How Israeli hasbara works

Hasbara is the Hebrew word for public diplomacy, i.e. the role people outside of government can have to spread pro-Israel messages and attack Israel's critics. It is a tried and tested propaganda method long relayed not only by Israeli citizens, but also pro-Israel lobbies (e.g. AIPAC), pro-Israel Jewish community groups (e.g. CRIF) and pro-Israel think tanks (e.g. WINEP). With the advent of the web, pro-Israel groups working in tandem with Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has conducted an often successful and often intensive hasbara effort targeting bloggers. This has included, for instance, efforts to leave comments in blog posts regarding Israel to defend the Israeli perspective.

In the days before the flotilla's last journey towards Gaza, blogs such as this one were targeted by a message saying that the IHH, the Turkish humanitarian organization that owned the largest boat raided today, had links to al-Qaeda. Considering that IHH is legally recognized everywhere except the UN, engages in humanitarian actions with many other organizations and has consultative status with the UN, I am skeptical. IHH does seem supportive of Gazans and Hamas, but that's no crime and it's certainly not "fundraising for al-Qaeda." 

I am posting the message sent to me below, at the bottom of the post, and you can compared its claims to the Wikipedia entry on IHH, which notes:

In 2006, the Danish Institute for International Studies published a report titled "The Role of Islamic Charities in International Terrorist Recruitment and Financing", by conservative American analyst Evan Kohlman. Kohlman claimed that major international Islamic charities such as IHH, while providing genuine humanitarian relief, also occasionally serve as fronts and liaison with Islamic militants and terror groups. In particular, Kohlman blamed IHH for assisting the Iraqi Sunni insurgency, and mentioned a 1997 raid in which police found weapons, explosives and bomb-making instructions in the IHH headquarter in Istanbul. Apparently, Kohlman's theory about IHH has not gained traction, since IHH remains a legal organization everywhere except Israel, which banned it in 2008.

With the advent of the May 2010 Gaza flotilla in which IHH played a key role, Kohlman's report was rediscovered by the Israeli think tank Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. Their May 26 text on IHH, based mostly upon Kohlman's report, was repeated over the next few days with minor variations by the Israeli press and by Israeli government spokespersons.

IHH organizer Izzet Sahin was arrested by Israeli forces in 2010 in the West Bank. The fact of his arrest was initially gagged by the Israeli security services. Sahin was later deported without charges.

Needless to say, Kohlmann is one of those ubiquitous instant experts on terrorism who does not speak a word of Arabic. His work has never peer-reviewed, and there are various problems with his research and testimony in US courts that has been tracked by SpinProfiles.org. He appears to consistently exagerate his own credentials, and my favorite bit of all is this:

Kohlmann’s company was a one man operation he ran from his bedroom in a high rise apartment in Manhattan’s West Village. National Public Radio journalist Mary Louise Kelly met him in his bedroom/office, which she described as “a gallery of photos of Al-Qaeda leaders”. Kohlmann works at a desk two feet from his bed, and on that particular occasion wearing “what looks suspiciously like last night’s pyjamas”. In October 2007 Evan Kohlmann closed his website and redirected traffic to NEFA which he said would be publishing all his future work.

I am not surprised from a quick Google search that most of his publications appear in neocon outlets like National Review.

We've seen Kohlmann's claims repeated this morning by Danny Ayalon, the Israeli deputy foreign minister, who claimed that "the organizers are well known for their ties to global jihad" and that "they have a history of arms smuggling". A member of the Turkish foreign relations committee replied: "Danny Ayalon is a liar." (I just saw both clips on Al Jazeera English, which is re-running them in its news updates.) 

Here is the Hasbara message I received my the blog's contact form yesterday:

Subject: news for your blog
Message: Hi,
My name is Michal Moreno, and I take part of an online campaign that aims at explaining Israel's point of view regarding the Flotilla approaching GAZA.

The flotilla - that starts its progress towards the Gaza strip today, should arrive in Israeli territorial waters by tomorrow,
and just as it arrives - I'd like to offer you some online content that represents our point of view on things.

