OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 14 April — Joel is a reserve captain in the Israeli Army. He has a warm handshake and a line in rapid-fire patter that betrays his New York upbringing.
He introduces himself as a “military source”, but it swiftly emerges that he is a headline machine, churning out slurs.
Joel is in the front line of a multimillion dollar propaganda drive by the Israeli government to try to prevent an international backlash over its military invasion into Palestinian-run parts of the occupied West Bank.
They face their toughest challenge yet: limiting the damage to Israel over the atrocities committed in the Jenin refugee camp, where its army has killed and injured hundreds of Palestinians.
In a newly opened Israeli government media center in Jerusalem, Joel was looking for journalists to make his pitch.
We cut straight to the question of Jenin. “Believe me, we would love to let you guys into Jenin, but unlike the Palestinian terrorists, we respect the dignity of the dead,” he said. “They want to gather up the bodies and show them off to the international media as evidence of a massacre — that is typical of the sort of PR tricks they play.”
The press was also not being allowed into Jenin because of the “abundance of terrorists” looking for “Western targets”. The Israeli Army has frequently shot at journalists, injuring more than 40 and killing one. Suddenly, it was concerned for our safety.
A journalist himself, Joel seems to know all about “PR tricks”. Asked why the Israeli Army is refusing to allow ambulances from the International Committee of the Red Cross to enter the camp and evacuate the wounded, he urged The Independent on Sunday to investigate. “You are on to a good story there. Go to the Red Cross and find out if they are using drivers from Sweden, or Palestinians.”
The propaganda war between the Israelis and Palestinians has always been a dirty business, but now it has sunk to new depths. Israel’s media center issued a statement boasting of “countless examples” of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.
This will be staggering news to the Red Cross and Red Crescent, who have been barred from entry, shot at and repeatedly humiliated, all in violation of the Geneva Convention.
As ever, Israel has more money, resources and skills to apply to its spin than the Palestinians. It has recruited the ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to appear on foreign television to explain why Israel believes blasting Palestinian towns is an effective tool against terrorism.
The Palestinians are outclassed. They tend to rant and exaggerate, and lack the fluency in English and the polished appearance of Israel’s team of spokesmen. Arafat is no exception. The world is still waiting for him to supply convincing proof of his claim that Israeli is using depleted uranium against his people.
Palestinians seem to have given up worrying about what the outside world thinks. What matters now is the war. Just as the world’s media focused on the Jenin atrocities, a bomber wiped the story off the airwaves on Friday by killing six Israelis in Jerusalem. (The Independent)
