Bahrain tries to improve tainted image witn the help of Israeli agency that specializes in defaming Arabs

 
''This is Bahrain'' 

Bahrain is involved in a campaign to improve its image that has been badly damaged by the bloody way it suppressed the demonstration for more democracy by the (mainly  Shi'ite) opposition. A 200-member strong ''This is Bahrain'' delegation is currently visiting Washington and New York and is hosting a conference and exhibition in each city  to highlight Bahrain’s multi-cultural society and promote peace, tolerance and co-existence.  The events and visits are organised in collaboration with the American Chamber of Commerce Bahrain and follow similar roadshows in London, Berlin, Brussels and Paris. 
Bahrain Federation of Expatriate Associations secretary-general Betsy Mathieson, who is leading the “This is Bahrain” delegation to the US, said “We are set to work closely together to change negative media perception of the situation in Bahrain and to use the Bahrain model of centuries-old religious freedom, peaceful co-existence and mutual respect in the fight against global terrorism.” said Ms Mathieson.
In order to promote this and to ''correct'' the negative image that Bahrain suffered ''from negative media reports'' the delegation has sought the cooperation of ..... the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which, according to Ms Mathieson '' does an outstanding job on many fronts.”

Israel distributed falsified video about Hamas beating civilians back into their houses

A few days ago far rightist Zionist sites like "'The Allgemeiner'' and similarly rightist blogs carried a video that showed Hamas police chasing civilians in the streets of Gaza. The suggestion was made that it showed how Hamas prevented people, who had been warned by Israel of an imminent strike and wanted to flee, from leaving their houses. That was also what the subtitle of the video said: "Hamas members brutally beating civilians of Gaza who leave their homes following IDF warning".
My attention was drawn to the video some time after it was tweeted by Esther Voet, director of the local Dutch Israel lobby called "CIDI'', and found its way to Facebook pages. Unfortunately, however, for the believers of hasbara, the video is a clear fake. It has been put together by an Israeli entity called ''IsareMedia'', from  images taken from a German documentary by Doku Channel, which was broadcasted  two years ago. The beating actually had to do with differences of opinion about religion.
I first show the Israeli fake version:

 And next part 4 of the German original from 2012 (which can be found here on Youtube in 5 parts). The similarity is clear, from about 3' 50'' minute in the film.


The above video was actually by no means the only one of a kind. Another one which ''showed'' how Hamas  was using children as a human shield, had earlier been unmasked by blogger Ali Abunimah of The Electronic Intifada. He showed  the video had been shot  in Syria. There will probably be others as well. 

Israel opens a new front: cyber propaganda

Minister Edelstein of the Propaganda ministry in the situation room

The rightist Israeli site Arutz 7 (radio and tv of the settlers)reports about another Israeli front, the hasbara (propaganda) front: 
  Besides attacking Hamas terrorists in Gaza and hampering their ability to harm Israeli civilians, Israel has been fighting Gaza Arab terror on the cyber front. With social media becoming more important than government announcements or even TV coverage, the government has set up a special “social media situation room” which will communicate to the rest of the world in real time what exactly is happening in the new IDF operation, Pillar of Defense.
 The opening of the situation room was presided over Wednesday night by Hasbara and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein. The situation room is working with the IDF, the Defense and Homefront Command ministries, and other official channels, taking the information from all streams and “translating” them for use on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks. Until now, the situation room has concentrated on messages aimed at diplomats and the media.
 Staff in the situation room are in touch with thousands of bloggers and other pro-Israel activists around the world involved in social media (Italics by me AbuP). The messages are sent to these activists, and forwarded on to social networks, blogs, web sites, and other internet outlets. The messages include statements from officials, testimonies from resident under fire, photos, videos, and links to news stories. The messages are sent out in a variety of languages.

Sources talked about 35.000 propaganda activists all over the world. Well, take it as a warning. 
 In the meantime one is reminded of the days that South-Africa was mobilizing all the forces it could muster around the world in order to defend the apartheid...

