The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Where PR Is Mightier Than The Sword

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: How PR is Mightier than the Sword

The conflict is moving irrevocably towards the importance of image over actuality; both Hamas and the Israeli government know this, and continue to make the most of it

The 'Free Gaza' cafe in Rashidieh refugee camp, the most southern Palestinian camp close to the Israeli border

Julia Macfarlane

Thursday 6 December 2012 

Every Thursday through Twitter the Israeli Defence Forces publish a tweet detailing their involvement, on that particular day, in goods transfers to the Gaza Strip. Today's ran as follows: "@IDFSpokesperson: Yesterday we facilitated the transfer 324 trucks with 8,985 tons of goods and gas into Gaza, including 270 tons of fruit."

It's a bizarre feature of a conflict that has become almost as much about PR as pitched warfare.

Last week after the Israeli government retaliated to defeat at the UN General Assembly vote on Palestinian non-member statehood by announcing 3,000 new settlements near East Jerusalem, British Foreign Secretary William Hague expressed concern with the damage plans would do to Israel’s image. “They would undermine Israel’s international reputation and create doubts over its commitment to achieving peace with the Palestinians.” Hague’s comment hits home the increasing relevance of public relations when it comes to conflict. Having the moral high ground is one of the most important weapons in a government’s arsenal, and makes all the difference with the international watchdog of the UN - which has the power to condemn you, or to vindicate you in the muddy waters of modern warfare. Where new age spin comes in to play, is to legitimize armed conflict or to appeal to mass opinion.

The recent conflict between Gaza's Hamas and Israel bore all the hallmarks of PR spinning, political theatre. Elliot Abrams, Senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations theorized recently that Hamas instigated the conflict for PR purposes: “First, the PA in the West Bank was at centre stage with its UN membership initiative. Hamas seemed marginal while this diplomatic effort was playing out. With this war Hamas has once again grabbed centre stage.” 

Positive reaction to Hamas’ role in the conflict was widespread amongst Gazan Palestinians, even more so after Netanyahu decided against a ground invasion despite general Israeli opinion in favour of sending troops into the Strip.

Fruzsina Eördögh wrote in Slate last month: “The attacks on Gaza have become a war of words, pictures, and video as much as an actual war of missiles, “martyrs,” and dead children.” Hamas leapt upon the widespread coverage of civilian deaths in Gaza, with the Al Qassem Brigades harnessing the power of social media via Twitter to rally supporters; offering pictures of dead civilians littering the streets; insulting the IDF and uploading posters and slogans to heat up the online conversation.

 Following the ceasefire, Hamas encouraged widespread celebration, slating the negotiations as a ‘victory’ they had won; a feat of pr spin having lost their top military commander Ahmad al-Jabari, as well as suffering substantial damage to their infrastructure including the destruction of the Gaza Interior Ministry. While that claim is of course debateable, the surge in popularity Hamas enjoyed following the clashes, is not. Demonization of Zionists – and Israelis and Jews by extention – is rife in Hamas’ rhetoric and just another part of the spin.

PR spin however may also found across the border. Quoted in Vanity Fair, Gonen Ginat of Israel Hayom, spoke of “Netanyahu’s conviction that, at their core, many problems, both his and Israel’s, are really matters of hasbara: Hebrew for public relations.” 

Israel has been accused of employing spin by those who see disparity between the repeated mantras of the need to defend with observations that the state possesses the fourth finest army and defence capabilities in the world – and is widely acknowledged to secretly possess nuclear weapons. Added to the destructive military campaigns of the IDF, which are often dubbed with deceptively benign names such as ‘Operation Summer Rain’ in 2006 where tanks blitzed through the streets and warplanes bombed infrastructure, causing failure of the sewage system. Power plants were also bombed, cutting power to hospitals overrun with more than 200 civilian casualties and more than a thousand injured.

Noam Chomsky in his ‘Chronicles of Dissent’ suggests, however controversially, that the Israeli state consciously manipulates the historical persecution of the Jews to promote its own interests. 

