Think-Israel

THINK-ISRAEL

HOME May-June 2006 Featured Stories Background Information News On The Web

THE ARAB PROPAGANDA WAR AGAINST HISTORY

by David Meir-Levi

Daniel Pipes has pointed out that one of a number of Arab anti-Israel "strategies of deceit - tactics of serial lying" that have come to characterize the Arab propaganda war is the disassociation of Jerusalem from Jewish history, tradition, and religion. [ Click here.]

Dr. Pipes noted that peace is harder to achieve when such lies have taken root (a la the old Goebbels' concept: repeat the lie often enough....).

He is right. But that is part of the strategy. What so many do not understand is that some Arab leadership, in some critical and powerful Arab countries, and the current leadership of the PA, do not want peace. they want the destruction of Israel. Thus they torpedo peace with well-timed terror attacks, and with the constant and relentless strategy of anti-Israel international propaganda, which seeks to demonize Israel as a war-mongering rogue state even as Israel is ceding land unilaterally and trying to find a negotiating partner.

This is the list of 90 chronic lies that I have documented so far. And they are followed by general themes used by Arab PR.

1. No Jewish claims to Israel, Bible (Jewish and Christian Scriptures) forged
2. No Jewish presence in Holy Land (Archaeology & Assyriology irrelevant)
3. Moslems and Jews got along fine before Zionism
4. Moslems always showed religious tolerance to Jews and Christians
5. Islam is a religion of peace, respects other religions
6. Arabs here "from time immemorial", original occupants of the Holy Land
7. Palestinians open to Jewish immigration if it had been peaceful
8. Zionism was a scheme concocted to steal Arab lands
9. Zionism is Colonialism. Zionists stole our land. drove us out
10. Zionism is imperialism: Zionists worked with/for UK imperialists
11. Palestine verdant paradise and widely populated before Zionist invasion
12. Arabs lived in Palestine for thousands of years (Jericho, Canaanites)
13. Zionism has always sought to marginalize the Palestinians
14. Zionism is Racism as in South Africa
15. Zionists 1881 invasion, used terror to hound Arabs from homeland
16. Arabs owned 92.7% of land in 1947, Jews only owned 7.3%
17. Truman forced UN to vote partition, due to Jewish pressure in USA
18. UN gave Israel the best lands in 1947, favored Jews betrayed Arabs
19. UN partition plan illegal, Palestine not UN's to give
20. Arab states forced to invade to save local Arabs from Zionist genocide
21. Zionists purposefully created refugee problem
22. Israel invasion 1967 was offensive aggression
23. Israel invasion 1967 left Arab world no choice for 1973 war
24. Israel destroyed Kuneitra (Golan Heights)
25. Zionism seeks to subjugate all Arabs, all Arab lands, all Moslems
26. illegal occupation, illegal settlements
27. brutal oppression in Nazi-like occupation for 35 years
28. No Holocaust, just de-licing chambers (but Mein Kampf best seller and "too bad Hitler did not finish the job")
29. Israel refuses to obey UN and in wholesale violation of international law
30. Israel is apartheid state, racist state, not democracy
31. Israel is rogue state, supports genocide, imperialism, racism world-wide
32. Israel is a rogue state, does not deserve to be in UN, EU, family of nations
33. Israel subjugates Israeli Arabs who are "refugees in their own homeland"
34. Israel is a theocracy
35. Israel perpetrates genocide "in slow motion" on Palestinians
36. Zionists planned ethnic cleansing in 1947, Israel doing it now
37. Israel raped Lebanon, carpet-bombed Beirut
38. Israel attempted ethnic cleansing and genocide in Lebanon, 1982
39. Israel tries to pervert Moslem morals with poison chewing gum
40. Israel tries to poison all Egyptians with imported vegetable seeds
41. Sharon is war criminal (Sabra & Shatilla)
42. Sharon visit to Temple Mount caused 2nd Intifada (see below)
43. Israel is a militaristic state: an army with a state (vs state with army)
44. Oslo was trick to deprive Palestinians of their fondest aspirations
45. Palestinians are poor, have only their bodies to fight with
46. Palestinians are not terrorists, otherwise G. Washington was terrorist
47. Goal of Palestinian "armed resistance"=regain homeland, "right of return"
48. PLO legitimately and democratically represents Palestinian nation
49. Israel uses excessive force, massacres
50. Israel tries to destroy Palestinian culture
51. Road blocks, curfews, oppression, humiliation
52. Just give us our state, if you want security, end the occupation
53. We cannot make peace without parity
54. We cannot make peace while settlements are expanding
55. We hate you for what you do, not for what you are
56. you offer us 28% of what was rightfully ours and expect us to be happy
57. Camp David II frustrated Palestinian aspirations
58. Israel has eviscerated Arafat, so how can they expect him to make peace
59. The White House is "Israel-occupied territory" (vs "white tent")
60. Jews control USA (world?) media and pro-Israel reportage proves that
61. USA involvement in Iraq war was because of Israel
62. USA gives Israel "trillions" of dollars in unmerited aid
63. Post-Zionist historians prove that Zionist plan was ethnic cleansing
64. Israel, not Iraq, should be attacked because of massive nuclear arsenal
65. B'Tzelem, AI, HRW, et al prove that Israel massacres Palestinian civilians
66. Israel's response to the Intifada is a slow-motion genocide of Palestinians
67. Endless documentation of fabricated Israeli horrors (cf. infra)
68. Why can't we just have a secular democratic state with freedom for all?
69. Arafat offers Israel most generous solution: one state with peace and justice and freedom for all
70. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
71. Arab terrorism does not present an existential threat to Israel
72. Palestinians cannot halt terror until settlements are gone
73. divestiture/divestment
74. Israel's occupation designed to be degrading, humiliating
75. Israel forces Arabs to do menial, degrading, humiliating labor
76. Home destructions are victimization and violation of human rights
77. IDF intentionally targets civilians as part of genocidal activity
78. Jenin, Jenin
79. Right of Return of Arab refugees "canonized" in international law
80. Sharon convicted of war crimes by his own country (Kahan commission?)
81. Zionism: a failed ideology (because it is racist, apartheid, and soon overrun by the Palestinian demographic time bomb)
82. Palestinian terrorists target only European (Ashkenazi) Israelis
83. Israel has never offered an olive branch (if only Israel would....)
84. "I am a rebel and freedom is my cause" (Arafat,UN 11.13.74)
85. The Palestinian narrative has been ignored/trumps Zionist narrative
86. Arafat, 1/2001: "we cannot hold elections due to Israeli occupation"
87. Poor Palestinians have no choice but terror to free their land
88. Israel poisons Palestinians by distributing Sweet'n'Low (FPMag 6/16/05)
89. Israelis poisoned land in Gaza (7.1.05)
90. Israeli army has special unit to distribute drugs to Palestinian children to make them addicts and destroy their ability to fight the "occupation"

