The Israeli "Hasbarah": exploiting anti-Semitism and promoting Islamophobia

Until this moment, neither Israeli society nor the official state institutions have awakened from the horror of the shock that occurred on October 7, amid the collapse of the logical and analytical framework that has dominated official and popular discourse in the last two decades, according to which Israel can continue to manage the conflict with the lowest possible cost. And even concluding economic agreements and normalizing relations with Arab countries in complete disregard for the increasing suffering of the Palestinian people, under the burden of occupation.

Since the first days of the aggression, with the extent of the destruction and loss of life incurred by Israeli society revealed, in addition to the large number of prisoners and abductees, Israel has received unprecedented and unlimited support from the coalition countries, led by the United States, which included giving the green light to launch an aggression against Gaza in order to Subjugating the Hamas movement.

Throughout the first week of the war, Israel relied on external material and moral support to gain international legitimacy for a broad military operation without providing any specific goals or a clear picture of the future of Gaza. Therefore, Israel ignored world public opinion in the first weeks, supported by the biased and poor performance of the international press that adopted the narrative. Entirely Israeli.

With the continued great popular pressure exerted by the Arab and foreign streets on global public opinion and political leaders, the legitimacy of the Israeli discourse began to crack, and it became impossible to ignore the street, which forced Israel to mobilize the “Hasbara” or Israeli propaganda system in an attempt to preserve the legitimacy of the aggression or “Israel’s right to defend itself,” as declared by the heads of major countries, and this system is managed centrally by the state’s official institutions, and attracts Israeli civil society in addition to the arms of the Zionist movement in Europe and America for this purpose.

The Israeli propaganda strategy in the battle for world public opinion relies on two basic pillars. The first is to portray the Palestinian struggle as “anti-Semitic” and “Nazi” terrorism aimed at eliminating the Jews, and the other is to strengthen Islamophobia in European countries to paint the Palestinian struggle in an unjust bloody tone. It differs from ISIS, and in this way Israel blocks any sympathy or support for the Palestinian cause.

Embracing antisemitism:

This strategy is not a product of the moment, of course, as it has continued over time in shaping the Western perception of the conflict, as Israel has been working over the past decade to expand the definition of the term anti-Semitism, by including any criticism directed at the State of Israel, its ethnocratic character, or its expansionist occupation policies as necessarily anti-Jewish; Because it aims to “undermine” their state and target them to complete the Nazi project of the Third Reich. Israel is working to achieve this goal by pushing decision-makers in international and academic institutions to adopt the new Israeli definition of Semitism, in addition to activating financial pressure from international Zionist organizations on media and civil institutions to adopt this definition and exclude critical voices towards Israel’s policies.

In exchange for these efforts, the ruling political parties in Israel, led by the Likud Party headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, worked to consolidate relations with right-wing populist movements and parties, especially in Eastern and Central Europe, as most of these movements carry an ideology hostile to liberal democracy and human rights, in addition to hatred of immigrants. And calling for the basis of white Iraqi supremacy, which forms the basis and intellectual hotbed for anti-Semitic movements around the world.

The political leadership in Israel found in these movements a strategic partner to spread its anti-Palestinian propaganda and obtain moral support for the establishment of the Israeli apartheid regime, which is based on similar ideological foundations, ignoring the explicit anti-Semitic ideas spread by these same movements. In addition, we witnessed during the term of US President Donald Trump is making persistent attempts by Israel to address and win over the extreme American right that supports Trump, which holds ideas similar to its counterpart in Europe, which is based on white supremacy that is anti-Semitic, and anti-Semitic in general, and this rapprochement has led to the emergence of a rift in relations between the Israeli state and the Jewish communities in America that The majority of them are considered progressive and support the Democratic Party.

In addition, the Israeli government turned a blind eye to the emergence of movements carrying anti-Semitic ideology, in addition to manifestations of clear targeting of Jews, and racist statements by politicians in countries such as Germany, France and Italy, in exchange for these countries’ support for Israel’s policies in the region and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli discourse aims to delegitimize the Palestinian struggle, by addressing the guilt complex of Europeans for committing the Nazi Holocaust, in order to drop the moral and historical responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe committed against the Jews on the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular, and thus give full right to Israel to commit the most horrific Types of war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel is doing this today by bringing up scenes of the Nazi Holocaust and equating it with the Hamas attack in all official and unofficial speeches through a propaganda system, labeling the Hamas movement as a Nazi after every sentence. Not only that, but the demonization of the Palestinian resistance also extends to the demonization of the Palestinians for... All political factions in order to dehumanize them. Thus, the Palestinians and those who support the dismantling of Israeli colonialism become anti-Semites or the only anti-Semites, and in return the racist anti-Semitic movements are contained.

Promoting Islamophobia:

Over the past two decades, Europe and America have witnessed intermittent waves of immigration from Arab and Islamic countries, which contributed to an increase in the number of Muslim minorities in capitals and major cities, and they began to demand their cultural and religious rights. These immigrations coincided with the rise of dark forces in the Middle East region claiming to implement Islam and Sharia with the aim of implementing Islam and Sharia law. Destabilizing the region, perhaps the most famous of which is the Islamic State (ISIS), which has claimed responsibility for a large number of operations directed against civilians in European cities.

These changes contributed to the rise in Islamophobia in Europe, and Islam is considered a closed and fossilized religion that does not share any of the principles and customs of other cultures. Rather, it is lower in status than the West, in addition to being barbaric and irrational and encouraging terrorism. The increase in manifestations of hostility towards Islam and Muslims was not limited to the political elite. It also reached civil society and the Western media, which began repeating these phrases as a logical and acceptable matter. On the other hand, the United States witnessed a continuous rise in anti-Islamic forces and rhetoric after the events of September 11, and it gained popularity with The beginning of the populist tide in the world.

Since the emergence of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel has worked to portray the conflict as a religious conflict between Muslims and Jews, and not a liberation political struggle against colonial forces. With the rise of the forces of the religious right in Israel and the shift of the political map towards the extreme right over the last two decades, this has become the official discourse of the state. Especially since this new Israeli right carries a messianic religious project that aims to establish a Jewish kingdom and build the Third Temple on the ruins of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The escalation of hostility towards Islam and Muslim immigrants in European cities in recent years has formed a fertile environment for international Zionist institutions to spread a discourse stating that Israel, which represents the principles of the West and shares a culture with it, deals with the same dark Islamic forces and that victory for Israel is a victory for the West and its principles, by portraying resistance. Palestinian popularity has a religious, terrorist character, and lies and falsification of facts in order to create similarities between it and terrorist groups such as ISIS, and thus every Palestinian, and every Muslim who supports the Palestinian cause, becomes an ISIS member, until proven otherwise.

Today, the World Zionist Agency is working to spread a media campaign in European cities under the title “You Are Next” in an attempt to symbolize Western public opinion that extremist Islam will reach you in the end. Therefore, you must give full and unconditional support to Israel in its war on Islam. The terrorist, and Israel launches a media war against every foreigner who expresses his support for the Palestinian cause because he supports terrorism, and their latest target was the Swedish environmental activist Jorita Tunbridge.

The Palestinian issue and the demand to lift the siege and aggression on Gaza are witnessing a great global popular rally, especially after the massacres committed by Israel, which brought millions around the world to the streets, but in order to influence the global discourse, it is necessary to analyze the intellectual foundations of the Israeli propaganda discourse, and investigate the hidden relationships between it. And among non-Israelis who repeat it in the world, in order to understand the nature of relations between the West and Israel, and to develop a equal discourse based on historical facts and the justice of the Palestinian cause, and works to demolish racist ideas against Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs.

Source: Arab 48