While that may or may not be a fair assumption to make – after all, Israel is all too often at the brunt of hate speech and existential threats from groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime – some have argued that Netanyahu’s bellicose rhetoric and the Israeli culture of fear which it propagates does nothing to combat its relations with those governments it lies in conflict with.

In an article in the Guardian, Jewish writer Seth Freedman says that the Israeli obsession with its own security is causing national paranoia of a fear that makes integration with their neighbours more or less impossible. “By continuing to provoke and bully [the Palestinians], they create what they fear. Another generation branded Amalekites: another reason for Israelis to circle the wagons, batten down the hatches and convince themselves that it is simply their lot to be eternally hated and reviled.

 He adds: “It’s also understandable that the government encourages and promotes such fairy tales in order to garner support for their never-ending policies of irredentism and subjugation.”

While this is no suggestion that both Palestinians and Israelis are not able to see beyond the spin of their respective leaders, it is something to be considered as yet another forestalling to the actual conflict at hand. Only when the governments in this region relinquish their obsession with public opinion will they ever put a stop to this never-ending destructive cycle, and continue with what they must do – return to dialogue, and negotiation.

Original article for the Independent

The Independent: Why we should pay more attention to Lebanon's "Little Palestine"

JULIA MACFARLANE

Friday 30 November 2012

Why we should pay more attention to Lebanon's 'Little Palestine'

The Palestinians in Lebanon are fixated on the cause of their homeland

Palestinians around the world woke up today to news that the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to recognise the Territories as an observer state. But for those Palestinian refugees awaking in Lebanon, the joy was particularly acute: they can now hope that developments on the international stage may one day lead to their being able take their place in a sovereign state.

Palestinian patriotism is strong here, despite being forged on foreign soil. “I think if I had actually been allowed to visit Palestine, and see it with my own eyes, I would not love it and long for it as much as I do now”, says Salah Hamseh, just outside Beirut's Shatila refugee camp. Hamseh sums up the deep-rooted patriotism that runs through the camps in Lebanon.

Across these urban warrens of densely packed houses it is hard to escape the visual bombardment of patriotic symbols as you wind your way across the streets. Each available space serves its purpose whether as a canvas to graffiti of the omnipresent Arafat, revolutionary lyrics painted on walls, posters of martyrs or ribbons strewn across the narrow gaps in the tapering streets in the red, white, black and green of the Palestinian flag. In the streets of Bourj el Barajneh camp last night, residents took to the streets with joy and a furious pride in their newfound recognition. “This is big, very big for us,” shouted an elderly woman over the bagpipes and snare drums played with gusto by a group of Palestinian boy scouts. She had been dancing the Dubke or traditional dance with such youthful vigour that her headscarf was in disarray. “This is proof that the world is not against us.”

Scars

The loyalty of the refugees to their homeland is a force of increasingly relevant consequence. In 1982 when the presence of the PLO led Israel to invade Lebanon’s southern frontiers, it left deep fault lines of conflict still running today; an Israeli stamp in one’s passport will prevent you from entering the country. Not that Israel is alone in bearing the brunt of animosity when the Lebanese consider the civil war that ravaged the country; resentment of Palestinian refugees is acutely felt, more so when spats of violence erupt around the camps where unlicensed weapons circulate freely, and often end up in the hands of youngsters.

According to the United Nations, more than half of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are under the age of 25, and just under two thirds are unemployed.  As one refugee working as a school teacher in Nahr el Bared camp said: “Here you either have two choices, you work with UNRWA in the camp, in one of their schools or medical centres, or you find work with one of the mafias in the camps. That is why there is so much tension – you have all these young men and boys, testosterone all over the place, with no jobs and nothing to do but obsess over liberating your country.”

