Rattling The Cage: More tips for information warriors

When fighting the information war for Israel’s survival, as in any other war, the first casualty is truth.

By LARRY DERFNER
Netanyahu 311 reuters (photo credit: Reuters)
Netanyahu 311 reuters
(photo credit: Reuters)
In the week since you received the first sheet of talking points, the matzav – the situation, meaning Israel’s situation with the Arabs and the goyim at large – has become more urgent than ever. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said he is preparing a plan that will bring peace with the Palestinians, yet he was left off the cover of Time magazine. Defense Minister Ehud Barak asked the US for $20 billion in additional military aid, yet the money has not arrived.
Meanwhile, news from the region grows more distressful. Hosni Mubarak’s return to power isn’t going as smoothly as we’d hoped. Alas, the shah of Iran is still dead. Clearly, Israel’s need for advocates who will spread its message has never been greater. So here are some more killer arguments to help you to help Israel win the information war. Yalla! (That’s Hebrew for “Victory!”)
1. “Every Israeli wants peace.” This will just bliss your audience out, this will fill them with warm feelings for Israel. My, my, my, every Israeli wants peace. Every single one, including the Hebron settlers, including the Kachniks, including the ones who burn mosques and shoot Palestinians – every Israeli wants peace. Who can deny it? Do you know any Israeli who wants to get killed in a war? No, which means every Israeli wants peace. OK, it’s not saying much, it’s basically saying every Israeli wants to stay alive, you could just as easily say every Iranian wants peace, every Congolese wants peace – which is why you don’t want to dwell on any one point too long. Hit ‘em hard and fast, then move on.
2. “We don’t want to rule over a foreign people.” Of course we don’t. This has all been a misunderstanding. If the Palestinians had just let us take over the West Bank and Gaza, we wouldn’t have had to rule over them! But they forced us into it.
Here you want to show how Israel is doing everything humanly possible for peace, but the Palestinians, alas, simply will not listen to reason.
3. “We support a Palestinian state, but not one that will threaten Israel’s security.” What could be more reasonable than that? If a Palestinian state has an army, that will threaten Israel’s security. If it can forge military alliances, that will threaten Israel’s security. If it controls its own borders, terrorists will be able to come in and threaten Israel’s security. If it controls its own airspace, Israeli spy planes won’t be able to fly over, which will threaten Israel’s security. We simply can’t allow it. The Palestinians can have their state, but no army and no military alliances, and Israel controls their borders and their airspace. Two states for two peoples, like the US and Vermont.
And if anybody asks you if it’s fair for a militarized, sovereign Israel to be able to threaten the Palestinians’ security but not vice versa, explain that Israel doesn’t threaten the Palestinians’ security because Israel is trustworthy and harmless. A Palestinian state, you point out, would threaten Israel because Palestinians are liars and murderers, and then you conclude by saying that the day Palestinian leaders show the courage to prepare their people to accept this reality, Israel will know it has a partner.
4. “DEFENSIBLE BORDERS/Auschwitz borders.” What more legitimate demand can any nation make than for defensible borders? For Israel, defensible borders means not those pre-Six Day War borders when we didn’t have the West Bank, not those “Auschwitz borders” as that dove of doves, Abba Eban, called them a long time ago. True, those were the borders from which Israel fought the Six Day War, so they seem to have been pretty damn defensible, but there are army guys who say they aren’t, and army guys know best, so go with “Auschwitz borders.” True, Abba Eban kicked himself over those words the rest of his life, but he’s not around anymore to carp and meddle, so don’t worry.
5. “A Jew has the right to live anywhere in Jerusalem.” How much of an anti-Semite to you have to be to say otherwise? I’m sure Obama would agree that a Jew has the right to live anywhere in Washington DC (publicly he’d agree, privately who knows what President Hussein thinks?) so how can he say a Jew doesn’t have the right to live anywhere in Jerusalem? The idea! Alright, an Arab can’t live anywhere he wants in Jerusalem, but people have to understand – this is a Jewish state. Here the Jews are the majority, and the majority says all of Jerusalem is for the Jews and only the Arab part is for the Arabs – if they behave. That’s not democracy? That’s more democracy than they’ve got in Saudi Arabia, or Malaysia, or wherever Obama was born.
6. “Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia.” Bibi just used this one, Sharon once used it – it freaks people out completely. You tell them that everybody’s pressuring Israel to give up the West Bank for peace just like they pressured Czechoslovakia in 1938 to give up the Sudetenland for peace, and just let it sink in. Let your audience fill in the blanks. If Sudetenland equals the West Bank, and Czechoslovakia equals Israel, Nazi Germany equals…the Palestinians! Your audience is seeing Nazis when they think of Palestinians, and all you’ve mentioned is Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia! Just make sure not to go straight into the pitch about how Israel wants to make peace with the Palestinians, because it’s not going to be very convincing – Israel wants to make peace with Nazis? So put at least 10 or 15 minutes of shpiel between the Sudetenland thing and the peace thing.
7. “Glorifying terrorism.” This is a real shlagger – the Palestinian Authority names city squares, community centers and whatnot after suicide bombers, after this Dalal Mugrabi who killed 37 Israelis in the Coastal Road Massacre, after Amin al-Hindi who plotted the Munich Olympics massacre, and others like them. The Palestinian Authority, the “moderates,” the darlings of America and Europe. Such hypocrisy! But maybe some anti-Semite is going to bring up all the bridges, neighborhoods, schools, etc. in Israel named after Menachem Begin, and he’s going to say Begin ordered the bombing of the King David Hotel, and British officers clubs, and train stations and Arab markets, and that hundreds of people, mainly civilians, were killed, and wasn’t that terrorism, so doesn’t Israel glorify terrorism, too, with the Menahem Begin this and the Menachem Begin that? So here’s what you do – deny it! Say it’s all “a biased, distorted view of history,” it’s “the radical Palestinian narrative.”
Damn the facts, just start shouting about “moral equivalence.” In no time, the little anarchist will have been pushed out the door, and there you are, standing up for Israel against these vicious attacks. Your listeners will be ready to walk through fire for you, blind.
8. “We reject extremism from both sides, Left or Right.” This makes you sound balanced, evenhanded, and it gives people the idea that there’s just as much danger from the Israeli Left as there is from the Right. They’ll figure that philosophy students in North Tel Aviv pose no less a threat to human life and decency as armed settlers in Yitzhar. They’ll think Yossi Sarid casts as long a shadow over Israeli democracy as Avigdor Lieberman. In the end, your audience will be confused into neutrality, into silence, into nodding their heads for the status quo, which just happens to be owned by the Right. You see how it’s done? You start off presenting yourself as “apolitical,” and end up winning support for good old, hardline, anti-Arab Israeli nationalism.
Remember: You are fighting the information war for Israel’s survival, and in an information war, as in any other war, the first casualty is truth.