Coteret

According to Maariv, Israeli officialdom is shocked that it’s “great friend” Germany actually requested that Poland arrest and extradite a Mossad agent suspected of involvement in forging its passports (full translated text at bottom):

Israel may have a problem with public opinion in Germany and with left-leaning political groups that criticize its policy, but as a whole Germany is defined by political sources as “one of Israel’s patrons in Europe.” One of the reasons is Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust, but it is also because of strategic interests, including relations on the security and intelligence level.

Indeed, as Yediot pundit Eitan Haber notes in a column entitled “Time to sober up Israel,” even Israeli exceptionalism has its limits:

We thought we deserve everything, after the Holocaust and the six million dead. The world was silent while our grandparents were being burned? Well, the world shall pay. We deserve everything. Yet how come we didn’t realize that one of these days, the memory of the Holocaust will nearly evaporate in the world’s political corridors?

The Camera Quintet, a mythical Israeli satire group, tried to convey this message to the Israeli public years ago. Watch this skit, entitled “World Athletics Championship 1995, Stuttgart, Germany,” it’s mostly in English:

Not many in Israel were listening then and, to use Haber’s analogy, the resulting hangover is painful.

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Watching yesterday’s (June 6 2010) Israeli Channel Ten TV evening news, I had the dubious pleasure of watching a Caroline Glick and her merry band of Hasbaristas celebrate. They were sitting around Glick’s kitchen table, clinking champagne glasses. At one point, the hostess banged on the table and announced “finally, some Hasbara!”

The occasion was one million YouTube views of the band’s clip, “We Con the World,” whose contribution to Israeli public diplomacy efforts I assessed here.

What I found remarkable was not the grotesque scene at the home of the Jerusalem Post’s Deputy Managing Editor, but rather the TV reporter’s framing of the event: A gathering of a citizens’ Hasbara commando group, just returned from a successful raid behind enemy lines.

Not everyone in the Israeli media has completely lost his grip on reality. As the newscast ended, my copy of Globes, a conservative evening business daily, was delivered. Columnist Yoav Karni, continued his series on the strategic threat Turkey is posing to Israeli national security. This installment was a desperate call for some effective public diplomacy to counter Erdogan’s ambition. He cited Glick’s clip as an example of what not to do:

“One can follow the Jerusalem Post’s lead. A columnist in that newspaper shamed Israel’s good name when she launched satirical video mocking the plight of Gaza into the depth of the Internet.

The most popular news show on Canadian radio reported on the video with restrained rage, adding sarcastically that it gave Israel the opportunity “to do something it never does”: apologize.

Fortuitously, someone at the Prime Minister’s Office thought that the Jerusalem Post video was worthy of international dissemination. Later it had retract it. There is a human limit to expressions of of lack of empathy to the suffering of the other, even when the other is a Palestinian child in Gaza (in the satire, the Gazan child needs “a little cheese and rockets for breakfast.”)

This kind of thing makes people who are not pre-disposed to hating the country, who do not share Erdogan’s neo-Jihadist agenda, detest Israel.” These people  need a sign of remorse from Israel.

Yes, remorse. Those who have their backs to the wall have nothing to lose now, not even their dignity.”

Karni is unfair to the Jerusalem Post. They didn’t publish the video. The neoconservative operation where Glick moonlights, Latma, did. In fact, this morning’s edition of the newspaper provides some helpful context about the kind of effective public diplomacy that Latma has produced in the recent past:

Jacobson is one of three actors employed regularly by Latma, and can be seen in previous clips portraying White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel calling himself a “Capo,” and in semi-blackface (“autumn-face”) as US President Barack Obama, in whose guise he sings of his hatred for “dirty Jews” and his hope that the Koran will rule the world and the Jews will drown in the sea, before calling for Iran to strike Israel with a hydrogen bomb [from 01:33].

The editorial section provides Israelis with a balanced selection of American commentary on the Flotilla Debacle, no doubt helping them get a realistic grasp of US public opinion on the issue: Opening with Charles Krauthammer, continuing with Elliott Abrams and ending with Anne Bayefsky.

On Friday (June 4 2010,) uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic published a post entitled Israel Derangement Syndrome III. It linked to We Con the World, a remarkable video clip produced by Latma, the right-wing satire project lead by Caroline Glick, who doubles as The Jerusalem Post’s Deputy Managing Editor.

