How Israel targets media outlets to bias opinion in its favour

international | arts and media | other press Saturday January 24, 2009 18:05 by Miriam

There is even a manual that tells people how to do it

Many people posting here are aware of the more subtle form of trolling that goes on at times. The Mr or Ms Reasonables who claim to be neutral on a given issue but who are clearly anything but. Israel has an army of such people it calls on to promote its actions. It has been working at fever pitch during the war on Gaza.

A poster on the Independent (UK) website has unearthed the evidence - examples of the advice given on how to do this sort of trolling is extensive but here are a few examples:

" Hasbara out in force
sketchley wrote:
Friday, 23 January 2009 at 11:36 am (local)

Haaretz informed us that the Israeli government was targeting what they called 'problematic' websites in English, French, Spanish and German.

All this via the Orwellian sounding "Immigrant Absorption Ministry": "it was setting up an "army of bloggers," to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in "anti-Zionist blogs" in English, French, Spanish and German...volunteers who send the Absorption Ministry their contact details by e-mail...will be registered according to language, and then passed on to the Foreign Ministry's media department, whose personnel will direct the volunteers to Web sites deemed "problematic."
http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056648.html

We can see from some of the posts here that the Independent is on their list.

Its also interesting to read the Hasbara handbook.
http://www.middle-east-info.org/take/wujshasbara.pdf

This includes a section entitled: "Seven Basic Propaganda Devices" which include "Name Calling", "Plain Folks", "Fear" and "Bandwagon"

Name Calling
"Creating negative connotations by name calling is done to try and get the audience to reject a person or idea on the basis of negative associations, without allowing a real examination of that person or idea."

Plain Folks
"Pro-Israel activists can use the 'plain folks' technique by speaking as a 'person from the street' whilst supporting Israel."

Fear
"is easily manipulated in a climate that is already steeped in fear by the threat of global terror...Fear can be successfully utilized by pointing out the consequences of terror. Reminding people that Palestinian terrorists have, in the past, operated throughout the world would strengthen this perception of threat."

Bandwagon
"People are hapy to be part of the crowd, and subtle manipulators can play on this desire by emphasizing the large size of ther support...Israeli activists can commission opinion polls amongst groups who favour Israel, and use these to give the impression that Israel is 'the team to support'...to create the impression that Israel is even more popular than it is."

Don't believe me? Check it out yourself. It's on p.22."
http://opinion.independentminds.livejournal.com/236152....ments