Our Israeli correspondent MC returns with an essay about the current media manipulations that have given us both the “refugee” crisis and the demonization of Israel.
I get very bored when people tell me (which is often) that “Israel murders Palestinians”. Whilst it is true that Palestinians get murdered in Israel, what this statement fails to comprehend is that Israelis get gaoled for murdering anybody, including Palestinians, as in any civilized Western country, but unlike most Middle Eastern countries including the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The difference here is the relentless propaganda to demonise Israel.
Jews have been demonised down through the centuries; it is a historical fact. Every evil regime persecutes Jews, and in every aspiring evil regime, there is an increase in the persecution of Jews.
That said, most people are not born with Jew-hatred embedded in their psyche. It is placed there by nurture, which is essentially propaganda.
Jews particularly open themselves to negative propaganda. A minority of Jews are arrogant and self-righteous in a singularly narrow and offensive way, as can be seen from recent comments on this website. They, too, are mostly reacting to propaganda. They expect tolerance, but are not prepared to be tolerant in return.
It is this dichotomy which is at the heart of the East-West problem. In the West we are all taught to tolerate other people’s peccadilloes (within reason), but this does not tend to occur elsewhere, and certainly not in the Middle East.
Intolerance is a human emotion based on fear, it is thus a prime target of propaganda. Has a ‘white African” president of the USA increased or decreased racial tensions in the USA?
When a President says one thing (“I am a Christian”) but acts like he is a Muslim, it causes confusion and fear. We then need oceans of propaganda and not a little dissimulation to patch the gaping hole in his credibility. As an outsider, one gets the impression that the real, actual ruler of the USA is the (possibly criminal) Islamic organisation CAIR, and that the citizens of the USA are fed layer upon layer of lies and trickery to ensure the current political status quo. A status quo of a non-violent coup d’état.
Propaganda as such started in the UK. In 1906 the British Government did a secret deal with France calling for the UK to side with France in the case of another war with Germany. It should be remembered that relations between UK and France had been hostile for centuries, and after the Fashoda incident; not particularly warm, so this deal was kept under wraps.
When the time came for fulfilment of this obligation in 1914, the UK government had to ‘cover up’ its motives, so they created the ‘poor little Belgium’ story of rape and pillage by German soldiers.
Thus Britain went to war on the back of lies and deceit, and many young men paid for it with their lives.
In 1919 Edward Bernays basically merged propaganda and commercial advertising, using various manipulative techniques to ‘bend’ public perception on issues such as women smoking in public. The idea was to get you, the victim, to spend your money on something you would not normally spend it on.
With the advent of radio, advertising (and thus propaganda) became big business.
Political propaganda grew alongside of commercial propaganda. The human brain is wired such that we are creatures of habit, and this can be used for propagandistic purposes. If, by constant repetition, a meme, true or false, is embedded in the brain, it becomes a truism. Thus most people can be cynically manipulated, for example, to equate Jews (Israelis) with rats, and subsequently be convinced of the need for pest control. The rest is history.
So we are told endlessly that Islam is a ‘religion of peace’, and that the flood of Islamic warriors knocking at the gates of Europe consists of ‘refugees’ fleeing war. And you know what? It works. Germans (and Swedes) are already swamped, overwhelmed even, but thanks to effective propaganda they do not see the truth before their eyes. However, the indigenous poor are less distracted. They have to live with the filth and violence, but they have no voice; they are shouted down as ‘racist’ and offered no platform.
So how did ‘racism’ become the number one social crime? The answer lies in the spin given to Nazi doctrine in the immediate postwar period. The German people were taught by the Nazi propaganda ministry to ‘blame’ their hardships on Jewish bankers and capitalists, especially the defeat in 1918. Yes, the racism behind this was very old and already embedded in society; all that was needed was for the blame to be projected onto all Jews, not on those who were actually guilty (as, of course, a few were, along with their many non-Jewish colleagues). It was also necessary to demonize Slavs, as it was their lands that were required as lebensraum, the expansion of Aryan Germany into their god-given rightful living space.