At a time when the Lebanese government is gripped in its own withering crisis, and fears are mounting of the country being pulled into neighbouring Syria’s civil war, there has been little speculation on the effects of the Israeli-Palestinian feud from within. Unlike Palestinians in the territories who live alongside Israelis – those displaced to Lebanon don't integrate, leaving them to vilify the absent enemy without interruption or contradiction. Here, hopes and desires for a two-state solution are lacking. An official from Fatah living in Beirut, who asked not to be identified, said during the recent hostilities in Israel, “everyone wanted to support Hamas by fighting the Israelis. It was all anyone was talking about.”

Captive audience

As air strikes continued to batter Gaza, the twelve camps of Lebanon were conducting coordinated protests and demonstrations in solidarity with Hamas, whom the US and other Western governments regard as a terrorist organisation. Even revolution-themed merchandise was quick to circulate some of the camps, with purple and navy t-shirts emblazoned with the words “I support the resistance of Gaza against the Zionist entity” being handed out for free in Rashidieh camp near the southern border.

The response to calls for activism and demonstrations by many of the popular committees inside the camps has been so effective for the simple reason that the refugees in Lebanon are a captive audience.

Without jobs, without rights to travel, even without rights to owning your own home, there is little for Palestinians in Lebanon to do except dedicate themselves wholly to ‘the cause’.

What the latest developments at the UN may bring are still debated, many have concerns that it may put a spanner in the works of any possible two-state solution. Yesterday’s vote may carve a path towards access to the Security Council, allowing the Territories to bring Israel to an international court over settlement building and perhaps even allow them control over their own airspace and put an end to the Gaza blockade. It might bring the West Bank its own airport, allowing refugees to actually return home without the problems of crossing an Israeli border. While the Israeli frontier for now remains tightly manned with convoys and border patrols, it would still be wise for them, given these developments, to heed the distilling fervour and patriotism swelling in ‘Little Palestine’ to the north.  

The original article is found here

Please visit my page on The Independent

Afghanistan 10 Years Later...

This talk actually took place a few weeks ago on the 5th October but I have only just figured out how to embed videos online! The talk took place at the Frontline Club near Paddington, and the panel included Horia Mosadiq from Amnesty International, Dawood Azami from the BBC World Service, Lucy Morgan Edwards former advisor to the EU Ambassador in Kabul and Edward Girardet, freelance conflict reporter. The talk was chaired by Paddy O'Connell of BBC Radio 4. You can catch me at 16 minutes in!

While the majority of the audience and the panel agreed that conditions for women in Afghanistan had improved during the occupation, the negatives vastly outweighed the positives apparent in the country ten years on. Morgan Edwards, who has recently published a book called "The Afghan Solution" following her experience in the country, feels that the coalition squandered a 'golden opportunity' to resolve issues with the Taliban and Haqqani network, especially following the recent death of Abdul Haq.

  The most of the panel stressed the critical failure of the coalition concerning the social DNA of Afghanistan, namely its tribal structure. Assuming that the generic demographic is not anything but an amalgamation of different ethnicities, localities, dialects and communities will lead to a complete misunderstanding of the country which would ultimately cause any interference to fall short. This was stressed in the documentary clip, which showed tribal elders being presented with stills of the attacks on the twin towers on September 11th, and when asked about the location depicted in the photographs their response was to guess that they were taken in Kabul.

  Just as Wadah Khanfar was to tell our class the following week, the most important preparation you make as a foreign correspondent is more than a basic background to the country you are covering. A profound and diligent study into the country, its idiosyncrasies and details of its culture, history and most importantly its people, is essential to truthful and accurate journalism. Perhaps if the press revealed more about the flavour and nature of Afghanistan would real knowledge filter through to the politicians and authorities directly involved in the future of the people in this war-torn country.

Video streaming by Ustream

This Noble Trade?

Last week the ex Director General of Al Jazeera, Wadah Khanfar, became the first non-Western journalist to present the prestigious James Cameron Memorial Award for Journalism to Sky News’ Alex Crawford for her work in Libya and the Middle East.

