Amnesty International browbeaten by pro-Israel propaganda outfit (TIP)

 

Here’s the TIP petition that just landed in my inbox:

Amnesty International’s annual conference has rejected a motion to fight the rise of violent anti-Semitism in Britain. Studies show violent anti-Semitic attacks rose 48 per cent in Britain in 2014. The resolution was the only one defeated during the entire conference.

According to its mission statement, Amnesty is a “worldwide movement of people campaigning to protect human rights… Around the world we protect people and communities who come under attack.” What about the human rights of Jews? What about the Jews who have been the victim of attacks across Europe?

Sign your name to tell Amnesty: Jews have human rights, too.

Amnesty was founded by the late Peter Benenson – a Jewish man who saved German children during the Holocaust when he was only 16 years old. What would Peter Benenson say about Amnesty today?

The conference resolution urged Amnesty to “campaign against anti-Semitism in the UK and lobby the government to tackle the rise in attacks”. It seems Amnesty UK’s Board supported the resolution but the majority of members didn’t.

Jews probably enjoy more rights here than they would in Israel. There are already enough organisations fighting anti-Semitism and the UK government is pouring millions of pounds of our tax money into the effort. If Amnesty doesn’t want to join the fight and perhaps feels there are other issues it should concentrate on, who is to quarrel with that?

Besides, across large swathes of the country anti-Semitism, violent or otherwise, is unheard-of. I sense that the British people are becoming weary of the incessant bleating about anti-Semitism, the way it is continually used to silence debate, and how the government indulges a section of the public whose tribal brethren commit endless atrocities in the Holy Land and cruelly deny our Palestinian friends their rights.

It’s The Israel Project, again

The petition against Amnesty has been got up by The Israel Project (TIP), which describes itself as “a non-partisan American educational organisation dedicated to informing the media and public conversation about Israel and the Middle East”. TIP, it says, “does not lobby and is not connected to any government. TIP informs, providing facts, access to experts and keen analysis.”

Oh really? Not long ago TIP produced a training manual to help the worldwide Zionist movement win its propaganda war, keep its ill-gotten territorial gains in the Holy Land and persuade international audiences to accept that its crimes are necessary and actually conform to “shared values” between Israel and the civilised West.

The manual teaches how to justify the slaughter, the ethnic cleansing, the land-grabbing and the blatant disregard for international law and UN resolutions, and makes it all smell sweet with a liberal squirt of persuasive language. It is designed to hoodwink us ignorant and gullible Americans and Europeans into believing that we actually share values with the racist regime in Israel and that its abominable behaviour is deserving of our support.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this manual still serves as a media communications primer for the army of cyber-scribblers that Israel’s Ministry of Dirty Tricks has recruited to spread Zionism’s poison across the internet (see this and this).

Its first words set the tone: “Remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear.”

The manual’s numerous teachings, a small handful of which are reproduced here, are aimed at the mass of “persuadables” primarily American but also British. There is great emphasis from the start on isolating and demonising democratically-elected Hamas.

• “Peace can only be made with adversaries who want to make peace with you. Terrorist organisations like Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are, by definition, opposed to peaceful coexistence, and determined to prevent reconciliation. I ask you, how do you negotiate with those who want you dead?”

Hamas and Hezbollah are organisations created out of necessity to resist Israeli aggression and only regarded as terrorists by the Washington-Tel Aviv axis and by US-Israeli stooges in London and some other capitals.

George W. Bush used this definition: “The term “terrorism” means an activity that:

(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and
(ii) appears to be intended –
(A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.”

The joke is that it describes the antics of Israel perfectly.

• “There is NEVER, EVER, any justification for the deliberate slaughter of innocent women and children. NEVER. …there is one fundamental principle that all peoples from all parts of the globe will agree on: civilised people do not target innocent women and children for death.”

