This propaganda machine, much like the Nazi propaganda machine, employs whole organizations whose sole purpose is to bring a few searing messages to permeate the crowd’s perception and memory.
By AMIT DERIUpdated: DECEMBER 27, 2017 08:59A BOY holds the Jordanian national flag during a protest near the US Embassy in Amman, Jordan.(photo credit: REUTERS)
Pictures of dead children. Apartheid chants. “Free Free Palestine.” All these are first and foremost designed to appeal to the emotions.Even if your understanding of this conflict is minimal, a dead child will get the job done. He will drag you straight into the fire. For most people, especially non-involved observers, a dead child immediately triggers negative emotions.This emotionally driven intellectual blindness is what brings thousands out into the streets to protest all over the world. It is what causes thousands of people to boycott Israel.These boycotts, and the demonstrations that often accompany them, are often composed of hateful and ignorant people. The ignorant are those who have swallowed the propaganda poison. They are the least knowledgeable about the conflict; however they are the ones that will share a picture faster than you can say “Iron Dome.”This could be a picture from Aleppo or from Gaza, today or the 1980s, real or fabricated; the masses have already shared it without questioning it.This propaganda machine, much like the Nazi propaganda machine, employs whole organizations whose sole purpose is to bring a few searing messages to permeate the crowd’s perception and memory, which in turn will cause each person to better “understand” everything’s true “meaning.”Last week, we witnessed another such demonstration in Times Square, the heart of Manhattan. During the demonstration, there were unequivocal calls for violence against Jews.The worn-out argument that has been voiced in recent years that the boycott movement and its supporters direct their fire only against the Israeli government and not against the Jewish people is exploded before our very eyes when we hear calls for another “intifada.” Every Israeli remembers the harsh scenes that we experienced when buses exploded everywhere and terrorists regularly detonated explosive belts in clubs and in restaurants.Chants like “We do not want two states, we want ‘48” accurately reflect the real goal of the boycott movement.They do not try to hide it, you just have to listen to them.
We have seen an increase in antisemitic incidents around the world since US President Donald Trump’s declaration on Jerusalem. Just in the past week we saw such incidents in Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Egypt and the United States. While many will blame Trump for this recent spike, the fact is that the real culprits are the same people who, while disguising themselves as human rights activists, have been inciting against Jews all over the world, cooperating with radical Islamists, while trying to redefine the term antisemitism.Just two weeks ago, the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization held a panel on antisemitism. The very fact that an organization such as JVP is able to conduct a panel of this nature is absurd in and of itself, but the absurdities didn’t stop there. Among the guest speakers was Linda Sarsour, a woman who openly supports Sharia law in the United States, and expressed her “great support and admiration” for Rasmea Odeh, a convicted terrorist who murdered two Israelis and was deported from the US.Why do we let those people who are not interested in fighting antisemitism (but really just want us to stop calling them antisemites) redefine antisemitism? How will people around the world take this danger seriously when these individuals cynically use it and turn it into an empty concept? Therefore, it is important to understand that the true goal of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is not an economic or academic boycott, but a change in consciousness. It is a form of psychological warfare that presents Israel as a pariah apartheid state that needs to be wiped off the map.The State of Israel, and its supporters, must clearly understand what they are facing. It is futile, indeed it is counterproductive, to try to conduct a dialogue with organizations that seek to rewrite history, and who adhere to such big lies such as Israel’s harvesting of organs of Palestinians, or organizations that compare Israel to Nazi Germany and claim that we are ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people, or organizations that unequivocally call for another intifada.Yasser Arafat once said: “We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. Jews will not want to live among Arabs.”When you speak to the emotion of the masses, those that have the least amount of understanding and are completely blinded, psychological warfare works.When people who do not know the meaning of the word “intifada” and still shout it out loud, psychological warfare works.When we are split between ourselves and our brothers, between ourselves and our friends, psychological warfare wins.The question we all have to answer is: how do we once and for all expose and defeat this sinister attempt to divide, demean and delegitimize the State of Israel and the Jewish people?The author is the CEO of Reservists on Duty.