Caroline Glick, ZOA's Mort Klein and John Bolton

The video is a repulsive attempt to use satire to make Israel’s case on Flotilla Devbacle. I recommend suffering through its entirety to grasp just how much. This is not really surprising to anyone who has ever read Glick’s columns or makes a cursory inquiry into her background. She is, for example, the recipient of the Zionist Organization of America’s (ZOA) Outstanding Journalism in the Mideast award, which was presented to her in a ceremony featuring the esteemed John Bolton. Memorably, Glick was also quick to report (Hebrew), while embedded with a US unit in Iraq that she had “discovered” the first stash of WMDs.

The kind of US audience Glick appeals to is illustrated by the fact that Latma is fully funded by Center for Security Policy’s Middle East Media program, headed by Frank Gaffney, and that Pastor John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI) was quick to post the video on its website.

The growing importance of the Israeli nodes of American neo and theo conservative networks is not new and regulars readers of Coteret know that we have followed it closely. But the reception this clip has received in Israel was surprising.

On Friday, I began to see intelligent, mainstream, Israeli opinion-leaders posting the clip on their Facebook pages. I assumed they were doing so for the same reason I was: To illustrate just how misguided some Israeli public diplomacy efforts had become. A closer look revealed just how wrong I was. These posts were intended for non-Israelis. One caption, posted by a successful left-of-center Israeli PR operative on the Economist Facebook page, read “make sure you see this before making up your mind.” On Saturday, they began doing the same thing with a classic Glenn Beck segment on the Flotilla Debacle and were incredulous and argumentative when I pointed out that Beck was not exactly the most effective source to cite if one wanted to make Israel’s case abroad.

In a two-page spread, this morning’s edition of Yediot (June 6 2010, full translated text below, Hebrew original here and at bottom of post), billed the clip as an effective citizen’s initiative ”that defended Israel better than any of the experts.” It also made the following stupefying revelation:

Members of the Government Press Office who encountered it thought it was a state-sponsored clip and disseminated it overseas. After a Spanish journalist researched its sources, the GPO was forced to clarify that the parody was disseminated accidentally and that the contents of the clip did not reflect the official position of the State of Israel.

Writing about the Glenn Beck segment referenced above, MJ Rosenberg warned that American popular support for Israel is becoming increasingly restricted to the far-right. The way in which mainstream Israel perceived the public diplomacy value of Glick’s clip is a good illustration of this point. Indeed, with the Israeli media increasingly providing front and center venues for arch-conservatives such as Newt Gingrich (Israel Hayom) and Elliott Abrams (Maariv), one should not be surprised that the perceptual gulf between Israelis and most Americans is widening.

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Hasbara hit

The editor recruited her friends, the lead actor cam back specially from reserve duty and the director bought Keffiyehs

How the clip that defended Israel better than any of the experts was created

Zvi Singer and Itai Shmoscowitz, Yediot, June 6 2010 [page 8; Hebrew original here and at bottom of post]

lead actorIn a place where the official Israeli public relations failed, a popular wave has risen up and succeeded: a satiric video clip that mocks the way in which the participants in the Gaza flotilla were cast as heroes around the world, became a hit this weekend on the internet.Party

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Below is an e-mail sent out today by Israel’s official Government Press Office (GPO) to international correspondents. Unfortunately, I received it without the links and attachments.

Funny? Dignified? Professional? We report, you decide.

Daniel Seaman, GPO Director

From: Andy Lutterman

To: gponews@netvision.net.il

Subject: Restaurant in Gaza

Sent: May 26, 2010 12:35 PM

GPO Recommended Restaurant in Gaza

In anticipation of foreign correspondents traveling to Gaza to cover reports of alleged humanitarian difficulties in the Hamas run territory, and as part of efforts to facilitate the work of journalists in the region, the Government Press Office is pleased to bring to your attention the attached menu and information for the Roots Club and Restaurant in Gaza.

We have been told the beef stroganoff and cream of spinach soup are highly recommended.  You may wish to enquire of a possible discount upon presentation of a valid press card.

There is also the possibility of an enjoyable evening on the Greens Terrace Garden Cafe, which serves “eclectic food and fresh cocktails”.

A video of the club’s luxurious facilities may be viewed here.

Booking in advance is advisable, and as the website states, the Roots Club is fully equipped for hospitality and corporate events.

Correspondents may also wish to enjoy a swim at the new Olympic size swimming pool as reported in the Palestinian media to have been opened last week.

Be mean to tourists

A travel agent from Finland was humiliated at the Eilat airport. She was stripped, her bra was taken for x-ray by a man and her personal effects were corrupted. She claims the reason for the nightmare is that she has an Egyptian fiancé.