Above: Wadah Khanfar, former Director General of Al Jazeera at the James Cameron Memorial Awards 2011

At the award’s lecture, which was held at City University last Thursday, Khanfar spoke about the nature of modern day journalism and reiterated its fundamental mission in a passionate speech on its duty to the public. It was unavoidable, perhaps, for him to mention his shock resignation from the Al Jazeera broadcaster last month. He began by admitting that this year was ‘a different year’, focussing most of his speech on the Arab spring and Al Jazeera’s instrumental role in invigorating the Middle Eastern uprisings.

Above: Wadah Khanfar speaking to City journalism students after the James Cameron Memorial Awards Lecture

According to Khanfar, the journalistic mission was that of democracy, and that was only possible when the media put the public at the centre of their editorial policy.

I was covering the ‘Block the Bill’ protest on Westminster Bridge yesterday afternoon with a friend from my journalism course. I remarked that, in my opinion, the British protesters were pretty ungrateful for their quality of life, that in many countries a protest on this scale would not have been allowed in the first place. He disagreed, saying that the only reason we have achieved stability and rights is because we continue to hold our own government to account - by protestation, by our media, by campaigns and negative PR. If we did not, he argued, they would overstep the mark with their authority. I have considered this. Journalism is then, it seems, continually needed – even in a democratically mature society. It needs to be a perpetual watchdog to those in positions of power and responsibility. It needs to be a deterrent at the very least, or at least its threat of critical exposure. Many have criticised politicians who have ‘cuddled up’ with media magnates and seniors (I need not refer to whom). This may be wrong but at least it affirms the importance – in politicians’ interest – to maintain a good public profile. They at least realise that they are scrutinised, and acknowledge the ethical etiquette by which they must prescribe their actions, and if they do not, there are countless reporters who have it in their interest, as well as the public’s, to hang them out to dry.

In 1981, the Polish military enforced martial law upon the country. Radio and TV channels were all banned from broadcasting apart from the state-run network. The government had clamped down on the media and on freedom of speech. However, this was not without repercussion. Starting from a small town on the Czech border and eventually spreading throughout the country, started something called ‘the dog-walking hour’. Each night when the state-run news channel started at 7:30pm, nearly everyone in the town left their houses and walked their dogs in the central park. “It became a daily silent act of protest and solidarity. We refuse to watch. We reject your version of truth.” (The Elements of Journalism, Kovach) In another town, at the same time, television sets were moved facing the windows, spreading the message. With this pervasive protestation came underground news services, and as the decade crept towards the 1990s, the fall of communism collided with the rise of technology. With the advent of the computer, faxes and satellites came the unstoppable wave of information, and it was this information that led to democracy.

Last night from Egypt came a stark reminder that the country’s bid for democracy is far from over. After a group of Christians and Muslims alike gathered to protest against an attack on a Christian church, the SCAF Egyptian military were filmed running over civilians in tanks and shooting to kill. These video clips, photographs and allegations by witnesses on the scene exploded on the social networking site Twitter, yet Egyptian state TV portrayed the protests as angry Christians hurling rocks at Muslims and attacking the military.

TV presenter Rasha Magdy on the state-run Channel One was apparently emphasising that Coptic protestors were attacking the police, and she ended her report by urging citizens to protect the military. According to Twitter witnesses and Egyptian news forum Al-Masry-Al-Youm, “…despite its strategic location, the state media aired no footage of military armoured vehicles chasing and running over protesters in front of the building - footage that was repeatedly aired on private local and foreign channels. What state TV mostly showed were protesters blocking the Corniche and military tanks set on fire.”

 The Egyptian state TV failed its citizens last night for regressing to propaganda, and broadcasting not news but opinion. In Khanfar’s speech at the James Cameron Memorial lecture he stressed that despite having opinions, it was not part of a journalist’s prerogative to broadcast opinion: “I ordered my staff to fulfil our promise to the public; to give them knowledge and the proper tools to forecast what is going to happen…At Al Jazeera we do believe in people. We do regard them as our central reference point. Their interest is guarded by us. We have to take people as our reference and celebrate their capabilities of understanding and recognising.”

