"We have done precious little..."

Thanks to Yosef, we can pull up and revisit the entirety of this incredible post from the Ocean Guy blog, back in 2006. How tragic that, for all our efforts, nothing has changed.

 

IGNORANCE OF "OCCUPATION"

It is, at times, unbelievably frustrating to witness the depth of ignorance of otherwise well-informed people about the history of the Arab-Israeli War. It's doubly tragic that these same people ASSUME they are just as well-informed about the Israeli-Arab situation as they are about any other topic... after all, many of them are news junkies and have been for years... decades even... There's the rub. They need to read some history instead of relying solely on the news.

The palestinians figured out in the late '60's that their war would be best fought through the media. They figured out that they would be more efficient fighters, that their fighting would have the highest effect possible by waging a war through journalists instead of armed forces. They figured out the west's Armed Forces couldn't afford to fight them on those terms, and that Western media would bend over backwards to help them fight their battles... so they began the war using the newspapers and televisions of Europe and America. Their war of Terror, amplified by a willing western media partner, realized their first victories with hijackings.

Bassam Abu Sharif was on the palestinian front line during the hijackings of September 1970. He has a website on which he has posted his personal photos and memories as a terrorist on the ground at Revolution Airstrip, or what had been Dawson Field, outside of Amman, Jordan. Why the hijackings? To get attention... to publicize their cause... and the media ate it up... and we ate up the medias' coverage.

In one stroke of genius the palestinians gained the initiative and took control of the message that the world received.

Here is Abu Sharif in his journal:

=======================================================

In September 1970 Wadi Haddad went for the big one: a multiple hijack.

Haddad's plan was to hijack three New York-bound flights: El Al flight 219 from Amsterdam, a Swissair DC-8 out of Zurich and a TWA Boeing 707, flight 741 from Frankfurt. It was known that American hostages had the highest news value.

 

 

I asked one American who had done this where he thought he [w]as.

'Somewhere in Africa?' he asked dazedly.

'No,' I told him, 'You are in Jordan, and we are Palestinian guerrillas.'

'In Pakistan?' he asked, completely bewildered.

'No,' I said patiently. 'We are Palestinian. From Palestine. You know, the country that is now occupied by Israel.'

But he didn't know. He had obviously never heard of Palestine. We will just have to go on hijacking until every American in the world has heard of it, I thought.

[..]

Talking to the people we held hostage, sometimes tete-a-tete, sometimes in a group, made me realize how few, still, knew anything at all about the plight of the Palestinians, despite widespread media coverage of our previous hijackings. The image the Israelis projected -of poor little Israel surrounded by murderous Arabs trying all the time to gobble it up - was widely accepted. The Israelis were still way ahead in the propaganda war, but we were catching up fast.

[...]

The hijack at Dawson's Field was a very big success for the PFLP; it attracted unprecedented world-wide media coverage ... No one was hurt during the entire operation and all hostages were released safely.

=============================================================

 

I know there are only a sporadic few readers here who take the Arab side in this perpetual war, but I hope one of them who does happen by can explain to me the acts of these terrorists who want to destroy Israel. How do the terrorists who want Israel destroyed... who come from all of the Muslim countries surrounding Israel... how can they possibly believe that it is mere propaganda that, as recorded by Abu Sharif, "The image the Israelis projected -of poor little Israel surrounded by murderous Arabs trying all the time to gobble it up "

How is that propaganda? I mean, just what was the PLFP terrorists' goal in 1970 if it wasn't to "gobble Israel up?" But I digress.

Those hijackings taught the Arabs a lesson: terrorism works... Yes, Terrorism works, especially when the media is involved.

They learned the lesson well. And we have done precious little to disavow them of that truth.

 

Note: Abu Sharif has published a book or two.

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

Why have the Palestinians been so successful at spreading their Big Lies? Is it because they're so good at it -- just as their role model and mentor Josef Goebbels was good at it? That's only part of the explanation. The other -- and equally important -- part is that Big Lies take hold only when there's a critical mass of willing dupes. Such a mass existed in 1930s Germany, and it existed all over the West in the second half of the 20th century, when a whole generation of journalists -- all products of Left-wing educations -- was searching for a victim to fit its pre-existing "narrative" of the West as an oppressive and imperialistic force. These guys were the perfect pigeons for the very crafty Palestinians. Yes, the Palis are master liars and superb propagandists, but they'd have gotten nowhere without their allies in the Western media. Had the media not been populated by huge numbers of Left-wing fools whose hearts yearned for nothing so much as real-life exemplars of "the wretched of the earth," there might not be a "Palestinian problem" today. It really does take two to tango.

[Yael]

Mannie, you are right as rain. // "The propagandee is by no means just an innocent victim. He provides the psychological action of propaganda, and not merely leads himself to it, but even derives satisfaction from it. Without this previous, implicit consent, without this need for propaganda experienced by practically every citizen of the technological age, propaganda could not spread...." // http://bokertov.typepad.com/btb/2011/01/propagandees-you-can-lead-a-horse-to-water-but.html

[Yael]

Whoops. My apologies for misuse of the idiom. "Right as rain" means "feeling well," and I hope you are, and does NOT mean Very Much Correct. I guess I should leave alliteration to the axperts.

[Mannie Sherberg]

Yael -- until just a minute or two ago, I had always thought that "right as rain" DOES mean Very Much Correct. But you're absolutely right -- it really means "feeling well" or (if you want to be alliterative) "fit as a fiddle." I've misused the term for years -- so many thanks for the correction. And thanks too for the good wishes. I am indeed right as rain (in the correct sense of the phrase). By the way, your "whoops" piece on yesterday's Shabbat Shalom greeting wasn't necessary. I -- and probably most BtB readers -- had simply assumed you'd decided to take a long weekend. In any event, Shabbat Shalom to you and Thorney. And -- both of you -- stay right as rain!