At the same time as the Nazis were manipulating Germans, the Russian KGB was penetrating the media and education systems of the free Western world. In the immediate postwar period, the benign racism of the interwar period was amplified, by continuous distortion of the Nazi example, into the number one ‘hate crime’ of postmodernism. Nazi racism was focused on political and social need; modern ‘racism’ is a whites-only crime focused on the political needs of the KGB and its cultural Marxist successors.
The demise of Western cultures is predicated by the fear of the accusation of ‘racism’, with its negative associations with Nazism. This is the overarching victory of modern propaganda. It is this set of distortions that projects guilt onto an otherwise rational target group. I am not guilty of ‘white supremacy’, because the whole premise of the accusation of white supremacy is built upon the idea that we are all born equal, and that all cultures are equal. This concept is unproven, and moreover cannot be proven — except, that is, by propaganda. It is the product of a very clever and cynical set of lies and distortions aimed at bringing down Judeo-Christianity, the very root of Western success.
Part and parcel of modern propaganda technique is the necessity of omission. Whilst facts can be reported as such, the omission of pertinent data can render the report truthful but dishonest. So we see with the reporting in Germany of conditions in areas invaded by the latest wave of migrants. How is the Goebbels-era reporting of Jewish issues any different to the Merkel era reporting of immigration issues? One was negative and invented lies, the other was positive — because it left out anything derogatory — thus creating an untruth. The Goebbels lies preceded a war. What will be the result of the Merkel distortions?
The German people have just been shafted to the tune of hundreds of billions of Euros: the cost of open borders. And over the next ten years Merkel’s migrant lies are going to cost many more trillions of euros. One guess as to who will have to pay.
Hitler’s socialism was very expensive, for which reason he had to acquire the gold reserves of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. How will Merkel cope?
It is propaganda at play which keeps the Merkels and Obamas of this world in power. Truth is hidden behind a smokescreen of mendacious words: words such as ‘hope’, ‘change’, ‘progress’, ‘liberal’, ‘Democrat’ and ‘Republican’. These words have become Orwellian doublespeak, a stinking hole of corruption, a rotten miasma emanating from a mass grave — ours!
MC lives in the southern Israeli city of Sderot. For his previous essays, see the MC Archives.
I am willing to believe your history lesson. But, what I am most concerned with is the outright distortion of the facts when it comes to the terrorism in Israel. I have now seen three incidents of Palestinians plowing their cars into Israeli civilians. Anyone can see this, it is clearly documented.
In the last incident the Palestinian got out and started to hack the victims to death with an ax when a security guard, civilian, shot him…
How this could be a “disproportionate response” as my State Department claimed this week is beyond me. If I were one of the victims of this attack I would hope to God that someone would shoot the attacker dead before I got the ax…
Is the nuclear deal really so important to our current administration that they are willing to put up with this kind of mayhem? I saw a short clip of Fox News with Juan Williams in which he said that sending Army personnel out to guard strategic spots in Israel was an overcompensation. Perhaps you don’t have what we call a National Guard like the kind that was sent to our Southern border or to Ferguson MO? One might actually call that “The Army.” Especially when you consider that they have been sent to Afghanistan and Iraq.
This current situation in Israel makes me sick to my stomach. Recently an MSNBC reporter was called out by the anchor in NY for false reporting a stabbing at the Damascus Gate. That might be progress.
The secret agreement alluded to is known as the Entente cordiale and was signed in 2004: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entente_Cordiale.
Anyhow the essay is nice and concise. And the propaganda angle is very to the point.
Time for massive counter-propaganda!
Not Exactly…..
“Our prompt entry into the European War in 1914 was necessitated by our
commitment to France. This commitment was not known to the people; it
was not known to Parliament; it was not even known to all the members
of the Cabinet. More than this, its existence was denied. How binding
the moral engagement was soon became clear. The fact that it was not a
signed treaty had nothing whatever to do with the binding nature of an
understanding come to as a result of military and naval conversations
conducted over a number of years. Not only was it referred to as “an
obligation of honour” (Lord Lansdowne), “A compact” (Mr. Lloyd George),
“An honourable expectation” (Sir Eyre Crowe), “the closest negotiations
and arrangements between the two Governments” (Mr. Austen Chamberlain)”
and
“Lord Grey writes in his book, _Twenty-Five Years_ (published in 1925),
with regard to his declaration in August 1914:
“It will appear, if the reader looks back to the conversations with
Cambon in 1906, that not only British and French military, but also
naval, authorities were in consultation. But naval consultations had
been put on a footing satisfactory to France in 1905, before the
Liberal Government had come into office. The new step taken by us in
January 1906 had been to authorize military conversations on the
same footing as the naval ones.”
