Anti-Israel bigotry and bias Lying Muslims Manfred Gerstenfeld Paleostinians Palestinian terrorism

AN INTERVIEW BY DR.MANFRED GERSTENFELD WITH MICHAEL WIDLANSKI: DECEITFUL PALESTINIAN STATEMENTS AS STRATEGIC WEAPONS…….

 

This interview was first published by Israel National News, and republished here with the author’s consent.

Widlanski

Deceitful Palestinian Statements as Strategic Weapons

Manfred Gerstenfeld Interviews Michael Widlanski

Dr.Manfred GerstenfeldPalestinian leaders have developed ambiguous messages as strategic weapons to disarm, demoralize and deceive foes while gaining third-party support. They use duplicitous statements for different audiences in the tradition of taqiyya—the art of dissimulation. This is an Islam-approved application of lying to defeat enemies. When conversing in English they may sound peace-loving. Yet they simultaneously broadcast bellicose messages to Arabs in Arabic.

This method of destructive ambiguity was practiced already by the pre-war Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al Husseini. He was heavily involved in spreading false messages about Jews ‘trying to conquer the Temple Mount’ in the early 1920’s and later in propaganda broadcasts for the Nazis. Fatah leaders, particularly Yasser Arafat and Mahmud Abbas, follow in Husseini’s footsteps using ambiguity.”

Dr. Michael Widlanski is the author of Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat.1 He teaches at Bar Ilan University and was Strategic Affairs Advisor in Israel’s Ministry of Public Security editing the Orient House Archives of the PLO. He will be Schusterman Visiting Professor at the University of California, Irvine 2013-14.

Communication and especially dissimulation were major motifs in Arafat’s life and career. He became leader of the PLO through the microphone and pen and not through the rifle. Arafat became head of Fatah by gaining newspaper attention in Egypt in the 1950’s. In 1968, he became the undisputed leader of the PLO after skillful press exploitation of the ‘Battle of Karameh.’

From 1968 through 1974, Fatah/PLO made it clear that it wanted to replace Israel with a ‘democratic Palestine.’ This was a euphemism for what former PLO leader Ahmad Shukeiry had declared: ‘…destroying Israel and driving the Jews into the sea.’ Beginning in 1974, the PLO further ‘moderated’ its tone, but not its real goal. It adopted the ‘Strategy of Stages’ and declared that it would try to gain parts of Palestine/Israel via peaceful means. Thereafter it would employ arms for the final battle. Arafat and Abbas refined this strategy further over the years.

Hamas has been more direct than Fatah/PLO in declaring its goals and tactics – destroying Israel with the force of arms. It has since learned from Arafat and Abbas. In recent years, Hamas, too, has had spokesmen who suggest that it might consider letting Israel survive if and when it withdraws to the 1949 armistice lines or the 1947 partition lines.

Despite all claims to the contrary, no PLO leader has given up demands for Palestinian ‘refugees returning to their homes’ in Israel. Yet many prominent Israelis and Americans also promote this fallacy. Arafat, Abbas and negotiators like Yasser Abd-Rabbo, Nabil Sha’ath and Ahmad Qrei’a –also known as Abu ‘Ala – have publicly and repeatedly repudiated such Israeli claims on the refugees issue made by Ehud Olmert, Tzippy Livni and especially Yossi Beilin and Shlomo Ben-Ami.

Similarly, claims by many Israelis and Americans that the PLO has agreed to recognize and accept Israeli settlement blocs in return for ceding territory in Israel to Palestinian sovereignty, have been repudiated. This is also true about claims that the PLO leadership is willing to accept Israeli control of some holy places in eastern Jerusalem and that Ramallah or Al-Azzaria would serve as a Palestinian capital. Abbas repeatedly told Arab media—as late as August 2013—that there will be no Jews living in Palestinian territory and that Jerusalem will be the Palestinian capital.

Abbas told an Israeli interviewer that he did not want to return to Safed. Thereafter, he declared to Arab interviewers that all Arabs could decide where and when they would go. He specifically said all refugees would have the ‘right” to return to their homes.

Claims that the PLO has amended its charter are false as well. The ‘ceremony’ in 1998 concerning this is deemed a stage act by Palestinians, even though it was sanctioned by Bill Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu. Leading Palestinians—such as Palestinian National Congress speaker Salim Za’anoun—say that the PLO charter still stands.

