Regarding recent social media posts by journalist, former SBS newsreader Mary Kostakidis, the CEO of the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) has lodged a complaint with the Australia Human Rights Commission. Under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, Mr. Alon Cassuto, a dual Australian Israeli citizen, claims that by sharing a speech by Hassan Nasrullah, the leader of Lebanese based Hezbollah, Mary has been ‘sharing extreme propaganda and hateful material.’
This ZFA initiative raises questions about the reach of Israel’s propaganda machine – hasbara – as when an institution in Australia imitates the goals of a foreign government which wants to control what citizens in another country are allowed to know and how they may think.
A powerful Zionist lobby is usually allowed to proceed unhindered, but Mary has bucked the trend. In which case, let’s examine the nature of hasbara and why, if challenged, some of its operators may be so offended as to make a complaint to a Human Rights Commission.
History, governments’ policies, teaching in schools and universities is affected by the stories which dominate public consciousness. In the case of Israel’s latest ‘war’ in Gaza, the crafting, manipulation and control of those stories requires Orwellian dishonesties, as in claiming cruelties to be virtues, as in insisting that indifference to humanitarian law must be a figment of other people’s imagination.
Israel’s hasbara machine has weaponised disinformation to fight public outrage over Israeli slaughters in Gaza, but these attempts to influence public perceptions of Israel have been proliferating for years.
Whatever its actions, Israel must be seen in a positive light. It is the victim, the David fighting Goliath with the most moral army in the world which never targets civilians and does so on behalf of the only democracy in the Middle East. Even when slaughtering men, women and children on land which does not belong to Israel , their leaders claim they have a right to defend themselves.
‘Things mean what I say they mean’, said Humpty Dumpty to Alice.
Persistent lying plus western media’s habit of parroting what Israeli spokespersons claim, are other cogs in the hasbara machinery. Depicting Hamas as evil incarnate was bolstered by Israeli claims that on October 7, Hamas forces committed systemic rape and genital mutilation, beheaded and burned babies. The four page letter to Mary Kostakidis from Arnold Bloch Leibler, Cassuto’s lawyers, even elaborates. Hamas they write, committed ‘rape, genital mutilation, live incineration and dismemberment.’
If propaganda can be swallowed even by lawyers, who cares about alternative judgements? Claims about perverse atrocities committed on October 7 have been disproved, but mud sticks. Palestinians should not be heard. Propaganda must prevail.
Hamas appeared in 2006 but terrorist atrocities committed by Israeli gangs and forces since 1948 must be ignored. Lying operates as much by omission as by speaking shameless untruths.
In the early days of the Gaza slaughters, Israeli forces depicted the Al-Shifa hospital as a Hamas control and command centre, a claim used to destroy the building, kill patients, staff and other civilians. If all Gazans would be labelled Hamas, if any frail woman, toddler or premature baby occupied an alleged suspicious building, they could be seen as a a terrorist threat and eliminated, the barbarities justified.
Reporting of the Gaza war is infected by lies. Israeli military spokespersons boasted that the June 8 rescue of four hostages was a ‘clinical, precise military exercise’ though 300 Palestinians were killed and 700 injured.
The April 2 murder of seven World Kitchen Staff in their clearly labelled vehicle was described by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as tragic, unintentional but he said, ‘ these things happen in war times.’
Mainstream media has been sucked in by the hasbara machinery and has parroted Israeli lies, as when the Refugee agency UNRWA was falsely claimed to be a Hamas agency. Journalists’ uncritical reference to a war in Gaza presupposes two sides of almost equal strength. Such is the influence of the hasbara machine that the killing of over 40,000 civilians, whose promoters justify massive bombing, famine and starvation is still called a war. It looks more like well organized slaughter.
Mainstream media’s reluctance to give space to Palestinian narratives is a hasbara achievement which political parties in Australia seem to take for granted or remain bewildered as to what to do about it.
The Age journalist Chip Le Grand might have spent time debunking the deceitful claims about a war. Instead, he gleefully revealed the charges against Mary Kostakidis, who had revealed information about which the public should stay ignorant.
Another trend in the hasbara techniques is not apparent at first sight. Telling the world that Israel is simply a freedom loving country allied against terrorism means ‘we’re all in this together, how could you disagree’. Critics like this former SBS newsreader are disagreeable, unfair outsiders.
In a mother and apple pie statement (who could possibly not love either), Cassuto CEO of the Zionist Federation says he took this action against Kostakidis ‘for the sake of the precious multicultural nation which we have…’
A constricted form of preciousness can be painted as a feature of Australia’s identity. If so, don’t dare to challenge, otherwise you’ll get a letter from my lawyers and an institution as lofty as a Human Rights Commission will be involved.
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