s a sham to say or write that France is fighting the Algerian people who have risen up for their independence. The war in Algeria is a struggle imposed on France by a minority of fanatical rebels, terrorists and racists, led by armed leaders and financially supported from abroad.’
Israel has always excelled in hasbara (propaganda), portraying itself as the victim of the wicked Arabs and spreading fake news that is only debunked after it has done its damage. France-Soir, relying on a report from Tel Aviv, announced at dawn on 5 June 1967 that Egypt had attacked Israel (contrary to the truth). Decades later, when Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed at Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on 11 May 2022, the IDF initially claimed she had probably been killed by ‘terrorists’, then that she had been ‘caught in crossfire’. Only later did they admit that an Israeli soldier had, unintentionally, fired five bullets in her direction. Several investigations, including one by CNN, concluded that she was probably killed deliberately. Her case received exceptional publicity because of her US citizenship and renown.
Mostly, the Israeli narrative is taken at face value, and those who kill civilians or journalists in the occupied territories enjoy complete immunity. In 2023 Israel was one of the ten worst countries for imprisoning journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, level-pegging with Iran (5). Tel Aviv has, at home and abroad, an impressive number of ambassadors and propagandists (of varying degrees of talent), who speak the language of the country where they’re based, can navigate the intricacies of its politics and media, and put across their government’s often misleading message.
Israel also has the advantage of being a ‘Western’ country, which automatically means it always starts with the benefit of the doubt. A CNN journalist explained where this bias leads: ‘ “War crime” and “genocide” are taboo words. Israeli bombings in Gaza will be reported as “blasts” attributed to nobody, until the Israeli military weighs in to either accept or deny responsibility. Quotes and information provided by Israeli army and government officials tend to be approved quickly, while those from Palestinians tend to be heavily scrutinised and slowly processed’ (6).
Israeli society is bound together by a solid consensus: ‘We are within our rights and simply want to survive against the evil Arabs who are out to exterminate us.’ It’s important to understand that Israelis’ fears are very real, even if they have been instrumentalised by their leaders. Even before the war, when there were ‘clashes’, almost no Israeli journalists visited the West Bank, still less Gaza, except for a handful of reporters from Haaretz and the online +972 Magazine.
So they merely repeat the IDF’s press releases and – literally – do not see what happens in the occupied territories, just as many French people remained unaware of what went on in Algeria unless bombs went off in Paris or French soldiers were killed. However – and it is an important difference – Jewish Israelis mingle with Palestinian citizens of Israel in mixed cities, and can see what’s going on via social media and to a lesser extent television. But they have decided that this does not concern them. In February 70% of Israelis opposed humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.
Lastly, unlike in other Western countries, there is strict censorship in Israel – though the general support for the army’s objectives means it’s far from vital. Israeli academic Sebastian Ben Daniel has described ‘a parody of journalism’ in which ‘constant exaltation of the army and willingness to take the IDF spokesperson’s pronouncements at face value erroneously convince the public that all is swell [sic].’ These reporters, he adds, ‘often just repeat what the spokesperson tells them, sometimes removing the attribution to him and publishing the messages as news items’ (7). (TP-sounds like New Right journalists, a “parody of journalism,” who “often just repeat what the spokesperson tells them,” as with J.D. Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy being presented as “Restrainers” in their calls that “no restraint can be imposed upon Israel,” in essence, as here, in a classic case of hasbara: https://quincyinst.org/events/what-a-foreign-policy-for-the-middle-class-looks-like/)
IDF directives to the press
On 23 December 2023 The Intercept magazine published IDF directives to the Israeli press about Operation Swords of Iron which, as far as I’m aware, no French media has reported. This was the first time such an order has been published for a specific war, because censorship is permanent for all matters regarded as sensitive, with the IDF’s crimes at the top of the list: ‘The order lists eight topics the media are forbidden from reporting on without prior approval from the Israeli Military Censor. Some of the topics touch on hot-button political issues in Israel and internationally, such as potentially embarrassing revelations about weapons used by Israel, discussions of security cabinet meetings, and the Israeli hostages in Gaza … The memo also bans reporting on the details of military operations, Israeli intelligence, rocket attacks that hit sensitive locations in Israel, cyberattacks and visits by senior military officials to the battlefield’ (8).
(TP-quite obviously adopted by the Trumpite, Maximalist Zionists as well!)
Israel has a media outlet in France: Patrick Drahi’s i24 television channel. When there’s a crisis and the media dispatches a bunch of journalists to Israel-Palestine who don’t know the region and don’t speak Arabic, where do they get their information? From i24. They even pronounce Hamas Israeli-style as ‘Khamas’ (as though it began with a Spanish jota).
Drahi’s influence also encompasses the BFMTV news network, which he owned until March 2024. A Blast investigation from November 2023 shed light on how it worked: ‘ “When Drahi bought us outright in 2018, the coverage of the Middle East, which was provided by a correspondent, was transferred to i24,” recalls a veteran on the editorial staff. “There was the argument of resource pooling, but it still poses a problem of editorial stance. And in the early days of the current conflict, they dumped the i24’s experts and correspondents on us. It was simple, practical – and problematic” ’ (9). (TP-which Oligarchs are funding New Right, Israeli fascist Zionist, think tanks/media platforms?)
Following the invasion of Ukraine, European countries banned Russia Today, denouncing unacceptable foreign interference. Yet Israel is arguably the country that interferes most in the affairs of European states, particularly France (10), without the authorities being concerned. This was not always so. In January 1969, after Paris’s decision to stop supplying the Israeli army with parts for Mirage jets, De Gaulle himself wrote, ‘It is remarkable, and it has been remarked, that Israeli influences are making themselves felt to an extent in circles close to the news.’ If today, as an individual or a newspaper, you express concern about such interference, there’s only one possible conclusion: you’re an antisemite.
Alain Gresh
Alain Gresh is director of the online journal Orient XXI. This article is an extract from his new book Palestine: Un peuple qui ne veut pas mourir (Palestine: A People Who Refuse to Die), published this month.
(2) Pauline Perrenot, ‘D’Israël à Gaza: à la Une duParisien, la caricature du double standard’ (From Israel to Gaza: onLe Parisien’s front page a caricature of double standards), 21 December 2023,www.acrimed.org/.
(3) Mathilde Cousin, ‘Guerre Hamas-Israël: Des enfants israéliens en cage? Prudence au sujet de cette vidéo’ (The Hamas-Israel war: Israeli children in cages? Caution over this video), 10 October 2023,www.20minutes.fr/.
(4) Xavier de La Porte and Jade Lindgaard, Le nouveau B.A. BA du BHL: Enquête sur le plus grand intellectuel français (The New ABCs of BHL: Inquiry into France’s greatest intellectual), La Découverte, Paris, 2011.
(5) ‘Israel among top jailers of journalists worldwide, as imprisonments globally continue unabated, CPJ finds’, Committee to Protect Journalists, 18 January 2024, cpj.org/.
(9) Yanis Mhamdi and Xavier Monnier, ‘À BFM, la rédaction sonne l’alarme contre une couverture pro-israélienne’ (BFM editors sound the alarm over pro-Israeli overage), 3 November 2023, www.blast-info.fr/.
(10) Orient XXIpublished a long investigation in January-May 2021, in which Jean Stern describes interference at all levels, economic, political (especially parliamentary) and cultural. See Jean Stern, ‘France-Israël: Lobby or not lobby?’, orientxxi.info/.