A Hasbara Guide for you

[Searcher08]

<Dupe post MODS please delete!>

[Searcher08]

bomah, the branding and social media consultancy mentioned above have a wide range of enthusiastic references on their site. I believe Mr Yarkoni is the founder / CEO

Examples
http://bomah.org/testimonials

Itzik Yarkoni is uniquely poised to train, motivate, and direct student leaders to make an impact for Israel online.

Itzik's range of experiences is deep and diverse. His experiences living and working in Sderot give him a captivating narrative voice, which he encourages others to develop as well. Itzik was recognized as an outstanding Israel shaliach during his time at UC Irvine, one of the most notoriously anti-Israel universities in the world. He created an innovative social media strategy that energized Jewish students and countered anti-Israel propaganda on campus. Itzik has given specialized workshops to our elite Hasbara Fellows who come from North America to Israel for leadership training. He has also given practical guidance to Israel clubs on the ground in the US.

Overall, Itzik's knowledge, experiences, and critical thinking combine to produce an educator who is insightful and effective. Many people 'talk' about a successful social media presence, but Itzik produces concrete results.

Itzik came and spoke to our Sorority about how Israel is a start up nation and how we can use the same tactics for publicity in the sorority. It was a great way to learn how to improve PR and organization within the sorority, while still learning about Israel.

We were delighted to have him join us this month to explain a bit of the history of the conflict, to share his personal experiences, and to offer some insights into how young adults can work for peace wherever we live.
Kirk Winslow
Youth Ministries, Irvine Presbyterian Church

Personally, I was surprised to see the degree of sophistication this shows.
To me , this is not about propaganda; this is not about parrotting the same message,

it is going into the territory of discovering and sharing life-stories and experiences, but framing them to align with an over-arching context (Rebranding Israel)

[Searcher08]

As I read this, an excerpted blog post from the bomah.org site
http://bomah.org/its-not-marketing-its-storytelling

I was again struck by this pattern of 'people speaking their authentic stories' but having it contextualised, framed within an overarching 'Conversation'.

Wasnt there a big research project going on in the US into discovering the characteristics of using narratives for change??

As part of my 5-month internship here in Israel with BOMAH – The Brand of Milk and Honey, I learned how to harness the power of storytelling. BOMAH uses storytelling as a new strategy to positively re-brand Israel online and fight against Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movements on campuses. The best way to fight against negative content being produced in the online world is by sharing things that are positive and personal. I’m talking, of course, about telling your story.

There is no one way to share your story.

It can be as simple as posting on Facebook or keeping a blog. I decided to tell my story in the form of an interactive program called Tour Builder. Tour Builder uses Google Earth to show people the places you’ve visited and the experiences you had along the way. It allows you to choose locations, add photos, text, and video, and then share your creation. Using this program, I created a representation of my life, my journey in Israel, and the work I’ve done with BOMAH.

[seemslikeadream]

Facebook's safe haven for Israeli racists
Posts rejoicing in the death of Palestinians and calls for the murder of asylum seekers have become a matter of course, but police say their hands are tied.
By Roni Bar | Mar. 7, 2014 | 11:10 AM | 3

Palestinian quizzed for calling Barkat 'mayor of the occupation' on Facebook
By Nir Hasson | Feb. 21, 2014 | 2:10 AM | 27

Somewhat more than 1,000 people are friends on the Hebrew-language Facebook page Nikmat Hayeudim (“Revenge of the Jews”). They receive daily photo updates on attacks against Palestinian property and people and on leftists. “What a picture, a real pleasure,” one of them wrote under a photo showing a person severely beaten around the head, blood running down his face, lying on a hospital bed. “That’s what should be done to all the Arabs,” another post added, and then continued with a coarse stream of invective including cursing Mohammad.

Another Facebook page, called “We’re all for death to terrorists,” has more than 60,000 followers. Next to a photo at a demonstration at the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh is the caption: “Female terrorist leftists clash with IDF and Border Police forces.” One post, which can be said to be typical, says: “May their name and memory be wiped out. Let them die, those leftists…kill them. They’re worse than Arabs!” Under the report of a rape in Tel Aviv, one member of the group wrote: “I swear an oath that tomorrow I’m going to go through the central bus station, call an Eritrean over to the car, close the window on his head and drag him all through south Tel Aviv.”

