The official Israeli government body that accredits journalists has just been honored by the country's PR association for enhancing Israel's image abroad. Anyone who values an independent and free press should be alarmed. The government bureau responsible for accrediting journalists in Israel was honored last month by Israel’s association of public relations professionals for its work promoting government propaganda, known cordially as “hasbara,” or “public diplomacy.” The Government Press Office, which is a division of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, was presented the certificate of appreciation at the Israel Public Relations Association’s annual “Roaring Lion” awards ceremony. [tmwinpost] In an announcement…

Two recent cases of Israeli troops caught murdering Palestinians demonstrate the power, and limitations, of an entire nation deciding to believe what it wants to believe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. By Eishton They call it "Pallywood." Like Dark Matter, it's a non-observable phenomenon, derived from our need to settle the contradiction between the viewable and the expected. As we gazed out into the stars, a universe presumed to be slowing down by gravity, was actually accelerating and expanding. Matter should have given the opposite result (contraction), and antimatter was insufficient in quantity to explain the forces pulling the universe apart. There…

For the past decade Mark Regev has become Israel's preeminent government mouthpiece. Now, as the world prepares to mark 50 years of occupation, Netanyahu appoints a hasbara heavyweight to represent him in the UK. By Yoni Mendel I’m not sure Mark Regev is a name Israelis are too familiar with. But around the world he seems to be one of the people most closely identified with this country, and certainly with its recent governments. A Google News search for “Mark Regev” produces only 180 results in Hebrew, but roughly 12,000 in English. Pretty bizarre for a man who worked so closely…

The phrase 'Israeli Arabs' is meant to divide us from the rest of the Palestinian people. Thankfully, more and more young Palestinian citizens are no longer scared to openly confront their own Pharaoh and reclaim their story. "So explain it to me again," Amanda repeated. "How can it be that while Israel celebrates its independence, or whatever they call it, there is no public discussion on the occupation? Or the fact that Israel has been controlling another nation for nearly 50 years? The hypocrisy is staggering!" Now try explaining Israeli society's denial and blindness to a friend from New Zealand whom…

The recurring elements in the manipulation of public opinion and discourse in wartime also appeared during ‘Protective Edge.’ Shaked Spier brings you the Ten Truths, Ten Commandments and Ten Lies of war. By Shaked Spier The truth Several truths dominated the hegemonic discourse in Israel during and since “Protective Edge”: 1. Israel doesn't want war, we only defend ourselves 2. Hamas was solely responsible for this war 3. The Hamas leadership is evil and looks evil 4. Israel is defending a noble cause, not special interests 5. Hamas carries out intentional atrocities; we only make mistakes (“collateral damage”) 6. Hamas…

No amount of Tweeting, tagging, posting or liking will save Gazans from an Israeli ground invasion. So why bother? By Corey Sherman Recent political upheavals in the Middle East tend to have a social media subplot, whether it's how savvy youth use it to subvert harsh authority, or how states manipulate access to it so as to stop such subversion. There’s the story about how State-Department-Official-cum-Google-Ideas-Chief, Jared Cohen, requested that Twitter delay a scheduled maintenance of their network to enable Iranians to continue to use the platform to organize during the harsh crackdown on post-election protests in 2009. Or how…

What we can learn from the arrest of a well-known Palestinian activist's wife. Nariman Tamimi was due to stand trial today at Ofer Military Prison for a rare charge: violating a closed military zone order. Nariman was arrested in her own village during an unarmed protest, in which not even one stone was thrown. When she was brought before a military judge, it was proved – through video evidence – that she never even resisted her arrest as the army previously claimed. Yet the military prosecution insisted on proceeding with the case. You can read Mairav Zonszein's report of the affair…

In a  piece recently published, Israel's Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren rejected claims regarding anti-democratic trends in his country, and compared the legal status of Palestinians in the West Bank to that of American citizens in Washington DC and the U.S. territories. A response. When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu appointed Professor Michael Oren - a historian and researcher at the conservative Shalem institute, author of a popular book on the 1967 war - as his ambassador to Washington, he was probably hoping to capitalize on the latter's name-recognition and credibility, especially with the political establishment and the Jewish elites. And indeed,…

Lisa Levi tries to defend the undefendable boycott law at The Jewish Week. After making the old case that the Israeli boycott law is anything like the French or the American (simply false claim, as any form of the current boycott movement is perfectly legal in the United States. In fact, a Knesset research report, prepared during the work on the boycott bill, concluded that it couldn’t find examples of similar laws in Western democracies, and resorted to citing examples from countries such as Venezuela, Eritrea and Ethiopia), comes this bizarre paragraph: Finally, it is essential here to keep in…

It seems that every state agency in Israel is becoming a tool in the effort to further colonize the West Bank and deepen the control over the lives of Palestinians. Soon after the government reached an internal "deal" with the settler movement that would keep the families who settled in a so-called "illegal" outpost on the ground, the Government Press Office - once in charge of handling press cards and other bureaucratic duties - is now engaging in propaganda efforts on behalf of the settlers. A few days ago, the foreign press corps received the following mail, inviting members to an…

A short discussion of the Israeli term used to describe the ongoing, ever-growing, national propaganda effort I have used the word "Hasbara" pretty freely recently, and so do more and more people, without stopping to explain what it actually means. The use of this term has been widespread in Israeli Hebrew for many years now, usually with a positive meaning, though not always in a positive context – there is a never-ending debate on "the failure of Hasabra" – yet I often wonder how many people outside Israel actually know it, let alone understand what it stands for. So here…

So this is where deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon exists: In a vast white space populated by magically appearing and reappearing figments of his imagination. Why am I not surprised. I wonder if the comment about Israel not trying to occupy the Kingdom of Jordan  being a "painful compromise" is the official position of the Foreign Ministry, and if so, what do their Jordanian counterparts think of the image of all of Jordan with the Star of David on it. Hmm. Update: The video appears to be lifted straight off an earlier and equally ludicrous campaign by the flagship settler organization,…

Yesterday we covered here a masterpiece of self-defeating propaganda showing "Israel" as a distressed and paranoid young woman suspicious of people trying to help her and having flashbacks to edited and censored videos of the IDF raid on the marmara. While the initial suspicion was that this was a trailer for Ami Kaufman's Izzie series, sources with knowledge of the actress's engagement confirmed to 972 she was recruited to do a Hasbara video for a government project. Just for the morning exercise of your cringe muscles, here it is again: The actress, Aimee Neistat, would not confirm, deny or disclose…