Telegenically Dead: Israel’s Crumbling Media War

Deepa Kumar 

Israeli propaganda has hit a new low. While the world was still trying to come to terms with the mass deaths in Shuja’iyeh, Benjamin Netanyahu went on CNN to state that Hamas uses the “telegenically dead” to further “their cause.” He added that for Hamas: “The more the dead, the better.” Even while Netanyahu followed the propaganda script, which is to first show sympathy and express remorse, by reducing dead Palestinians to a photo-op he showed how his own mind works.

There is a standard script for how to deal with Palestinian casualties. After Israel killed four boys on the Gaza beach on July 16th, the US establishment media fell in line behind Israel’s PR framework: acknowledge the tragedy but blame Hamas.  This is exactly what Israeli spokesperson Mark Regev said onChannel 4 News when grilled by the anchor Jon Snow. It is also how the US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki responded using the same word-for-word talking points.

This framework, developed in 2009, can be found in The Israel Project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary. The Orwellian manual provides a detailed outline on how to “communicate effectively in support of Israel.”

One of its first instructions is that pro-Israeli propagandists need to show empathy. The manual insists that they should “show empathy for BOTH sides” (caps in original) as a way of gaining credibility and trust. To make sure that the point is understood, the manual repeats again (in bold and underlined this time) the instruction “use Empathy”—the suggestion being that empathy is an important tool to be used in the propaganda war.

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