We found two documents that prove direct connection between the IHH - that's the organization that supports the gaza flotilla
and extremist Islamic groups. 

one - is a court document from the US Virginia court and the second is a report from the danish institute for international studies which links the IHH to Hamas, al qaeda and other terrorist organizations (they raise money for them). below are the links to the documents as well as a summary of key points that we put together.

http://www.diis.dk/graphics/Publications/WP2006/DIIS%20WP%202006-7.web.pdf

court document: http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/312.pdf#page=17

* This is supposedly a human rights organization, but they work with directly, support, aid and are closely affiliated with the Islamic terror network: explicit ties to Hamas, Al Qaida, as well other militant Islamic organizations based in Algeria,Libya, Turkey.

* Cooperation between the Hamas government & IHH is pretty blatant. There was a recent joint press conference between a Hamas official, "the chairman of the governmental committee for breaking the siege on Gaza" and a representative of IHH. The Hamas minister of communications announced a month ago that the Hamas government made special preparations for the ships in the Gaza port including "repairing and dredging the basin of the port so that mid-sized ships could pass through". So Hamas is coordinating closely with this initiative. (Source: Right Side News)

* In December 1997, Turkish authorities began a criminal investigation into IHH when sources revealed to them that the IHH had purchased semi-automatic weapons from Islamic militant groups. Their Istanbul bureau was thoroughly searched and the local leaders arrested. Inside the bureau an array of items were found: "firearms, explosives, bomb-making instructions and a jihadi flag." After analyzing seized IHH documents, the Turkish authorities determined that the arrested leaders were about to be sent to fight in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya.

* Famed counter-terrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere found that in the mid 1990's the IHH president conspired to recruit members for jihad, and sent members to war zones in Muslim countries in order to gain combatant experience. He obtained support by these Muslim countries by transferring weapon and explosives caches to these countries.

* In 1996, phone records of the IHH showed calls to an Al Qaida guesthouse in Milan and to Algerian terror cells throughout Europe.

* Jean-Louis Bruguiere also testified to a U.S. Court that the IHH played a "central role" in the attempted Al Qaida Millenium bomb plot targeting LAX. He added that the IHH is a "cover-up" NGO which served to recruit, forge document and traffic weapons for these Mujahideens.

* During the Iraqi war, IHH funneled funds to insurgents in a Sunni dominated area of central Iraq. These were funds used to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

* They have doctored their photos of providing humanitarian aid and relief supplies.

* During the 1999 earthquake in Turkey, the IHH was banned from providing relief aid efforts because it was deemed by the government as a fundamentalist organization and would not provide transparency to Turkish officials of their bank accounts.

* The IHH has also had contact with Abdurahman Alamoudi, founder of the American Muslim Council, who is serving a 23 year sentence for illegal transactions with the Libyan government and was part of a Libyan plot to assassinate the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

* The IHH organization is banned in Israel. Defense Minister Ehud Barak signed an order citing the IHH as an organization that fund-raises for Hamas as well as assisting them. A worker from the organization was arrested on April 27th of this year in Judea and Samaria for assisting the IHH and other illegal organizations for "compromising the security of the area" according to the Shin Bet.

(Sources: Court papers of U.S. vs.Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, The Investigative Project on Terrorism, and the Danish Institute for International Studies) The IHH is one of many organizations "clothed as an NGO" and supposedly providing relief to refugees when they are actually backed by militant Islamic organizations so that they can maintain their operations without much disclosure or restrictions on the international intelligence level. Bin Laden is also said to have used NGOs to his advantage to equip and arm Al Qaida uner the international radar.

Plesae let me know if you decide to publish this story.
BR,
Michal

--

Incidentally, this is Michal Moreno, the author of the above propaganda:

Michal Moreno - Project and Account Manager

Michal has extensive knowledge and understanding of the Internet content wise, marketing wise, and technology wise.
Michal’s past experience includes project managing for Israel’s largest Internet and market research companies: 
Senior Project Manager for Scepia Internet solutions LTD.
Project Manager for Planet communications LTD.
Special (custom made) reports analyst for ACNielsen Israel

Among the projects Michal has managed, are:
Israel Defense Forces website chain – concept and characterization
Zer4u Israel 
Tel Aviv municipality website
El-Al website
Israel State Comptroller website
Coca-Cola Israel website
And many, many more… 

Michal has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Tel-Aviv University, as well as a master’s degree in Information sciences from the Bar-Ilan University.