From: Falsehood in War-time: Propaganda Lies of the First World War
Author: Arthur Ponsonby
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks10/1000011.txt.
Whilst the Entente was public and common knowledge, it contained no formal commitments, the deal referred to in the essay was the secret but binding underbelly of the Entente, withheld from Parliament and people.
Seems that “causing offence” is the number one “crime” of the modern era… Perhaps due to the prevalence of Google, Youtube or social media, which puts everyone at risk of becoming a “public enemy”, at the click of a button – with consequences for one’s career, and personal life…
Racism is an especially bad form of that – as a race is something one can’t choose, and hence causes most “offence”. Islam, of course, doesn’t fit into that category – however Muslims take great offence at any anti-Islam statements. Hence criticism of Islam can have the same effect at racism.
Unlike, for example, criticism of Christians, white men, or Eastern Europeans (in Britain). None of whom will react particularly strongly at any “offence” coming their way… hence yesterday, I received through my letterbox an advert for the fireworks in my town. Several acts are due to play in a concert on the night – including “white men can’t funk”. Ever imagined a stage act, with the first name changed to “black”? How many hours, before that stage act became infamous on twitter, in the Daily Mail and Guardian, and had the police knocking on their door?
Yet “White men can’t funk” can play with little fuss – as white men don’t make much fuss over it, while the general public think “it’s probably true”, and move to reading something else.
Hence the self-censorship works in only one direction, while “hate” against whites, men, Christians, Jews, straight people and all other “privileged” classes is given a free pass.
Agreed. Except for the bit about Judeo/Christian heritage being the root cause of Western Societies successes. We follow these beliefs but are open minded enough to allow dissent, scientific thought, socio-political systems based upon freedoms. This open mindedness is also what makes us vulnerable to negative outside influences.
It seems to me that Western elites are in the process of jumping ship, of loading the lifeboats and preparing to cast off and, to continue the nautical theme, abandon their passengers to the fate of a ship without a rudder in a stormy sea.
Where do Israel and the Jews fit into this scheme of things? They are a merely a resource that the Western establishment utilises to further its own interests. At one time it was in the establishment’s interest to have Israel and the Jews seen as victims, now it is in their interest to have them seen as perpetrators.
I would think that the limits of the Jews’ patience is being tested. As accommodation and tolerance have been shown to be ineffectual, as well as a sign of weakness to the oriental (as opposed to Western) mind, I would expect very soon a very harsh and stern response from Israel that tells the world quite unequivocally, “We have had quite enough!” “Cease and desist immediately or face further wrath from our armed forces.” And finally, “We know what you think of us, and we now know that our polity will never change that. If our accommodation has been distasteful to you, maybe our stern reprisals that destroy the population centres that are the incubators of the terrorists that plague us will be more appealing and more to your liking.”
The Cabinet along with Netanyahu has probably been thinking, “Small size and indefensible borders in the spirit of accommodation hasn’t brought the results we had hoped for. Let’s enlarge our borders and a lebensraum of our own for our people. Oh, and while we are at it, let’s rid ourselves of that pesky Russian Naval Fleet that could point its missiles at us just as easily as it could point them at the Kurds and Razidis.”
Something to think about on this beautiful Saturday morning.
In essence, Israeli policy is dictated from Washington, not particularly from an insane White Outhouse, but from Congress which currently more rational; however that could change very quickly, as it nearly did with the Al Durah incident:
http://aldurah.com/the-al-durah-incident/background/pallywood/
More Mad-ison Avenue propaganda. We have taught them well. They probably have footage from the 1960s protests and have learned the rudiments of street theatre. Yes, I learned how to make use of ‘victimhood’ but I found the playacting to be appallingly dishonest and disgusting. I later discovered that our altruism and naiveté were being used in a game of chess that was being played by the Elite. This pawn decided to leave the board.