a. Afghanistan and Taliban and el-Qaeda
b. Mauritania slavery, Sudan slavery
c. Sudan 19-year civil war vs. Christians and animists
d. Ivory Coast
e. Nigeria 10-year war
f. Algeria 10-year war
g. Ethiopia vs Eritrea
h. Iraq vs Qurds
i. 8 years of Iraq war w/ Iran, then Kuwait
j. Lebanon's 27-yr occupation by Syria
k. Lebanon's 12-year occupation by PLO
l. PLO war against Jordan (1967-70)
m. Kashmir vs. Hindus and Ladakhi Buddhists
n. Bangladesh vs. Hindus
o. Indonesia (Bali is latest manifestation)
p. East Timor
q. Jihad in Philippines vs. Catholics
r. Islamists in Daghestan
s. Uighur in China
t. Islamists in Uzbekistan
u. Islamists in Pakistan (where Christians wiped out)
v. Thailand Moslem insurrection
w. Chechnya and Arab/Moslem involvement in Beslan
x. Saudi multi-billion dollar support of WW Terror
y. Saudi multi-billion dollar purchase of influence in west
z. Iran multi-billion dollar support of WW Terror
aa. Syria training c. 70k terrorists of all creeds, colors
bb. Iraq "insurgency" (really Syrian/Saudi/Pal. terrorists)
cc. El-qaeda in Somalia and "Black Hawk down"
dd. Kenya "civil war" as Moslems try to impose Shari'a
ee. Nepal unrest = Moslems vs. native Nepalese

Israeli soldiers use Palestinian children for target practice (per Chris Hedges).

Israel uses sonic booms so Gaza children suffer anxiety, panic, fear, poor concentration and low academic success, plus the number of miscarriages among pregnant women increase during periods of frequent sonic booms.

(See above: # 39 & 40) Late 1990's Israel volunteered to share farming technology with Egypt. Egyptian press ran stories that Israel was going to smuggle toxic seeds and carcinogenic cucumbers into Egypt in order to poison the entire Egyptian population. Copy-cat stories asserted that Israel had secret weapons to destroy the entire Moslem nation, namely: chewing gum that caused women to turn uncontrollably lustful (so that they would become prostitutes) and poisoned fruit that caused men to loose sperm count and erectile ability (no more fathering of future Moslems and no more honest Moslem women to do it with). Result, no sharing of agricultural technology (from Irshad Manji, "The trouble with Islam").

(see above, #42) Palestinian propaganda and many apologists in the West claim that the 2nd Intifada began because of Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount on 9/28/00. This is denied by the Palestinian leadership: June 13, 2001 "Marwan Bargouti, secretary-general of Arafat's Fatah movement in Judea and Samaria, told the Jerusalem Times (an East Jerusalem Arab newspaper) last week, 'the intifada did not start because of Sharon's visit,' but that the violence 'began because of the desire to put an end to occupation and because the Palestinians did not approve of the peace process in its previous form.' ", And see also Imad Faluji's speech on 12/9/00 to a Ramallah crowd (televised and summarized in al-Hayyat al-Jadida, PA official newspaper) that "whoever thinks that our glorious Intifada was begun because of the Dog Sharon's visit to Haram esh-Sharif (Temple Mount) is wrong. We had been planning it for months as soon as it was clear that Abu Amr (Arafat) could not get what he wanted from the negotiations (with Clinton at Camp David 2)."