Since social networks allow users to immediately post anything that comes into their head, almost without filters, calls for murder and incitement to racism have become more and more common on the Israeli web. Statements against Arabs, leftist activists, gays, African migrants, the ultra-Orthodox and mixed couples all get “likes” but no response from the authorities. And so, the Facebook page of Lehava, a group that says it wants to prevent assimilation in the Holy Land, where, among other things is a post that reads: “Arabs are not humans, they’re animals,” received more than 21,000 likes. Another page, that has more than 22,000 likes, calls itself: “We’re all against the extreme left.”

“There’s an inflationary process at work here,” says Prof. Yair Amichai-Hamburger, head of the Research Center for Internet Psychology at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya. “What I said yesterday that was significant is no longer so today. We are addicted to the attention and need to make our opinions more extreme to get the same number of likes.” Amichai-Hamburger says that expressions of hatred on the web are seen as letting off steam, “but in fact, it’s not a liberating catharsis, it’s a hothouse. The group goes with us everywhere and is available 24 hours a day. It creates an accumulative poison, and in very many cases it causes people to blow up.” According to Amichai-Hamburger, many violent crimes worldwide had an “incubation period” on Facebook.

That is precisely what disturbs Alaa Younis, a 32-year-old dentist from the town of Ara in the center of the country, who is active against racism on the Internet. “I’ve gotten threats to my life, the life of my wife and my daughter, who is only seven months old,” he says. Younis says he has no doubt that the authorities should respond to verbal violence on social networks. “There are groups on Facebook that are the equivalent to illegal assembly in the town square, and they should be opposed as much as possible. The police should issue warnings to people who express themselves this way,” he said.

Last month, Younis came across a status posted by a young man who follows a number of Facebook pages full of racist statements. The man found the following statement: “Wow, what a dream I had, I go into a hospital to the maternity ward and there are all these boxes with the babies in them. Then I take a butcher’s knife out of my coat and go by every baby and where there’s an Arab baby I cut off the head and where there’s a Jewish baby I place the General Remedy,” the post said, referring to a set of 10 Psalms meant to serve a redemptive purpose. “What a rosy dream I had.”

The post did result in the writer being brought briefly to the police station for questioning on suspicion of incitement. But such intervention, even as limited as it is, by the authorities, is an exception.

In fact, the police’s hands are tied. “The authority to open a file for suspicion of incitement belongs to the State Prosecutor’s Office,” according to a statement by the police spokesman’s office. The statement went on to say that the issue of enforcement on social networks, which “by their nature are platforms for personal expression, is a complicated one that touches on free speech and the right to privacy.”

So as not to violate the right to privacy, any investigation of suspicions of incitement in Israel must receive the approval of the attorney general. Justice Ministry officials told Haaretz that recent years have seen an increase in people approaching the ministry with complaints about statements on social networks, but the action taken is limited. Few files are opened and few indictments served.

“Society places too much emphasis on criminal law,” a Justice Ministry official close to the matter said. “The law cannot be the answer for thousands of violent and racist statements on the web. Neither is it the proper tool for dealing with all of society’s ills.” According to the official, the solution to violent, insulting and racist statements on social networks is in the public sphere and in education, as well as in the policies of the social networks, which can delete extremist posts.

It’s not only in Israel that the authorities are dealing with “over-exploitation” of freedom of speech on the Internet. Anti-Semitic posts and racist remarks against other minorities are not rare overseas. But when it comes to a response from the authorities, it seems that in some places, keyboard offenders are being sent to jail. For example, less than two weeks ago, Alba Gonzales Camacho, 21, from Spain, used her Twitter account to call for the murder of politicians and became the first person in Spain to be convicted of incitement on the web. Two months ago in the United States, an American citizen was sentenced to 16 months in jail after he threatened the life of President Barack Obama on Twitter.

In Israel, however, the authorities seem to want to depend on the filtering policies of the social networks. Facebook uses community policing, that is, users report problematic posts and Facebook decides whether to delete them. Facebook Israel said in a statement: “With more than a billion users, Facebook presents a universal set of rules for conduct on the social network, which are known as Facebook’s community standards. We will remove any content reported if it breaks the terms of use. For example, when content becomes a direct and real threat. At the same time, we do not remove content just because it is insulting.”

Prof. Raphael Cohen-Almagor, chair in politics at Hull University in Britain, connects norms on social networks with those in society in general and says that state institutions treat radical elements tolerantly. “I don’t think we’ve internalized Rabin’s murder. Today there is a greater chance of a political murder because on the social networks the phenomena are harsher. There is hatred toward Arabs, Palestinians, the Kerry peace initiative, human rights groups, statements against anyone who tries to cut the Gordian knot between the people of Israel, the Torah and the Land of Israel.”