Periodically, Arafat and Abbas said that they ‘recognize Israel.’ They thereafter explained in Arabic that they recognize the fact but not the right of Israel’s existence. They further rebuff any attempt to recognize Jewish sovereignty or even Jewish nationalism. Abbas has repeatedly rejected Netanyahu’s demand that the PLO accept Israel as a predominantly Jewish state. The PLO leadership until today approves maps and text books that refer to all of “Palestine” including Tel Aviv and Haifa, as Arab. Many Israelis and Westerners prefer to believe that PLO leaders ‘do not mean what they say’ in Arabic. However, history has shown that the messages to their own people is their true approach.”

Widlanski concludes: “Israel fails in its external communications partly because there is no unified Israeli view. Every struggle has a mental aspect. This is particularly true in battles involving terror. In order to win, Israelis have to educate themselves about the real Palestinian goals and tactics.”

1 Michael Widlanski, Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012).

One Response

  1. Dear Dr.Widlanski,
    Your revelations about the House of Orient are terrific. Hier an article first published by Alyaexpress news. I would like to know if you agree with my thesis.
    Best regards
    Edmond Richter

    Principles of offensiv counter-propaganda

    In my last article “Being a victim? No, thank you! “I lashed out against the serious mistakes that we make in our counter-propaganda, the so-called “Hasbarah.'”

    I explained that our victimhood attitude strengthen our adversaries and weaken us. Today I want to show what an effective offensive propaganda must be.
    Our counter-propaganda must be divided into three different categories:
    1. The counter-propaganda by persuasion (for internal use)
    This one is to provide ourselves, Jewish and non -Jewish supporters of Israel, with arguments often poorly known (or embedded in a mass of boring documents) proving the legitimacy of Israel since the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the San Remo Conference in 1922, the UN decision in 1947 : the international law arguments abound.
    Added to these, are stories of travelers, declarations of statesmen, quotes from the Koran itself in favor of the right of Jews to the Holy Land (yes, yes, true !) … Etc
    Instead of fully detailed, boring texts we need an accurate summary clear and punchy, with references allowing the reader to deepen the matter and verify the facts.
    Every Jew, every non-Jewish friend of Israel must be able to impress his interlocutor with a three minute speech of fundamental and indisputable facts and be ready to get internet links to reference texts.
    (Warning, among these reference texts, religious arguments such as: “God promised us the land of Israel three thousand years ago” should be avoided. Our enemies have nothing to do with this promise! Only facts and always facts!)
    In addition we should know thoroughly the arguments of our enemies and organize within Jewish communities, counter-propaganda sessions with play role where some of us would play the part of anti-Semites to learn how to counter them.
    2. Emotional counter-propaganda, addressed to a huge mass of French, European and American citizens given the nature of our current dismal Hasbarah, make them sooner or later lean on the side of our enemies. They are the ones we have to win over and build support to our cause!
    First analyze the reasons for this shift towards our enemies.
    The first reason is basic and simple at the same time:
    Our enemies practice emotional propaganda (fake pictures of bloodied children, videos of mothers screaming in pain, manipulation of language : “settlers” , “colonies” , “Zionists” , “occupied territories” , “apartheid “, ” Gaza: open prison” etc …) while we do the” Hasbarah ! ”
    ” Hasbarah ” comes from ” Lehasbir ” explain. We explain too much, we give explanations. But, there is a fundamental principle in psychology that between the explanation and the emotion, it is the emotion that engraves deeper into the brain and that therefore supersedes the explanation, always !
    In addition, we strive to address the emotional propaganda of our opponents with explanations that only serve to strengthen them: “If they
    (the Israelis) feel the need to explain, that’s because they feel guilty: There is no smoke without fire!”
    The second reason is our victim attitude, of lambs being slaughtered .

    Peel the on- line pro-Israel press as well as blogs and you will see that I am right: We cry out the appalling crimes of Islamists and thereby we make the worst mistake in political propaganda: that of portraying the enemy under terrifying colors, which strengthens him and inspires terror to our allies and neutrals who consequently adopt a low profile.
    German socialists made the same mistake by painting Hitler as a butcher dripping with the blood of his victims.
    And they inspired terror in their own troops and in brave citizens who lined up on the side of the fittest … Some socialists eventually ended up in concentration camps as well.
    Instead, here are some examples of emotional pro-Israel counter- propaganda:
    – “Gaza open-air prison” with photos of luxury hotels
    – Photos of children full of blood flowing from the sheep slaughtered for Aid El Adha
    – Photos of a Muslim mother inflicting bloody wounds to his child for the Aschoura festivities
    – Khaled Meshaal calling for war against Israel and next to him a banner “France invests 200 million euros in Gaza”
    – Map of the Middle East where tiny Israel appears in the mass of Arab countries.
    – Declaration of an Islamic Imam saying that the women who demonstrate in Tahrir Square want to be raped (to be sent to all feminist organizations … )
    – And so on…