Israeli students for hire and other hasbara stories

El Al employees are being informed about the evil nature of judge Goldstone. Hasbara is everywhere in Israel it seems. In September it also hit the skies, after it was decided that the employees of El Al would be trained by the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Hasbara and the organisation Stand with Us to represent the beautiful face of Israel''. (Photo Stand with Us)



'The wave of anti-Israeli criticism sweeping across many countries, including in North America' has prompted the Jewish Agency to significantly increase the number of Shlichim (emissaries) abroad, s Ynet writes this Monday. These emissaries, who engage in advocacy for the State of Israel have been a central part of the Jewish Agency's vision during the past two and a half years.
Jewish Agency's chairman Natan Sharansky believes sending more shlichim to campuses in North America will tilt scales in the fight against de-legitimization of Israel. Nowadays some 400 Jewish Agency emissaries are spread across the globe, out of which some 250 are stationed in North America. Until recently, the shlichim fulfilled a more educational role in the Jewish communities to which they were sent. However, according to Ynet, 'events in the past few years, including the Second Lebanon War, Operation Cast Lead, the Gaza blockade and the flotilla raid, compelled the agency to change direction'. A Jewish Agency official noted that the political affiliation of the emissaries is irrelevant in this case: "We don’t care whether they vote Likud or Meretz. What's important is that they love Israel and fight against the movement that denies the Jewish people's right to exist and its right for its own country."

That not all. Recently Ali Abunimah revealed on his blog that The National Union of Israeli Students (NUIS) has become a full-time partner in the Israeli government’s efforts to spread its propaganda online and on college campuses around the world. NUIS has launched a program to pay Israeli university students $2,000 to spread pro-Israel propaganda online for 5 hours per week from the “comfort of home,” he writes.  The union is also partnering with Israel’s Jewish Agency to send Israeli students as missionaries to spread propaganda in other countries, for which they will also receive a stipend.

Abunimah also found out that the NUIS receives funding from the ministry of Foreigh Affairs, the ministry of Hasbara, the Jewish Agency  and the organisation StandWithUs to carry out  hasbara activities abroad. Such is stated in NUIS’s 2011-2012 workplan and budget. Quote: Plan: using students who go on delegations abroad on behalf of the Union (approximately 250 students a year) for hasbara purposes. Before each delegation the students will undergo a hasbara workshop on behalf of the Ministry of Hasbara, which will give them the tools and information to contend with the questions and the critical salvos and the ability to present in their stead “a different Israel.”
Abunimah reveals that the hasbara training is compulsory for students who want to be sent abroad.
Furthermore in its workplan, the NUIS Foreign Relations Department sets as a target: “Explaining Israeli policy in the European Student Union” (ESU). Abunimah quotes that it will do this by:
Sending a quarterly report to the ESU about the situation in Israel, relying on reports issued by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Hasbara, the SWU [StandWithUs] organization, and others.

 According to its budget, NUIS receives the following grants:

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs scholarship project: NIS 180,000 ($47,000)
• Jewish Agency scholarship project: NIS 100,000 ($26,000)
• Nefesh Yehudi org: NIS 300,000 ($78,000)

On the expenditure side, the Foreign Relations Department budget includes a payment of NIS 5000 ($1300) to StandWithUs.