The Israel Airport Authority: the case will be checked

Itamar Eichner, Yediot, May 25-10 [Hebrew original here and at bottom of post]

A travel agent from Finland who visited Eilat with a group of travel agents from her country filed a strong complaint to the Israeli Embassy in Finland that she was severely humiliated during the security inspection at the Uvda airport when she was on her way back to Finland.

In her letter, Hannah-Maria Raudnafe, who works at a large and well-known travel agency in Finland, said that the problems began after in response to a question by the security inspector she said she has an Egyptian fiancé in Finland. From that moment, she says, she underwent “invasive questioning and rude and racist inspections,” and was treated with “a lack of elementary courtesy.”

Her suitcases and bags were taken from her without her approval and opened without her presence. She was stripped and her brassiere was taken by a man for an x-ray inspection in a public place. The inspection took an hour and during it she was given no explanation why she was being inspected. Furthermore, she received no response when she expressed her concern the airplane would take off without her.

In the end woman was sent to the plane without her two suitcases, her laptop, expensive jewelry and a wedding dress she bought in Eilat. After she returned to Finland she had to go to the Helsinki airport twice to receive her personal belongings. When she received the suitcases she found out that all of her belongings were bent and some of them were torn, broken or corrupted.

“I and my fellow travel agents will not be able to recommend travel to Israel. We personally will avoid it in the future if that is how they treat tourists,” she wrote.

The Israeli Embassy in Helsinki received two other complaints from Estonian nationals who flew from Talin to a holiday in Eilat on a charter flight and had similar stories. “The ambassador in Finland and the representative of the Ministry of Tourism in our area worked hard to set up Finnish charter flights to Eilat. An investigation is needed so that such events do not recur and the activity does not stop,” the Israeli Embassy in Finland stressed. The Ministry of Tourism invested millions of shekels from the beginning of the year to establish marketing agreements in dozens of countries. Impressive results were achieved in the Scandinavian countries and important agreements were signed.

Israeli Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov strongly condemned the event. He said “it is time for the government authorities in general to understand that tourism is a national resource, not a burden. The tourism industry is responsible for creating jobs and increasing state revenues and is an effective tool for improving our image in the world. Behavior that makes a tourist feel unwanted harms the efforts of the tourism ministry to increase the flow of tourists to Israel and causes Israel grave damage, both to its economy and to its image.”

Tourism Ministry officials said they received other complaints by tourists of rude treatment by security inspectors at the Uvda airport.

The IAA said in response: “The IAA operates on the directives of the directing bodies. The details of the case will be checked and if necessary acted on.”

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The Czechs are furious: Diplomatic humiliation

Itamar Eichner, Yediot, May 18 2010 [Hebrew original here and at bottom of post]

Israel is embarrassed: This week the Czech Republic made an official protest of what it calls the humiliation of its foreign minister Jan Kohout at Ben Gurion airport.

The incident occurred May 6 when the minister left Israel after an official visit to Israel and the PA. Kohout, a confirmed friend of Israel, entered the Masada lounge at Ben-Gurion Airport where he was detained for half an hour with his entourage. According to the report by the Israeli ambassador in Prague Yaacov Levy, the border police officer examined the 44 passports of the delegation, and contrary to diplomatic etiquette addressed the minister by his first name.

“Then she discovered that there was no entry stamp into Israel on Kohout’s passport,” said Levy. “As a result, quite a nasty verbal altercation ensued between her and the Czech head of the Middle East desk about whether they could leave Israel anyway.”

And this was not the end of the diplomatic incident: Kohout’s Czech bodyguard had to explain why he went to Egypt in the past and claimed he had accompanied the minister. Then all of the members of the delegation underwent detailed questioning, and the gifts they brought with them from the PA — including a picture from Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to the Czech minister — went through metal detectors.

“At this point somebody from the security authorities tried to explain in flowery language the dangers of receiving gifts from our neighbors,” Levy wrote in his report. The long process made the members of the entourage nervous and tense and in the words of the ambassador, “they voiced heartfelt compliments for the Israeli bureaucracy.”

Deputy Commander Shlomi Saguy, spokesman of the police central district, said last night in response: “The Czech Foreign Minister receives special status at the request of the Foreign Ministry. During his exit from Israel it emerged that he did not have an entry stamp into Israel. After an inquiry with the shift head, permission was given for his exit without delay.” Police sources claimed the Foreign Ministry was responsible for the mishap, because it did not make sure to register the entry into Israel.

