XPost: alt.politics.socialist.nazi   
   From: mars1933@hotmail.com   
      
   By Stuart Littlewood   
      
   31 December 2008   
      
   Stuart Littlewood shows how Israel's public relations strategy frames   
   and defines the situation in Israel's own terms regardless of the   
   truth and, using advanced propaganda skills and the elaborate Israel   
   lobby network, it seeks to persuade Western politicians and media to   
   accept Israel's version of events.   
      
   While the murderous assault on Gaza continues, I notice there's a   
   briefing document on the website of the Israeli Embassy in London   
   which has a lie in every line. The West's mainstream media repeat   
   them, and even the most senior TV and radio interviewers don't bother   
   to challenge them.   
      
   The document is a transcript of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's   
   statement to the Israeli press dated 27 December 2008 - a day that   
   will live in infamy. It is a perfect example of the falsehoods used to   
   dupe not only us Westerners but Israel's own people. The statement   
   shows how the regime's view of itself is constructed on a web of   
   dishonesty and self-delusion.   
      
   For example:   
      
     * "Israeli citizens have been under the threat of daily attack from   
   Gaza for years."   
      
     Palestinians have been under harsh Israeli occupation for 60 years.   
      
     * "Only this week hundreds of missiles and mortars shells were fired   
   at Israeli civilian communities."   
      
          Only one in 500 Qassam rockets causes a fatality. How many   
   thousands of Israeli bombs, missiles, rockets, grenades and   
   tank-shells have been blasted into the crowded city and towns of the   
   Gaza Strip by Israel's high-tech weaponry??   
      
        * "Until now we have shown restraint. But today there is no other   
   option than a military operation."   
      
          The only legitimate option for Israel is to end the occupation   
   and withdraw behind its 1967 border, as required under international   
   law and UN resolutions. Israel has been killing Palestinians at the   
   rate of 8 to 1 since 2000, and children at the rate of nearly 12 to 1   
   (B'Tselem figures). This is somebody's idea of restraint?   
      
        * "We need to protect our citizens from attack through a military   
   response against the terror infrastructure in Gaza."   
      
          Self-defence is not a right exclusive to Israel. Palestinians   
   have an equal right to protect their citizens from the terror tactics   
   of Israel.   
      
        * "Israel left Gaza in order to create an opportunity for peace."   
      
          Israel never left Gaza. It still occupies Gaza's airspace and   
   coastal waters and controls all entrances and exits.   
      
        * "In return, the Hamas terror organization took control of Gaza   
   and is using its citizens as cover while it deliberately targets   
   Israeli communities and denies any chance for peace."   
      
          Hamas was voted into power as the legitimate government of   
   Palestine. Israel chose not to accept the people's choice, which   
   amounted to a denial of their human rights, and immediately set about   
   obliterating it.   
      
        * "We have tried everything to reach calm without using force. We   
   agreed to a truce through Egypt that was violated by Hamas, which   
   continued to target Israel, hold Gilad Shalit and build up its arms."   
      
          Try talking. The Israelis' ongoing siege and economic blockade,   
   begun shortly after Hamas was elected early in 2006, was never going   
   to generate calm. And why is Shalit considered more important than the   
   9,000 Palestinians abducted and held prisoner by Israel? As soon as a   
   Hamas government was formed Israeli troops arrested eight Hamas   
   ministers and 20 other parliamentarians, making the work of government   
   impossible.   
      
        * "Israel continues to act to prevent humanitarian crisis and to   
   minimize harm to Palestinian civilians."   
      
          Every agency operating in Gaza has warned of the deepening   
   humanitarian crisis and protested about the starvation and suffering,   
   especially of children many of whom show evidence of stunted growth.   
      
        * "The responsibility for harm to civilians lies with Hamas."   
      
          Not according to the Fourth Geneva Convention.   
      
        * "Hamas is a terrorist organization, supported by Iran, that   
   does not represent the legitimate national interests of the   
   Palestinian people but a radical Islamist agenda that seeks to deny   
   peace for the peoples of this region."   
      
          Hamas was the popular choice of Palestinians at the last   
   election. It is entitled under international law to take up arms   
   against an illegal occupier and invader. If it is supported by Iran,   
   so what? Israel receives mega-support from the US. When it comes to   
   terror, it is Israel's conduct which fits the US definition of   
   terrorism so perfectly   
   - see Bush's Executive Order 13224, Section 3.   
      
        * "While confronting Hamas, Israel continues to believe in the   
   two-state solution and remains committed to negotiations with the   
   legitimate Palestinian Authority in the context of the peace process,   
   launched at Annapolis."   
      
          Israel is busy establishing irreversible facts on the ground   
   that make a viable Palestinian state impossible. As everyone knows,   
   the regime has reneged on the peace process and carries on building   
   illegal settlements and the illegal Wall, and demolishing Palestinian   
   homes. Months ago Hamas accepted a Palestinian state based on   
   internationally recognized (pre-1967) borders, in accordance with UN   
   resolutions, with full sovereignty and its capital in Jerusalem, but   
   this has been ignored. Hamas also offered a 10-year truce, also   
   ignored. Earlier, Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation   
   Organization recognized the State of Israel in the Oslo agreement but   
   what good did it do? Today's US-backed, Fatah-controlled Palestinian   
   Authority is not representative of the Palestinian people.   
      
        * "Israel expects the support and understanding of the   
   international community, as it confronts terror, and advances the   
   interest of all those who wish the forces of peace and co existence to   
   determine the agenda of this region."   
      
     Israel, next to the US, is the biggest purveyor of terror in the   
   region and only advances its own interests. It may get the support of   
   Israel lobby stooges in other Western governments but is rapidly   
   earning the contempt of everybody else.   
      
    From a statement dated 22 December 2008:   
      
        * "Hamas, backed by Iran, has regularly stated its desire to see   
   the complete destruction of Israel."   
      
          Israel is itself a leading destroyer and currently engaged in   
   trying to wipe out Hamas and the Gazans. Iran's President Ahmadinajad   
   quoted the late Ayatollah Khomeini as saying that "this regime   
   occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" - fair comment   
   considering that Jerusalem, with Bethlehem, was designated an   
   "international city" under the UN Partition Plan. Israeli propaganda   
   twisted the Iranian's words to read "Israel must be wiped off the   
   map". Zionist sources and the manifestos of Israeli political parties   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)