The Israeli Fog Machine

The American press is obsessed with the “two-sides-to-every-story” approach and this is magnified in the reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No one knows this better than the Israelis themselves, particularly the Israeli military, which has attempted both the herculean and Machiavellian task of convincing the world that they are “the most moral army in the world.” The Israeli army’s public relations has been most successful in the United States and a recent incident, like many others, indicates exactly how Israel’s public relations spinsters change the story.

Recently, I wrote about the repression of nonviolent peace activists in the West Bank protesting against the building of an illegal wall on their village land and the use of tear gas in this repression. The canisters, fired as projectiles, have been known to kill and maim and, of course, they are made in the USA. Days ago, another one of the protests in Bil’in was broken up by Israeli soldiers using tear gas canisters. This video below shows some of the tear gas used and around the 4 minute mark you can see the canisters whizzing past the heads of the protesters.



Jawaher Abu Rahmah, the sister of Bassem Abu Rahmah who was killed by a canister last year, died, at the age of 36, from inhaling the gas this week. Though she was rushed to the hospital, doctors were unable to save her. Inhaling the tear gas led to lung failure which induced the heart attack that ultimately ended Jawaher Abu Rahmah's life. Another Abu Rahmah, Abdallah, remains in an Israeli prison for organizing peaceful protests and the U.S. State Department remains mum on the situation.

So how does “the most moral army in the world” respond to the awfully embarrassing death of a peaceful 36 year old protester whose family has already been devastated by the occupation? Simple, they make up a different story.

The claim this time? Jawaher Abu Rahmah died of cancer, not tear gas.

The problem with the Israeli claim, aside from the simple fact that it isn’t true, is that there exists no evidence to corroborate this claim and all existing evidence proves the opposite. Family members, witnesses, the doctors who treated her and the hospital which failed to save her life all reject the claim that she had cancer and state clearly that it was the tear gas and nothing else which caused her death.

The only problem with these testimonies is that they happen to be Palestinian testimonies. This means that a generally pro-Israel audience, like the American public, which already gives Israel the benefit of the doubt, is likely to take the Israeli position as long as the incident is “disputed”.

There are endless examples of this. A couple of prominent ones which jump to mind are the Israeli attack on the flotilla headed to Gaza last summer and the murder of an American activist, Rachel Corrie, in Gaza. In the first case, Israel attempted to monopolize control over the video footage of the incident (much of the footage still remains in Israeli control and has not been made public even though the commandeered Mavi Marmara has been returned) and released footage they claimed vindicated them in the killing of 9 peace activists aboard the ship. Suddenly, the story was “disputed” in the United States and the story became about what may or may not have taken place on the boat and not about the illegality of the blockage or the illegality of commandeering a ship in international waters.

In Rachel Corrie’s case, the Israelis claimed that the bulldozer driver didn’t see Rachel and that the killing was an accident, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. The story then became “disputed” and was about “dueling narratives” and not about what they should have been about; why the Israelis were illegally bulldozing civilian houses in occupied Gaza.

Similarly, Jawaher Abu Rahmah’s story, like so many others, will likely fall in the “disputed” category and be dismissed like most stories about the brutality of the Israeli occupation here. The story should raise awareness about the illegal wall being built on Palestinian land throughout the West Bank but instead Americans will hear “both sides” so that the story can be “balanced”.

Meanwhile, for the Abu Rahmah family and so many other Palestinians, there may be a different story produced by the Israeli fog machine to distract certain audiences but there is only one reality: Another member of their family is dead and the confiscation of their village land continues.

An integral part of ending the occupation will have to be debunking and discrediting the Israeli fog machine. Clearly, this has already begun.

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An Exercise in the Predictable

So a new poll is out on public opinion in the Arab world and guess what? Arabs are disenchanted with Obama and the US's policy in the Middle East and the main reason is the Administration's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While this may not seem like news to many who follow the issue closely, some of the details of the poll are intriguing, and the poll itself is a necessary part of the public discussion on policy here in Washington which too often neglects the views of Arabs.

There are important shifts in this year's poll which are noteworthy. This slide sums up the key point. In one year, generally positive veiws of President Obama plummeted from 45% in 2009 to 20% in 2010. Consequently, negative views increased dramatically. It's important to keep in mind that the 2009 poll was conducted in the spring prior to Obama's June speech in Cairo which was received with cautious optimism. This means that in the span of one year, its likely that the roller-coaster that is Arab views of the American president was even more extreme.

This is undoubtedly due to the President's handling of Palestine and his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The 2010 poll, concluded only recently at the end of July, captures opinion just after Netanyahu's conciliatory meeting at the White House which the Arab world likely viewed with disgust. If there are any doubts about what issue Arabs view as most important when it comes to evaluating the United States, this second slide should effectively eliminate them.

The extent of Obama's popularity in the Arab world was a function of two things. First, he was an American President not named George W. Bush for the first time after 8 devastating years of American blunders in the region. That alone helped. But it is also likely that his initial opposition to the War on Iraq led many in the Arab world to believe Obama would be genuinely different.

Of course, the Arab world, especially when it comes to the issue of Palestine, has grown tired of promises and false hopes. Even after Obama's speech in Cairo, the general reaction in the Arab world was "that sounds nice but let's see some action." After a few weeks, let alone 18 months, the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately attitude (or in this case the what-have-you-done-for-me-ever attitude) started to set in.

Those in the Arab world who held out hope probably lost it after the latest Netanyahu-Obama meeting which the Washington Post's Dana Milbank described as the raising of the proverbial white flag over the White House. The influence of domestic politics and the Israel Lobby is not lost on the Arab world either. Check out the slide to the right. In a significant reversal over the past three years, the Arab world now believes that Israel dictates to the United States and not vice versa. This is dangerous because it means Arabs have lost faith in the US's ability to broker peace, not necessarily because they don't believe Washington wants peace, but because they don't believe Washington could do what it takes to achieve peace even if they wanted it.

So for the Arab world, it no longer matters who the US President is; the outcome will be predetermined for them if they are Republican or Democrat, Walker or Hussein.

It's important to keep in mind that the Arab world was at boiling point at the end of George W. Bush's presidency. With devastation, siege and severe civilian casualties in war torn Gaza and American troops in seemingly endless unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the countdown to Bush's last day in office could not possibly move quick enough.

But as Arabs reflect on the past year an a half of US mediation attempts and policy in the Middle East, they are coming to the realization that the countdown to the Bush presidency may never have ended.

*Full Disclosure Note: Professor Shibley Telhami, who conducts the poll on a yearly basis, was one of my professors at the University of Maryland. I admire his scholarship and approach to international relations and have had lively seminar discussions, sometimes disagreeing in the past, on analysis of this poll and also on the question of whether or not Arab public opinion matters in the autocratic societies most Arabs find themselves in. I have always found the research to be thought provoking and important. Professor Telhami along with Dr. As'ad Ghanem gave an important talk here at the Palestine Center last fall analyzing recent polling data on the views of Palestinian citizens of Israel. You can see the video and transcript of that event here.

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