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Other Coteret posts on the Chomsky affair: Sheizaf: Chomsky affair demonstrates that the West Bank, not just Gaza, is under siege | Yediot legal editor: Chomsky affair part of trend that “could mark the end of Israel as a freedom-loving state of law” |

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For anyone who was wondering what “system” is behind the growing tide of entry denials to internationals suspected of Palestinian sympathies, Maariv provides a rather banal answer:

It has become apparent that the official in charge of border crossings in the Interior Ministry was the one who gave instructions not to let in Chomsky.  Interior Ministry sources said the official overstepped her authority and was reprimanded.  Sources in the Interior Ministry noted that the official made the decision on the basis of her familiarity with the person’s activity and the fact that he is considered an extreme leftist.

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Official decided: No entry for leftists

Amit Cohen, Maariv, May 17 2010 [page 8; Hebrew original here and at bottom of post]

Israel prevented yesterday the entry of American Jewish linguist and left wing activist Prof. Noam Chomsky, who planned to hold a several day long visit to the West Bank.

Palestinian Parliament Member Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, who invited Chomsky, said that Israeli officials had told Chomsky that his entry was being denied due to his opinions and his criticism of Israel.  Chomsky said that he was surprised by the level of Israeli stupidity.

It has become apparent that the official in charge of border crossings in the Interior Ministry was the one who gave instructions not to let in Chomsky.  Interior Ministry sources said the official overstepped her authority and was reprimanded.  Sources in the Interior Ministry noted that the official made the decision on the basis of her familiarity with the person’s activity and the fact that he is considered an extreme leftist.

When a person requests to enter Judea and Samaria directly, his request is not handled by the Interior Ministry, but rather by the army.  Therefore, the instructions not to let him in were given mistakenly.  The Interior Ministry, for its part, intends to lift the restriction on Chomsky’s entry.

Barghouti told Ma’ariv that the arrangements to coordinate Prof. Chomsky’s arrival in the territories had begun four months ago.  Chomsky was invited by Bir Zeit University and by the Palestinian National Initiative, which is headed by Barghouti.  He was supposed to spend four days in the territories and tour a number of sites.  Chomsky was also scheduled to lecture at Bir Zeit University about US policy.

However, when Chomsky arrived yesterday at Allenby Bridge, en route from Amman, he was delayed for many hours.  “He arrived at 11:00 AM along with his daughter and a number of escorts,” Barghouti related.  “To his surprise, he was delayed for five hours, at the end of which he was told that his entry had been denied by the Israeli Interior Ministry.  He was told that the reason for the denial was his opinions, statements he had made and his intention of lecturing here.”  Barghouti added that Chomsky was told that an official statement would be sent to the US embassy.

A security source explained that “his request to enter Bir Zeit University for the purpose of a lecture that could agitate the atmosphere apparently reached the ears of the Interior Ministry personnel.  Someone there apparently decided arbitrarily that his entry was unnecessary, and therefore decided to ban him from entering.  As it appears now, this decision caused more harm than good, and it looks like he will ultimately enter.”

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel sharply denounced the decision to prevent Chomsky’s entry.  “The decision to prevent a person from expressing his opinions by his arrest and expulsion is a characteristic of a totalitarian regime,” it said in its statement.  “A democratic state, which holds freedom of speech dear, does not shut itself away from criticism or inconvenient ideas, and does not bar guests from entering just because their opinions are unacceptable to it— rather it copes with them by means of a public discussion.”

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In the generally sensationalist tabloid Yediot, Israel’s most popular newspaper, the legal affairs editor, Judge (ret.) Boaz Okon, is a breath of fresh air. He is one of the few mainstream Israeli journalists who dare use the “A word” to describe segregation policies.

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Afraid of the other

Commentary, Boaz Okon [legal affairs editor], Yediot, May 17 2010 [page 3; Hebrew original here and at bottom of post]

The decision to expel Prof. Noam Chomsky from the border terminal in order to prevent him from lecturing at Bir Zeit University is an act of folly, part of a large series of follies in the recent period, which together could mark the end of Israel as a freedom-loving state of law, or at least pose a large question mark over this.

This decision is first of all patently illegal, since it stands in stark contrast to the most important ruling of the Supreme Court in the Kol Haam affair, in which it was determined that restricting freedom of speech is only legal if the statement is of a kind that could pose a clear and immediate danger to state security.  Truth is not dictated from on high and opinions and ideas cannot be supervised.  The best “test of truth” is the power of an idea to be accepted in the marketplace of ideas.