I bet he won't be sending me any hasbara anymore.

Update: Evan Kohlmann wrote with a link to his response and defense; I am reproducing it here out of fairness: link. I still fail to see the relevance of his allegations against IHH, which even if they are true, must still be contextualized with widespread international support (including Western) for mujahideen networks in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere at the time.

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Comments

[Saar]

Hello Issandar.

Thank you for posting the fact that the person who published the report is a joker.
Any man who does not read/speak Arabic should not be commentating on Arab issues.
Everybody wants to be Lawrence of Arabia but nobody wants to learn the language.
That is why I enjoyed listening to Ehud Yaari who spoke Arabic better than most Arabs.

So we can agree that the report is, well just another report if you Google enough you can find
a report that says that the Pharaoh was a descendent of aliens and the pyramids are helicopter pads.

Regarding your Israeli Hasbara, yes it appears that Israeli's are better at fighting the war rather than explaining.
So you found a young underpaid employee of the foreign office/ public relations that sent you
some unchecked comments. Great. Personally I have known some over the years , they are young
not the brightest even though they have degrees they understand very little of
the arabs, I would bet that 96% of them could not have a 5 line conversation and order a coffee if
I tie their hands behind their backs.
:)

I am sure you can find 500 times more reports of Palestinians talking to the media and exaggerating a mouse into an elephant.

So simply this is war between two people for the same land and sometimes , well more than sometimes in my experience people just shoot to shoot and not aiming and trying to kill.
So propaganda officials on both sides just shoot their badly worded nonsense and hope to hit another follower.

Personally I have no problem with the Islamic charities sending money to terror.
Let us be honest Jewish charities supported the building of Israel and the buying of arms.
While pretending to be planting trees. KAKAL.

Also personally I think the Israeli Hasbara is flawed as no matter how many colors you paint on it
Israel is still trying to take over Palestine instead of splitting the country into two parts.

Yalla , Allah Maek.
Or better yet you do not care much for Allah and are more secular like
the guys I worked with in construction 20 years ago.

[SP]

Plenty of folks who don't speak Arabic can be good researchers and academics - it's the insta-experts who self-publish and call themselves academics because they once edited some marginal journal at a think-tank (cf Barry Rubin) and are picked up by news outlets who want someone to spout their line with a PhD attached to their name that one should be wary of.

[Issandr El Amrani]

Agreed - although you need the Arabic if you're monitoring jihadi websites, surely!

[Mike]

I am undecided on the rights and wrongs of this most recent issue regarding Israel. I do think that the provocation was completely intentional... It was a day before Netanyahu was to meet with Obama, and it wasn't as if the Free Gaza Movement didn't know what it was getting itself into by approaching the Israeli blockade rather than going to Ashdod where humanitarian aid is allowed through. I definitely do question the motives of the flotilla (not necessarily of everyone aboard, but of the main organizers). In terms of the fighting, I am unsure of how the actual violence was started as very different accounts are being given, both with large bias. The video footage definitely does show that it wasn't merely a one-sided battle and there was violence against the Israeli troops, but who really knows who started the violence. I do think that regardless of all this, Israel definitely made a large error in bringing the violence to the level that they did. I do think that they are definitely at fault for that and hope that it is at the very least a very sad lesson well learned so nothing like this happens again.

Sorry for typing so much, I just want to show that I am fairly unbiased in my opinions and try to seek what is truly is right.

Now, I have an issue with this site calling out Israeli "hasbara." It makes me upset to think that one might really think that Israel tries at all costs to put a good light on itself and that its enemies do nothing of the sort. Yes, of course Israel and its supporters make a great effort to improve public perception, especially when it is so low and especially if they truly believe that there are facts that need to be uncovered which will consequently improve the public's perception. If you were in school and got into a fight, wouldn't you want the principal and teachers and other students to know all the information surrounding the fight if you felt you weren't at complete fault? I feel that it is disturbing that this site is so against that mission.