1.) (CAMERA: on Campus, 13/1, spring 2003 pp. 2ff). Amer Zahr, A Univ. of Michigan student activist and organizer of a divestment conference there, explained on Michigan Public Radio: "What we want is not actual divestment from Israel... we are looking to shift the dialogue to whether or not to divest from Israel, without extraneous discussion of the basics (my emphasis). We hope that in 10, 20 years the public will just take for granted the premises that Israel is an apartheid state, and then we can move from there."

2.) 2002, Prof. Michael Neumann (Trent Univ, Canada) in correspondence with an anti-Semitic web site, Jewish Tribal Review wrote: "My sole concern is indeed to help the Palestinians, and I try to play for keeps. I am not interested in the truth, or justice, or understanding, or anything else, except so far as it serves that purpose...I would use anything, including lies, injustice and obfuscation, to do so. If an effective strategy means that some truths about the Jews don't come to light, I don't care. If an effective strategy means encouraging reasonable anti-Semitism or reasonable hostility to Jews, I don't care. If it means encouraging vicious racist anti-Semitism, or the destruction of the State of Israel, I still don't care."

3.) 6/02: radio broadcast debate with David Meir-Levi, Prof. Ilan Pappe (Haifa Univ) stated "I care less about veracity because I have an agenda to advance" 4.) 4-5/03: Sheikh Abdul Palazzi, professor (Research Institute for Anthropological Studies, Rome) at Yale University lecture: "I was part of an international delegation that visited Israel in 2000. The Wakf took us to visit Al Aksa. Right outside of the Dome of the Rock is a small chapel on the eastern side. "What is this place?" I asked. "It is the place where Solomon stood to dedicate the Temple," was the reply. "Then why do you deny this?" I asked. With a smile I was told, "For political reasons." (RE: The Palestinian Arabs' denial that the Holy Temple ever stood on the Temple Mount)

5.) During Camp David II talks (6-7/2000) Arafat insisted that the Jews had no claim to Jerusalem nor to any sovereignty on the Temple Mount because the Jewish Temple was NEVER on the Haram esh-Sharif (Temple Mount), and probably was in Nablus, or maybe even Yemen. Dennis Ross lost his temper and harshly told Arafat to not raise that lie again in his presence or in the presence of President Clinton, because both he and Clinton knew exactly where the Jewish Temple was. Arafat never raised that issue again, but continued to use that lie in many other speeches that he made elsewhere ( Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace, NY 2004).

The PA has also gone to great lengths to repudiate any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem or, by implication, to the Land of Israel itself. Camp David summit of July 2000, several Palestinian negotiators denied the existence of King Solomon's Temple. Arafat himself told Clinton that the temple had been located in Nablus rather than in Jerusalem.[ "Camp David and After: An Exchange: An Interview with Ehud Barak," The New York Review of Books, June 13, 2001]

Abed Rabbo: "The Israelis say that beneath the noble sanctuary (the Esplanade of the Mosques) lies their temple. ... Looking at the situation from an archaeological standpoint, I am sure there is no temple. They have dug tunnel after tunnel with no result." [Le Monde, Sept. 26, 2000]

The PA's minister of health, Riad Zaanun, accused Israeli doctors of using "Palestinian patients for experimental medicines."[ Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Dec. 25, 1997]

The Palestinian representative to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva charged Israel with injecting Palestinian children with the AIDS virus.[The Jerusalem Post, Mar. 17, 1997.]

Israeli helicopters drop poison candy to kill Palestinian children: The director! of the PA's Committee for Consumer Protection accused Israel of distributing chocolate infected with "mad cow disease" in the Palestinian territories.[Al-Hayat al-Jadida, Dec. 8, 1997]

The PA minister of ecology, Yusuf Abu Safiyyah, indicted Israel for "dumping liquid waste ... in Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza." [Al-Hayat al-Jadida, 9/26/00]

Suha Arafat, in the presence of Hillary Clinton, told an audience in Gaza in November 1999 that "our people have been subjected to the daily and extensive use of poisonous gas by the Israeli forces, which has led to an increase in cancer cases among women and children."[Reuters, Nov. 11, 1999]

7.) Wildest of all: Arafat claimed that Israeli extremists were masterminding the suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.[The Jerusalem Post, 11/28, 1994; Ma'ariv, 5/2, 1995] ....and notice that this lie has not resurfaced for quite a few years. Part of the strategy of deceit is that you keep using a lie as long as it has traction. When it loses traction, or does not catch on in the first place, or is amply and decisively disproved to the satisfaction of the broader public....then you drop that lie and move on to another one.

David Meir-Levi is an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto. His expertise is in Near Eastern studies and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative (www.ipi-usa.org). Contact him at david_meirlevi@hotmail.com