Indeed. Civilised people don’t. Defence for Children International Palestine and UN agencies agree that around 548 children were slaughtered and well over 3,000 injured in the Jewish state’s assault on Gaza last summer. What, I wonder, would Peter Benenson have made of that? I imagine he would be rescuing Palestinian children and urging British Jews to intervene firmly with their kin in Israel. There have been many warnings from Jews themselves that resentment of Israel’s atrocities would be felt by Jewish communities around the world, so the rise in anti-Semitism is no surprise.

“Humanise rockets: paint a vivid picture”

The manual pumps out trashy advice galore:

• “Successful communications is about pointing out a few core principles of shared values – such as democracy and freedom – and repeating them over and over again… You need to start with empathy for both sides, remind your audience that Israel wants peace and then repeat the messages of democracy, freedom and peace over and over again… we need to repeat the message, on average, 10 times to be effective.”

Is democracy a shared value? Hardly. Israel is an ethnocracy. Is freedom a shared value? The world is still waiting for Israel to allow the Palestinians their freedom. Israel wants peace? Israel has never met its peace agreement obligations. Every action is directed at keeping the conflict going until the Israelis have stolen enough land and established enough “facts on the ground” – Jews-only settlements, highways, disconnected Palestinian bantustans – to enable them to redraw the map and make the occupation permanent.

• ”When talking about a Palestinian partner, it is essential to distinguish between Hamas and everyone else. Only the most anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian American expects Israel to negotiate with Hamas, so you have to be clear that you are seeking a ‘moderate Palestinian partner’.”

Where are the moderate Israeli partners?

• ”The fight is over IDEOLOGY – not land; terror, not territory. Thus, you must avoid using Israel’s religious claims to land as a reason why Israel should not give up land. Such claims only make Israel look extremist to people who are not religious Christians or Jews.”

If the fight isn’t about land, why did Israel steal it at gunpoint? And why won’t it give it back when told to by the UN?

• “Many on the left see an “Israel v. Palestinian” crisis where Israel is Goliath and the Palestinians are David. It is critical that they understand that this is an Arab-Israeli crisis and that the force undermining peace is Iran and their proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You must not call Hamas just Hamas. Call them what they are: Iran-backed Hamas. Indeed, when they know that Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah, they are much more supportive of Israel.”

By the same token we must call the racist regime what it is: US-backed Israel.

• “The situation in the Middle East may be complicated, but all parties should adopt a simple approach: peace first, political boundaries second.”

The correct approach is for the international community to first insist that Israel complies with international law and the many UN resolutions it has contemptuously ignored. The boundaries are already defined. Whatever issues remain to be decided, Palestinians should not have to negotiate under occupation and with a gun to their heads.

The manual gives a long glossary of terms. Here’s a sample:

• “Deliberately firing rockets into civilian communities”: Combine terrorist motive with civilian visuals and you have the perfect illustration of what Israel faced in Gaza and Lebanon. Especially with regard to rocket attacks but useful for any kind of terrorist attack, deliberate is the right word to use to call out the intent behind the attacks. This is far more powerful than describing the attacks as “random”.

Israelis know all about deliberately bombarding civilian targets. And they are careful not to mention that Sderot, until recently the only Israeli township within range of Gazan rockets, is built on the ruins of an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village whose inhabitants were forced from their homes by Jewish terrorists.

• “Humanise rockets”: Paint a vivid picture of what life is like in Israeli communities that are vulnerable to attack. Yes, cite the number of rocket attacks that have occurred. But immediately follow that up with what it is like to make the nightly trek to the bomb shelter.

Would Israel (or TIP) care to tell the world how many bombs, rockets and shells (including the illegal and prohibited variety) its F-15 warplanes, tanks, armed drones, helicopter gunships and navy gunboats have poured into the densely-packed humanity that is Gaza? And how many Palestinian homes it has destroyed?

The TIP’s propaganda manual, which runs to 116 pages, is a squalid piece of work which recycles many of the discredited techniques used by the advertising industry before standards of honesty, decency and truthfulness were brought in to protect the public.

It seeks to undermine with clever words and disinformation the inalienable rights pledged by the UN and the world’s civilised nations to all peoples, including the Palestinians.

Amnesty International has no need to hear lectures or accept petitions on human rights from TIP.