[FourthBase]

This is out of touch with the reality on the ground. The right wing zionists are being used to pump up the case of those who focus on dubious ideas regarding Rothschild dominance, the (un)importance of the Nazi Holocaust and whatnot. Equally so, zionist hawks will use the existence of these forms of virulent anti-Semitism to justify more aggressive efforts towards ethnic cleansing and dominance in the region.

That seems pretty circular to me; the Zionists are both the abused and abusers, sounds like a bigger issue is being hinted at which would be a thread in itself.

In other words, Searcher may get his wish and the thread returns to a focus on Hasbara

Exactly what I'm thinking- I've already said what I needed to say.

Reminds me of an old thread.

viewtopic.php?p=213753#p213753

[Searcher08]

Here is an example of a hasbara video from
Flotilla Choir - We Con the World (Latma TV)


From the LATMA TV WIki page:
Israeli Government Press Office officials accidentally sent it to a list of journalists, and three hours later sent an apology describing the emailed video as having been "inadvertently released."[7][8][9] The clip received over 3 million hits on YouTube.[10]

[Searcher08]

And now for some light relief,
Warning - may induce uncontrollable laughter fits as it goes on

[Searcher08]

SourceWatch have an excellent article on hasbara tactics:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hasbara

The references below are to
http://www.middle-east-info.org/take/wujshasbara.pdf

Hasbara Campus Manual

A Hasbara manual for students to use on US university campuses is now available online[2].
A summary of the techniques is provided from page 31 onwards:

Propaganda is used by those who want to communicate in ways that engage the emotions and downplay rationality, in an attempt to promote a certain message.
The manual goes on to describe seven propaganda techniques:

Name calling: through the careful use of words, the name calling technique links a person or an idea to a negative symbol.

Glittering generality: Simply put, glittering generality is name calling in reverse. Instead of trying to attach negative meanings to ideas or people, glittering generalities use positive phrases, which the audience are attached to, in order to lend positive image to things. Words such as "freedom", "civilization",…

Transfer: Transfer involves taking some of the prestige and authority of one concept and applying it to another. For example, a speaker might decide to speak in front of a United Nations flag, in an attempt to gain legitimacy for himself or his idea.

Testimonial: Testimonial means enlisting the support of somebody admired or famous to endorse and ideal or campaign.

Plain folks: The plain folks technique attempts to convince the listener that the speaker is a 'regular guy', who is trust-worthy because the are like 'you or me'.

Fear: Stressing that ignoring the message will likely lead to war, terrorism[3]

Bandwagon: Suggest that the stated position is mainstream and use polls to suggest this. [4]

[Searcher08]

From the manual linked above. Page 22.

How To Score Points Whilst Avoiding Debate

Central to point scoring is the ability to disguise point scoring by giving the impression of
genuine debate. Audience members can be alienated by undisguised attacks, so all point
scoring needs to be disguised.

To disguise point scoring, comments need to seem to be logical, and to follow from what was
said before.

Use phrases that subtly change the agenda or reframe the debate to do this:

"Well, that's not really the right question..."

"I don't think we should be focusing on ..., the real point is that..."

"That's an interesting point, but I don't think we can really begin to address it before
we think about..."

"You seem to assume that ..., an assumption that's impossible to share. Really, we
need to consider..."

"It's a shame that the Palestinian leadership have led the Palestinian people down a
dead-end, where conflict and violence leads to tragic situations. Things would have
been better if..."

"I really think that we would all be better served by looking forward instead of back at
the things that happened over 50 years ago.

The past is important to note, but we have to move on in an attempt for peace. That's why I think we would be better served talking about..."

The examples above ‘field’ the comments that precede them by giving the appearance of
addressing what was said. They then go on to reframe the discussion by setting a new
agenda.

[jakell]

There is a wider tactic not described above. The points above assume a standardised debating arena with fairly predictable actors taking part. But looking around several forums, neither of these can be assumed.

Different forums have different strengths and weaknesses, and these can be exploited by a someone who has familiarised themselves with the environment. A forum that allows unlimited C&P's for instance would be very susceptible having a thread rendered useless by lots of this, especially if it seems to fit in with the flavour of the forum itself.
Of course this is not really about winning an argument, but it is about closing down ones that are heading in an undesired direction, and then hopefully coming back to an issue when the mood changes, possibly via a 'different' thread

[Searcher08]

Having read the Hasbara manual, I have to say the animated video above is not only very very funny, but bang on the money.