    3. Counter – offensive propaganda addressed to Islamists, to Palestinians, to all the notorious anti-Semites.
    The golden rule is “Never explain, never complain!”
    But it is recommended to:
    1) Mock them:
    – Show pictures of Ismaïl Haniyeh, Khaled Meshaal or Nasrallah with a Ping-Pong ball on the nose or crimson with a funnel on his head. Ditto for the DVD of their speeches (with laughter in the background).
    – Disseminate the video sequence of a belly dancer who mocks Mohammed Morsi
    – The IDF soldier harassed by the little blonde should have paid her a bottle of mineral water on the head.
    – Disseminate their ridiculous decisions:
    * burkas for 2 years old girls
    * banning the sale of cucumbers (they look like penises)
    * the joke of the week: Hundreds of Egyptians demonstrate to reclaim Andalusia.
    2) Attack them (for acts that shock the human values )
    – Pedophilia, mass marriages between powerful men and prepubescent girls
    – Video on how to beat one’s wife
    – Support muslim women who revolt against the oppression of muslim male
    – Prosecution in courts when they pray in the streets
    – Insist on how mentally retarded they are
    – Support of Charlie Hebdo for his caricatures of Mohammed
    – Declare that Muhammad was a pedophile (he married Aischa who was 6 years old, deflowered her at 9 years old!)
    3) Celebrate our triumphs: show our strength, our joy of life, our success!
    – Compare the number of Arab and Jewish Nobel prizes (per million inhabitants)
    – Compare the number of illiterate among Jews and Arabs (per million inhabitants)
    – Compare the number of Jewish and Arab scientific publications (per million inhabitants)
    – Disseminate Pat Condell videos, those of Wafa Sultan, Churchill quotes
    – Compare the much higher number of Islamic wars to the number of wars made by other religions.
    4) Words and expressions to be radically banished from our anti- propaganda (about Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims)
    “Cruel “, ” wild ” barbarians “,” bloody “,” tyrannical ” , ” bad faith “,” traitors “,” false ” , ” terrible ” … ” ruthless and cruel war against the Jewish state ”
    That’s the best way to flatter them!
    These words and phrases are to be replaced by :
    “Mentally retarded “, “pedophile “, “mentally ill “, “idiots”, “morons “,
    “ignorant”
    “Incompetent ” traitors to Islam” “degenerate”, “ unfortunate fools “,
    “ridiculous ”
    “Hamas Puppets “, “The Hamas unwinnable war against the Hebrew State”
    In summary: “Never explain, never complain” but “Attack, mock, triumph ”

    4. CONCRETE PROPOSALS :
    1. Goal:
    What do we want to achieve?
    – That Muslims understand us?
    – That Westerners understand us?
    – That they all take pity on us?
    For me the answer is:
    – Let our enemies be weakened
    – Let our people be strengthened.
    2. Material resources:
    2.1 A modern anti-propaganda plant with all the needed hardware.
    2.2 A Taskforce composed of psychologists, sociologists, creative artists, unconventional minds, experts in social media
    2.3. A pro-Israel Al Jazeera
    2.4 Funding
    a) State of Israel
    b) Jewish Communities
    c) Jews of the world as we did for the KKL
    2.5 A tight network of relationships with all blogs, on- line magazines, newspapers, radio, television … with unlimited copyright and distribution.
    Entertain a network of philo-Semitic and pro-Israel who support our values and disseminate them.
    2.6 In all Jewish communities there will be lessons and lectures of anti-propaganda, role play, acting classes, emotional posters competitions, CD’s, DVD’s, meetings, trainings in Martial Arts (Krav Maga ) trainings to Makel, local networks mobilized very quickly …
    3. Strategy:
    3.1 Analyze the core values in the West: Freedom of expression, human rights for men and women, religious tolerance, equality before the law, respect for minorities
    3.2 Show by all emotional ways how those values are ignored in the Arab countries.
    3.3 show how these values are lived in Israel, show the contribution of Israel and the Jews in the world; All of these, not as ad hoc basis but repeatedly, in a cumulative and emotional way.
    3.4 Creating networks of rapid and massive diffusion in the online press. (Not wanting to reproduce an article because it has already been published elsewhere is not eligible. Similarly we need to encourage readers to participate in article writing. It’s time to pull ourselves, to abandon our ghetto mentality (Benny Ganz) and recapture the spirit and combativeness of the Maccabis!
    By Edmond Richter for Alyaexpress -News

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