Also, I am unhappy with the bias in merely condemning the Israeli "propaganda machine." It is ironic that so much focus is put on the Israeli side when Hamas deliberately uses human shields of women and children to create more dramatic deaths merely so the outside world is more sympathetic to their side. This type of action is the most disturbing type of propaganda imaginable, and yet you seem to have absolutely no qualm with it?

I don't mean to sound overly harsh and i do appreciate a site that aims to culminate real debate rather than slogans and banter. I just think that issues need to be looked at fairly.

Keep up your work

-Mike

[JJ]

Michal is a girl's name.

The Free Gaza movement has ties to ISM and Israel sends humanitarian aid into Gaza all the time.
Other boats with real peaceful aid supplies have been escorted peacefully into Gaza to deliver their aid to the relevant peopel there. This boat was given numerous warnings to stop and be taken to Ashdod in order to take their "aid" to Gaza and they refused. Real people of peace would have obeyed. But their objective was to create havoc & break the blockade, not get aid peacefully to Gaza.

The Turks on the Marmara boat left Istanbul chanting jihadi slogans: Khaybar Khaybar O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return". This is a war cry alluding to Muhammad's 7th century massacre of Jews. There is footage on Turkish TV showing these Turks shouting that they want to be martyrs or get to Gaza. Well, most of them seem to have got want they wanted.

i saw footage of an Israeli soldier describing one of the people on this Turkish boat carrying 3 knives, one extendable club, tear gas and pepper spray. No one who is legitimately a "humanitarian" with peaceful purpospes arms themselves or uses jihadi slogans. The Turks have centuries of jihadi form and that this group is part of the Muslim Brotherhood simply makes their aims all the more transparent.
They set off to make war, and like so many of their murderous ilk, they hid their war vessel in a flotilla of alleged civilians. Very typical tactics used by Hamas, Hezbollah and o0ther Muslim Brotherhood Groups of which this group is one.

[Jim]

@"Michal is a girl's name" "Israel sends humanitarian aid into Gaza all the time." LOL !!!
More lies from the Hasbara "Real people of peace would have obeyed. But their objective was to create havoc & break the blockade, not get aid peacefully to Gaza." LOL!!!!!!

"Real people of peace" would not use collective punishment on the populous of Gaza with a blockade blocking goods of no threat to their country's(Israels) security. Only recently have they lifted the ban on shoes and clothes, yes those are used by Hamas so ban them LOL You guys are a complete joke of mindless propaganda.

Israel is run buy a bunch of Zionist nuts, it's perfectly fine to mistreat a populous in Gaza with collective punishment, but when people have had enough of their antics they claim everyone in a terrorist. This from a country founded by terrorists(Stern gang). Grow up Israel people have had enough, you don't want peace because with peace comes borders, which would put an end to your own terrorist settlers that steal land for you everyday.
This article has more fact than anything you have written
BBC: Details of Gaza blockade revealed in court case May3 ,2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8654337.stm

Everything on those ships were not allowed in by the blockade. Read the article in it you will see how Israel decides what is essential and non-essential to the Palestinians. It is collective punishment, other wise there would just be a list of banned goods that cause security concerns only. The court case was to force the authorities to publish a list of what goods are allowed, right now they can ban anything they want anytime they want to cause maximum cruelty to the populous of Gaza. Banning things like toys, books, and crayons from children is not for security reasons obviously. Only recently the lifted their ban on shoes and clothes.If Israel doesn't want to have events like the flotilla the answer is simple, do not use illegal collective punishment on the Palestinian people. The blockade only punishes the moderate Palestinians and puts more money in the the hands of Hamas. Hamas controls the only way in for goods not allowed through by Israel, forcing the average Palestinian to buy goods from the Hamas controlled smugglers.

[rabza]

"Very typical tactics used by Hamas, Hezbollah and o0ther Muslim Brotherhood Groups of which this group is one." - JJ

i think that comment section of this blog was also spotted by Hasbara "thinkers", like these of other online sites. The sentence above is a proof of Hasbaric wisdom : "Hezbollah is a Muslim Brotherhood group". One sentence is enough to discredit the rest. But i think that people reading this blog have higher intellectuel capacities which gives it an immunity from hasbara.