It is perhaps acceptable to claim that without Al Jazeera and international media the Arab spring might not have happened, or at least to the extent that it did. The promulgation of the coverage of the events starting with Tunisia alerted other nations in the region to this gradual unshackling of dictatorship, which itself stemmed from observation of democratic life in the West. We are seeing it again in the spreading of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests that started in Manhattan and have now spread to London. The internet has turned the world in to a smaller place, and what we see happening in neighbouring countries often encourages us to follow suit.

Sadly, despite the accessibility brought by globalisation, there are still places where those who want to join in a democratic future are being denied the rights. The media however, is the first port of call to achieve this. I saw many posts on Twitter with Egyptians calling out to the international community to recycle their clips at the scene, to do all they can - citizen journalists and politicians alike - to pressurise their government to conform to international standards of behaviour. Although the journalist may have lost some credibility recently with the public his mission still stands, and as naïve as it may sound from a young reporter at the beginning of her career, I believe that it will eventually succeed in its democratic aspirations and continue to be the watchdog of authorities, first and fore mostly remaining a tool of the people it continues to serve.

Above: Wadah Khanfar speaking to City postgraduate journalism student Anne Laurent



This year's first true Christmas message, in the Sunday Times

It drives me mad that I cannot put a link up on this article unless anyone else has a subscription to the Times Online. *but I would encourage everyone to buy a copy of the Sunday Times tomorrow (today, as its past midnight actually) to cut out and keep the article entitled*

 Updated 29th November 2010: In my enthusiasm for this article I failed to realise, somewhat dimly, that the article is actually from last week's Sunday Times. For subscribers, the link is here:  Love drives repentant Taliban chief to defect. 

For those who do not have a subscription, I'd like to quote a couple paragraphs (seeing as the paper wasn't yesterday but a week ago) in what I'm afraid may be a heinous transgression of copyright law, but all credit goes to Miles Amoore for his article, and I really do want to share his words with my readers:

"Ultimately, [Abdul Hakim] says, it was his desire to marry his fiancée that compelled him to lay down his weapons. The prospective father-in-law told Haqim that he would never give his daughter’s hand to a fighter because he did not want to see her widowed. “It was an easy choice for me,” he said. Haqim is not the only fighter from Wardak to come in from the cold. Habib Rahman, a 32-year-old sub-district commander from Jilga district, has also made peace overtures to the government.

Rahman joined the Taliban five years after the US-led invasion in 2001. His father was killed in the American bombing campaign that helped to bring the former Taliban regime to its knees. “I was sickened by the killing of innocent civilians,” he said.  “I couldn’t return to see my family because I would put them in danger. Living in the mountains is no fun." ~ Miles Amoore, The Sunday Times, 21st November 2010

This is a wonderfully written and spirited reporting of recent stories of Taliban commanders who have chosen to lay down their arms and join a movement called the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme, in order to reconstruct their own family lives and promote peace for the Afghan civilians. The programme is still in its infancy but is well on its way to growth. 

 These kinds of heart-warming stories are what we need to remind ourselves of when we become cynical of the endless rage in the Middle East, when success seems far from possibility. 

 I applaud Miles Amoore for his poignant and inspiring reporting, and I do hope everyone reads the article to push for peace in the Middle East. A wonderful article that reminds us that humanity is still alive in the stricken war zones and, clearly, even in the armies of those our soldiers fight against. 

 And that's something we often forget; that its not just a faceless mob of evil beings we face, but vulnerable individuals who have been driven to violence or revenge by those who saw an opportunity to corrupt. A certain Quaker friend of mine (you find all sorts at boarding school) once quoted Natalie Imbruglia: "brother shoots brother; meanwhile you're fixing up your face". Its hard to remind ourselves of what terrors are happening elsewhere in the world when we are living in such comfortable environments.

Update on Monday, November 29, 2010 at 3:07 PM by Julia

Corrections posted!