But in Israel, the government has already started to threaten freedom, at least the freedom of those who are perceived as “others.”  We have ceased to take an interest in what the “others” have to say, not to mention their rights to live here in a normal fashion.  We want them to get out of our sight.  We hound the “others” on the basis of generalizations, suspicions, prejudice or just because they are annoying.

The police detain the demonstrators in Sheikh Jarrah on false grounds.  A custody affairs court expels a foreign worker who is pregnant, so that she does not give birth to a foreign child in Israel.  A family court prevents infants from being brought into Israel from India on the basis of groundless excuses, possibly due to distaste for their father’s sexual orientation. Courts issue gag orders easily and as a routine matter, perhaps to cover up the shame.  We even expel clowns who want to attend a festival in Ramallah, because we are afraid.

There is a worrying common denominator here.  When freedom disappears — it comes first of all at the expense of the weak, the marginal groups or the minorities.  But it does not end there.  Now it is also reaching intellectuals with a worldwide reputation.  Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the decision to shut up Prof. Chomsky is an attempt to put an end to freedom in the State of Israel.  I am not talking about the stupidity of supplying ammunition to those who say that Israel is fascist, but rather about our concern that we may be becoming fascists.

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Cross posted from Promised Land.

Much has been written on Israel’s decision not to allow entry to left-wing linguist Noam Chomsky today, and I guess even more will be written. From the official Israeli response, it is not clear who made the decision in this case — a top government official or a low level bureaucrat — and it seems that Chomsky might still be permitted to enter the West Bank, once people realize the PR damage caused to what’s left of the reputation of the only democracy in the Middle East. But that’s not the important issue here.

According to Chomsky, what bothered Israeli officials at the Allenby crossing was not only his views, but the fact that he intends to visit the West Bank, and not Israel. Later it was said that the IDF authority might end up granting him a visa. But whatever way this affair ends, it is clear that Chomsky made a better case against Israel today than in anything he said or wrote. He practically proved that the Palestinians are far from being autonomous, and that the West Bank is in reality under siege, with Israel dictating who and what can leave or enter.

When the Spanish clown Ivan Pedro was denied entry by the Shabak into the West Bank, some people tried to make a national security case out of it, claiming Pedro refused to submit information regarding his contacts in the West Bank. I hope nobody is planning the same line with the Chomsky. Israel simply decided not to let him in because he is pro-Palestinian, like it does every day to many others. The only difference is that in those cases nobody alerts Reuters.

There is no arguing that Israel is now viewing certain ideas, not just actions, as an existential threat, and is willing to make full use of its powers in order to suppress them. It is important to understand this point: Some people think that the state made a stupid mistake today, when it chose to deny entry to Chomsky. But that’s only true if you judge the affair in terms of actual security — then you conclude that making such a fuss over a speech in Ramallah by an aging linguist that no one would even notice is pure madness. But if you are obsessed with the persecution of “dangerous ideas” and constantly searching for ideological menaces, then Chomsky is a threat. In this context, not allowing him to enter your country might be logical and even legal — again, if you consider Israel’s control of all access to the West Bank legal — but it is also scary as hell.

They just hate

Excerpt from column, Ben Caspit, Maariv Friday Political Supplement, May 14 2010 [page 2]

Speaking of bulldozers, [Benyamin] Fuad Ben Eliezer was in Brussels last week, on a one-day working trip, including meetings with many senior European officials from the EU and the European Parliament. Fuad was shocked. On the outside, everything is fine. The OECD, which decided to admit Israel into its ranks, the agreement Fuad signed with the EU Commission about selling Israeli pharmaceuticals in the continent and more. But beneath the surface, the situation is bad.

A senior EU official told Fuad, in a private conversation, the following: “You just signed an agreement, and that’s nice, but I don’t think the European Parliament is going to ratify it. Israel is in the worst situation it has ever been in vis-à-vis the world. They just hate you.” In other meanings Fuad had with senior officials identified as friends of Israel he got the same message. We are sick of Israel, stop carrying on about the Iranian bomb as long as you don’t put an end to your conflict with the Palestinians. People have no patience left for Israel. Your friends are disappearing or going underground, your enemies are multiplying. Fuad took it to heart. “There are attempts in the world to delegitimize us,” he said. “They treat us the way they treat Iran. Our legitimacy is fragile and only a real attempt to reach an agreement with the Palestinians will repair it.”

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