Thanks for the great article! I think power elites have always used propaganda but only since the 20th century do they have a mass media of almost unlimited potential for manipulation.
The racism of the Nazis and the racism of the European Imperial empires proved a never-ending gift for the Marxists, who emerged from WW2 triumphant. They encouraged the ‘freedom fighters’ of the Third World to rise up against their masters – and they still are, but now the ‘freedom fighters’ live among us (Obama being one of them).
Racism is also a gift for the modern power elites pursuing their relentless policy of Domestic Imperialism, turning their own citizens into vassals and work serfs dependent on the largesse of the every-growing central governments, after those governments have taxed their serfs to the hilt.
In every domain, we see today the increasing monoplization of power. The central banks, the political parties, the global conglomerates, the Murdoch media moghuls – they all seek monopoly under the rubric of ‘economies of scale’. The EU under Brunhilde Achtung! Merkel is no exception. By flooding Europe with invaders in a reverse-gear Imperialism, she plans to destroy member governments and establish an EU Ubersetzung!
Merkel and her Brussel sprouts, plus the likes of the venomous Soros, were traumatized by the 2009 depression and the collapse of Greece. What would happen to their power if a tiny Greek mosquito could blow up the whole enterprise? Drastic action was needed to strengthen the EU and more precisely their Central Bank so it could serve as a milch cow like the US Fed – propping up the financial elite by the growth of debt.
Where Israel is in a pickle is its geographical position. Surrounded by oil and natural gas etc under Muslim control, the financial elites and their proxy governments have no alternative but to cut Muslims a deal – as we see in the embrace of the evil empire in Tehran. Everyone just wants Israel out of the way! People hate those who make them feel guilty or who prove to be a moral stumbling block to unfettered greed.
I cannot imagine who will come to Israel’s aid. Obama talks out of both sides of his mouth. If Israelis would all paint themselves black, he might reconsider. His reaction to the fire-bombing of the temple was, to paraphrase Charles Krauthammer, as though it was no more than a traffic infringement! I hope Israel understands Obama is the enemy!
Jewish people ought to put a lot of blame on the American Jewish community for continuing to support the Democrats, despite the fact that Democrat financiers bank-rolled Hitler’s Germany, but also the Soviet Union – no friend to Jews either.
Perhaps an examination of why American Jews continue to shoot themselves in the foot would shed some light on the Left’s embrace of annihilation by a thousand Muslim stabs!
I too, do not understand American Jewry, my roots are Sephardi and I have had no more than passing contact with the general run of US Jews. Those I have met have been politically naive (but at least one with similar views to myself, but he was West Coast).
“The German people were taught by the Nazi propaganda ministry to ‘blame’ their hardships on Jewish bankers and capitalists, especially the defeat in 1918″
Actually a key part of Hitler’s (and others’) anti-Semitism was based on the prominent Jewish role in communist parties at the time – a not unreasonable fear, given the horrors committed by the Bolsheviks and other would-be imitators, such as the brief Hungarian and German communist revolutions. Even someone as eminent as Winston Churchill described Boshevism as ” the schemes of international Jews”. In Germany, four of the eleven members of the KPD (German Communist Party) were Jewish. In Hungary, Jews were even more dominant – of the government’s 49 commisars, 31 were Jewish.
It is simply historically inaccurate to portray Jews as purely victims of abhorrent regimes like Soviet communism – Jews, at times, also had a prominent role in the creation and staffing of those regimes. While that prominence varied over time, and sometimes those regimes embraced popular antisemitism for tactical reasons, you need to have a much more nuanced picture of the roles Jews played than you have presented.
I disagree, by 1933 Stalin was well along in purging the hated Jewish Bolsheviks, the last being Trotsky in 1940. Lenin (part Jewish), Dherzinsky Kamenev and Zinoviev had already been purged. At which time, of course, Adolf and Iosef were best of ‘pals’.
But then the essay is not about a detailed expose of Jewish Bolsheviks is it? That is your pet subject, so why not write us an article on how you see it.
The essay is about propaganda in case you did not notice.
“But then the essay is not about a detailed expose of Jewish Bolsheviks is it? That is your pet subject, so why not write us an article on how you see it.”
