Why Israel’s propaganda war has been just a complete mess

Alex Lo
SCMP

It’s really not about arrogance or incompetence, even if there have been strong elements of both at times. The reason for the mess that the Israeli government and its usual apologists have made has to do with the competing, even contradictory messages they need to deliver to different audiences.

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For the domestic angry public, which sees the government of Benjamin Netanyahu as essentially discredited, it needs to deliver vengeance on the Palestinians, not just Hamas.

But that’s not enough for the far-right extremist or the “Greater Israel” segments that make up the base of Netanyahu’s coalition government; only a convincing attempt – even if unsuccessful, and for lack of better terms – at genocide and ethnic cleansing will do.

In both domestic cases, the rationale is that if Hamas and perhaps some other terror groups delivered the worst atrocities against Jews since the second world war, we will make sure the Palestinians get the worst Israeli revenge since the Nakba, that is, their displacement and dispossession in 1948. It’s the biblical eye for an eye, or rather 10 eyes or more for every one eye.

In Israel, no one ever loses a political career by being too extreme on the Palestinians.

However, there is the all-important United States, which has to arm Israel and finance the war on the Palestinians. While Washington has long been in Israel’s pocket, there is still the American public, which is terribly diverse, both ethically and politically, to worry about.

To the Americans and the Western audience generally, Israel needs to present the image of a peace-seeking democratic nation that may at times be forced to do terrible things, however reluctantly, in self-defence, against fanatics committed to its destruction.

Of course, that old and worn narrative – as well as the “purity of arms” of the Israel Defence Forces – is mostly good for public relations talking points nowadays. I don’t doubt that given the opportunity and ability, many Arab and Palestinian states would want to eliminate Israel. But they have had to face realities long ago; so in fact, they have, over the years, admitted defeat and made peace.

The problem is that while Israel tells the world it wants peace, it has been pursuing dominance all along, or at least since 1967.

So with the Arab states, Israel may be most honest, at least with their dictatorial leaders. They understand each other perfectly, and Washington helps grease the wheels by providing financial aid and selling outdated weapons to the “moderate” Arab states, which are good enough against each other and Iran, and for domestic suppression.

Washington also provides them with some protection and assistance against Iran and its various proxies across the region.

The proverbial Arab Street may be rabidly against Israel, but it’s also a domestic tinderbox against their own ruling elites. For the Arab audience, there isn’t much need for propaganda, as both sides understand each other pretty well.

To the rest of the world, Israel may look like the biggest nasty among lesser nasties in the combustible Middle Eastern neighbourhood. But as exemplified and represented by the United Nations, Israeli leaders have nothing but contempt for them. That is why the slightest criticism or call for a ceasefire in Gaza was met with immediate demands for the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to resign.

Israel’s aggressive tactics at the UN are almost comical, if not for the terrible sufferings they are bickering over.

The problem for Israel is that each propaganda domain has its own language – Hebrew vs English, for example – and they need to be compartmentalised. But in an age of 24/7 news, social media, instant messaging and machine translations – coupled with profound public distrust in governments in the West, message compartmentalisation becomes extremely hard, if not impossible. So threats of genocide, spoken out in Hebrew, ended up being translated into mainstream English-language media.

Israel and the US may blame it all on the rise of antisemitism. It’s actually called losing control of the narrative.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE

Alex Lo has been a Post columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China. A journalist for 25 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.