Jane Corbin, the impartiality of a BBC diva

Israeli diplomatic missions seem to have sent copies to their relations around August 18. I myself received one from one of my Israeli contacts: the documentary of BBC's Panorama about the attack on the Gaza Flotilla on 31 May. The film, 'Death on the Med' was made by Jane Corbin and I wonder how many people could have been pleased by it, apart from, obviously, the Israeli government and their friends.
Corbin, I have to tell, was never my favorite BBC journalist. In 1993 (or was it '94?) I got to review her book on the Oslo negotiations, called 'Gaza First'. The book was absolutely unbeatable in one respect. Iit gave an impeccable (or so it looked) account of what the negotiaters got fo diner during all those hectic days in that villa outside Oslo. She would write that this or tht days was concluded with a diner of salmon with cream sauce, baked potates and a cucumber slad, with strawberries for dessert.
As far as the less mundaine business of political wrangling was concerned, she was totally at the side of the Israelis. Her lack of impartiiality was in fact only matched by her unshakable belief in her own judgment.When I read at some points that the Palestnians seemed to be giving away valuable negotiating positions that were backed by internationally recognized resolutins and documents, Corbin remarked that at last they seemed to become 'a bit reasonable'. When on the contrary the Palestinians were holding on to points like the divison of Jerusalem, she called them 'stubborn' or even 'out ogf touch with reality'..
And here she was again. With a documentary about what happened aboard the Mavi Marmara, the flagship of the Freedom Flotilla, where on the 31st May a fight took place in which nine people got killed. Corbin could make use for her story  of material that the Israelis confiscated from the people aboard and never gave back, apparently with the intention to use it some time as a kind of testimonials against the participants of the Flotilla. Or even better, to have it used as such by a trustworthy third party.  Apparently where most other journalists would heve refused the honor, Corbin acceptd and appeared to be such a party.
Her film turned out to be a quest to find out whether the Gaza Flotilla people were genuinly trying to do something for Gaza, or had in fact other, less honorable things in mind. And yes, at the end of her documentary she turns towards the camera and gives us her verdict. With a stern look she tells us in a fir voice that 'this was not an attempt to bring aid to Gaza, this was a political move to put pressure on Israel and the internationale community'.
Oh really? Was it?
I thought nobody told ever otherwise. The Turkish IHH and the other organizers of this Freedom Flotilla were absolutely intent on delevering much needed medicine and other goods, but their main, declared goal had always been to put pressure on, and draw the attention of the international community to, the inhumane blockade of Gaza in order to have it lifted. I thought everybody would have known, but apparently Ms Corbin didn't. For her it was quite a discovery, and to that one that in her eyes seemed to degrade the whole Flotilla enterprise to the level of an ordinary political stunt ( - or maybe even an exercise in Israel bashing). At any rate it was clear that she strongly disapproved of it. To judge from the way she reached some remarkable conclusiin , after 20 minutes of  bad, uncomplete and biased journalism.
A few examples:

She refers to the Turkish charity IHH as an organisation which is suspected by many government of having links to  terror organisations. In fact not any government says that -  apart from Israel of course.
She interviews Giora Eiland, the main Israeli military investigator of the Flotilla episode, and gives him ample room to declare that there is proof  that  the activists at the Mavi Marmara had fire arms and did use them. But she does not ask him why there was not one of these fire arm found, even though the Israelis assembled almost all kitchen utensils and repair kits aboard to show how well armed the Mavi Marmara people were. Neither does she ask him why no Israeli soldier was wounded by gunshots, or why the Israeli's painted over and removed the traces on the Mavi Marmara before they returned the boat. Nor asked she any questions about the autopsies of several of the Turkish victims, which showed that most had been killed by more than one shot from close range and from different angles (and why one Turk, who was armed with nothing bjut a camera, was killed by a single shot - also at very close range - in his forehead).

Throughout the film Corbin constantly keeps asking the question what the real motives of the people aboard the Mavi Marmara were. And to illustrate the possibility that some may have had less noble goals, she uses, among other things,  a tape of the conversation between the Israeli command center and the ships. On this tape one can clearly hear phrases like 'Go back to Auschwitz', supposedly uttered by the men on the ships. But wait...., wasn't this a tape that had been doctored by the Israeli army spokesman's office? As the Israeli's themselves had to admit after the blogosphere proved it? Didn't Corbin know? Oh yes, she did. Iin the film she mentions that there was a controverse around it. Yet, she uses it,  falsification or not.
Amazing, eh? One really wonders how a person like herself could survive so long at the BBC, in an atmosphere were impartiality and an investigative kind of journalism are so much more the standard than her own way of doing things. Could it be that Corbin is kept as a kind of counterweight, so that the BBC vis a vis Israel creates a window of possiblity to occasionally tell the truth? Or has it more to do with the fact that she is married to the  conservative MP John Maples (since 2010 member of the House of Lords), who was quite influential in the party and has long held the position of president of the Conservative Friends of Israel?