Well, fair enough, but you did make the observation about Jews being victims of Communism e.g. “Every evil regime persecutes Jews, and in every aspiring evil regime, there is an increase in the persecution of Jews” .I was merely responding to that observation, pointing out that Jews had both a prominent role as instigators (You also forgot Kaganovich and Yagoda as prominent Soviet mass-murderers) and as victims (particularly after 1945) of Soviet Communism. (Religious Jews, of course, suffered constantly under communism, for secular jews things were more nuanced). As one prescient rabbit noted “the Trotsky’s will make the revolution, and the Bronsteins will suffer for it” (Trotsky’s birth name, of course, was Bronstein).
And I don’t need to write the article – Jerry Muller’s Capitalism and the Jews does an excellent job of covering this material in, what to my mind, is a fair and balanced way.
Cheers
Sorry, one prescient rabbi – that slip was not even Freudian!
Advice for Mr Observer to consider: If ever you undertake a high risk program of political changes, be sure to involve a few dozen Jews (-just tell them your plans involve their being freed at last of the burden of jew-hatred). If things go awry, you can alway let it be portrayed as not merely those Jews’ fault, but *the* Jews fault, it’s *their* doing. *It’s like an insurance policy!* You can always leverage the masses’ tribal sense, and safely redirect their blame for you onto a *group* they are comfortable disliking. A safe escape hatch for you. Because so many people want to accept it, it’s a very safe villainization (as is the case today with Israel, whoda thunk it?).
Now I don’t expect you will undertake any political program, but this option is at times a valuable piece of the structure to those who do. Not a part to be spoken of, mind you, but top planners/supporters are aware of its presence.
” If ever you undertake a high risk program of political changes, be sure to involve a few dozen Jews”
There were more than a “few dozen Jews”involved in the communist parties of Eastern Europe. They were consistently over-represented in virtually every communist party there. Your characterisation also ignores the benefits those Jews obtained from participating in these programs – they weren’t just patsies.
It’s also true that most Jews weren’t communists, and most communists weren’t Jews. Religious Jews in particular, as with all religious people, were almost constantly victimised by communists, at least until the Brezhnev era. But the role of ethnic Jews in Marxism and associated political movements was a disproportionately influential one. This is a matter of historical fact, and can easily be verified by anyone with the wit to investigate that matter.
To your point about using Jews as political cover, there is some evidence that the Soviets did do this in Eastern Europe after 1945. In Hungary, for instance, Jews (or ‘Jewish Muscovites, as they were called) were highly prominent in the regime foisted onto the Hungarians immediately after the war, notably the general secretary Rakosi. Eventually, due to unrest in Hungary, this become politically untenable even for the Soviets, so they adopted a more “nationalistic” communism in the Eastern bloc (utilising antisemitism as required).
Why does this matter? You can’t understand the politics of Central and Eastern Europe today if you don’t understand that they see through accusations of racism and antisemtism a lot more easily than many in the West – they don’t have the ‘glass jaw’ on this issue so many Western politicians do, who the mere accusation of racism from even the most deranged leftist is likely to see politicians fleeing in terror. Who would you rather have running your country – Orban or Merkel? I would vote for the former, any day.
You appear to pick at relatively small points–relatively because they don’t obviate the main proposition:
Promise Jews freedom from antisemitism with a political movement and some will join. Gee what a surprise! Most Jews did not joint the communist movement although some did–most Jews were either religious and concerned with religion or else just wanted to get away from communism, the Soviet block and/or the countries which had oppressed them. Again no surprise).
It’s probably a big reason for so many ethnic Jews in the United States embracing multiculturalism–the implied promise of freedom from antisemitism.
It appears that you are trying to push an agenda by nitpicking. But, as I said above, your nitpicking does not counter the main points of the post.
And yes, it would obviously be a good strategy for an political movement to recruit Jews (promise them whatever you need to promise them) and then be able to blame them later.
Nitpicking, huh? Well, here is a few more nitpicks for you to consider (and respond to, if you feel like it)
Consider MC’s statement “Part and parcel of modern propaganda technique is the necessity of omission. Whilst facts can be reported as such, the omission of pertinent data can render the report truthful but dishonest.”
I agree with this, and, ironically, think the simple equation “Jews are victims of oppressive regimes” is a perfect illustration of this (i.e. a true statement, but an incomplete one, as it pertains to communism) Jews were both instigators and victims of communism, and, in many cases, benefited from the overturning of previously anti-semitic laws (e.g. as applied in pre-WW2 Poland, or pre-Soviet Russia). As you point out, many Jews were attracted by this, and threw their lot in with Marxism accordingly – perfectly understandable, but does makes it difficult to swallow a “Jews were victims of communism” argument uncritically.
Consider also the statement “Every evil regime persecutes Jews, and in every aspiring evil regime, there is an increase in the persecution of Jews.” Sounds plausible enough, but five minutes thought reveals it is nonsense. Was Mao’s regime anti-semitic? What about the Die Sturmer-reading Pol Pot? (irony alert). I would argue those two regimes were plenty evil, yet antisemitism was a non-issue for them. So that assertion is looking very dubious.
I can also think of antisemitic regimes that were replaced by more evil (but less antisemitic) regimes over time – pre-WW2 Poland and Tsarist Russia are two good examples, when compared to the communist regimes that, after the interim Nazi occupation and Kerensky governments respectively, replaced them. So if we accept this line of argument, we see there is not a straight line between the evil of a regime, and its antisemitic tendencies. Not all antisemitism historically ends, or ended, in gas chambers and murdering children wholesale, even though we (in the West) have very much come to see things that way. If racist views have been virtually criminalised in the mainstream, this applies even more to antisemitism.
The interesting thing is: why do we habitually believe/assume that antisemitism is a unique evil, and is kind of an index of evil of a regime, or even an individual, even when it is demonstrably not the case. Some of this is an understandable reaction to the holocaust, of course, but sometimes the effect of this taboo is stifling, and, I believe, needs to be discussed.
Cheers
Yes, the Germans, by adopting an open door policy to mass immigration, are attempting to atone for atrocities committed three generations ago. At what cost to social and political stability?
In contrast the Japanese have developed collective and selective amnesia in regard to the country’s wartime record, no open door policies for them.
— “When the time came for fulfilment of this obligation in 1914, the UK government had to ‘cover up’ its motives, so they created the ‘poor little Belgium’ story of rape and pillage by German soldiers.” —
Hold the phone.
While I agree in substance with your message and conclusions, including the origin of post-modern propaganda, and I can agree that the invasion of Belgium by Imperial Germany was used as a unifying hatred in the UK for coming to the aid of France in 1914, in accord with counter-invasion plans worked over with the French by Brig. Gen. Henry Hughes Wilson for ten years — but what happened in Belgium when Kaiser Wilhelm implemented the von Schlieffen plan was not merely “created” as some narrative. Neutral Belgium was brutally subjugated, just as Germany had long concluded would be necessary for the early capitulation of France.
You’ve read “The Guns of August,” right? What still remains of the siege forts around Liege, Namur and elsewhere, pounded into dust by the largest guns ever put into use up to that time, tell some of the story about what happened in Belgium early in that war. The local population of Belgium, found to be in the way of von Cluck or von Bulow were summarily shot and genuinely decimated in some cases.
German historians, even Moltke, don’t try to trivialize what happened in Belgium in 1914.
The shootings etc. are real and documented and not propaganda, the Belgian civilians took pot shots at the Germans with sometimes dire consequences. But raping and mutilating nurses and nuns, cutting off children’s hands and shooting Boy Scouts and other such nasty atrocity stories which did the rounds were mainly fabrications, i.e. propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Alleged_German_Outrages
Thank you (all) for a most interesting exchange. I will have to read it again to absorb it all, but I appreciate the views and differences of opinion. And it will lead me to more reading because I have always wanted to understand WWII — and I know that I am still missing parts of the story.
Baron and Dymphna, keep up the good work! This is one of the most intelligent and interesting sites I have ever come across.
“why do we habitually believe/assume that antisemitism is a unique evil, and is kind of an index of evil of a regime, or even an individual, even when it is demonstrably not the case.”
Gee whiz, you mean not all evil regimes are antisemitic? Who would have thought.