Thursday, September 3, Katryn Hughes-Fraitekh of the Middle East Peace and Justice Alliance officiated at the showing of the documentary video “Occupation 101: Voices of a Silenced Majority”. A group called “People Before Profit” hosted the film at the Albuquerque Peace and Justice Center. There was no explanation of what was meant by the “silenced majority”, since neither the Arabs nor the anti-Israel people are a majority in Israel or the US, and they are far from silenced in any part of the world.
I went to see the film, an hour and a half of emotional clips and interviews, one sided and extreme, short on facts, and long on omission. The film was produced and directed by brothers Sufyan and Abdullah Omeish, who were born in Tripoli, Libya and moved to the US in 1982 as children. They appear to be supporters of Hamas, going by the fact that Hamas was the only entity in Israel or the world not blamed for the “Plight of the Palestinians”. Hamas is the major cause of whatever conditions exist in Gaza, and a competitor for misery in Samaria and Judea. The exaggerations and omissions of the movie were often so extreme as to be outlandish.
The historical run down omitted any cause and effect for the events in modern Israeli history. There was absolutely no mention of historical figures or events, other than Oslo events, Arab uprisings against “Israeli oppression” and wars which were evidently started by Israel for sport. At one point an anti-Zionist woman in Israel said the Jerusalem Sisbarro Pizza bombings were horrible, and they showed some clips from that, but quickly declared that Israel and Israelis deserved it and closed the subject. There was no mention of other Arab attacks or terrorism, or that the goal of all the Arab Islamic and nationalist movements to destroy Israel. This documentary was not bothered by any inconvenient truth, which helps the “narrative” to flow smoothly.
The audience was small, about a dozen local old stalwarts of the anti-Israel movement in Albuquerque and a couple of young women who left right after the movie. You see these anti-Israel activists at every film, fund raiser and demonstration, wearing kefiyahs when Arabs are present, enjoying the ambience of public displays of hatred, donating generously towards the destruction of a nation and an ethnic group. Some of the main movers of this movement locally are Jews who have converted to another religion and adopted a different culture: the religion and culture of the radical left. The hostess left at the beginning of the movie because it wasn’t fit for her baby to see.
The film began with clips of the Irish revolt against England from 1916-1921, moved on to Ghandi in India in 1948, to Algeria, then to Mandela in South Africa, then back to the US civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr. From there it smoothly transitioned to rioting Arabs in Israel, which was guaranteed to win the admiration of the audience. From there, none of the usual pro-Palestine talking points were skipped, none of the normal anti-Israel lies overlooked, as a progression of well-known Arabs and anti-Zionist left wingers (with a little Neturei Karta thrown in). A well-to-do old Arab farmer and his family, with lively grandchildren and large fields of healthy crops spoke at length about how he had nothing and Jews were trying to steal his land. An Arab woman who was evidently an Arab activist of some kind, told how she had three homes torn down. No background was given as to the circumstances of that unusual situation. A little girl in Gaza was outraged that her toys, clothes and jewelry had been made smelly during Israel’s Hanukkah attack on Hamas in Gaza. Again, no background was given. She was there for emotional appeal.
The speakers in the movie, a cast of infamous Israel bashers, several times called Israel the most extreme and constant violator of international law and human rights on the planet. China, Burma, Sudan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, none come close, according to the Omeish brothers. No serious support was given for the claim that Israel broke international law at all, much less constantly. Only the spurious 4th Article of the Geneva Convention argument was given. That argument assumes that Palestinian Arabs had a nation and cities that were occupied by Israel in war, which isn’t true. It also assumes that it is Israel, rather than the fake government of thugs that the West imported, which has made Arabs poor and miserable and forced them to move, even though they have not moved. Of course the refugees of 1948 and 1967 were mentioned if they were Arab. The equal number of Jewish refugees weren’t mentioned. This film, which advertised to show the viewer mysteries and reveal secrets was deja vu all over again, the “Palestinian narrative” ad nauseum.
The speakers in the movie repeatedly said that Israel had stolen all its land from Arabs (in direct contradiction of thousands of records and deeds from Ottoman, Arab and Jewish Agency records), and took all of the best land. Since besides being given the whole country of Jordan, which is three times the size of Israel, the Arabs were also given most of the rich land of Judea and Samaria, some prime northern real estate and the coastal land of Gaza, that claim doesn’t make sense and is pure propaganda.
These guests insisted that Israel is trying to force Arabs out of the land that Arabs currently occupy. That would actually be a logical move under the circumstances, and in keeping with the policies of many other nations, but obviously it isn’t true, since the Arabs are still there. The only notable involuntary population transfer that has occurred in the last 60 years in Israel is the transfer of Jews out of the parts of Israel that the world has agreed Arabs may occupy.
The movie implied, through a complete lack of context, that Israel did all these things and did them for sadistic pleasures against a passive, gentle and saintly Arab population. The audience is expected to believe that the ruthless, cruel and racist superpower Israel, which does not hold itself back from all manner of cruelty and inhumanity to the innocent and ascended Arabs, is suddenly not able to expel them, and must resort to harrassment in the hope that they will finally leave. Israel does not expel the Arabs, nor transfer any population but Jews, because it doesn’t want to expel Arabs. Israel has been letting Arabs build very freely on Jewish land, and tears down only a small proportion of illegal Arab structures. Israel feels more free to tear down Jewish structures than it does to tear down Arab structures, since Israeli Jews are not so violent and do not enjoy international support.
A large segment was devoted to Arab Christians in Israel. Generally not much thought is given to Israeli Arab Christians by anyone, but the film’s authors were mindful that liberal Western Christians would be watching hte film. The Arab Christian numbers have been dwindling greatly since Oslo, and the documentary clearly places the blame on Israel, that Christian towns have become Moslem. The implication is that Israel has done ethnic cleansing against Christian Arabs. In fact, the Arab Muslims have done that. That is why formerly Christian towns have become predominantly Moslem. Some Arab Christians do indeed blame Israel for this situation, because Israel allowed the PLO to come in to Israel, and left Christians to suffer under Palestinian rule. Other Arab Christians have sided with Muslims against Jews out of historical anti-Semitism, even while their families are driven out by Muslims. This is certainly not what this documentary was saying, however.
From there the video moved in predictable fashion to the all powerful “Zionist” or “Jewish” lobby in the US. Zionists and Christians are the source, at least indirectly, of all the world’s evils in this documentary. No support is given for this, it is merely the repetition of a mantra, intended to move the documentary forward to its real purpose, which is to increase hatred against Israel in the US, and to incite more anti-Israel and anti “Zionist” action in the US.
It was pointed out falsely that Israel receives more foreign aid per capita than all the nations of the world combined. Israel has received between 2 and 3 billion a year in military aid from the US since 1985. Before that time the aid amounts varied widely, and Israel also received humanitarian foreign aid, which ended in 1995. The amount has not gone up in 29 years, and will only increase slightly in the next ten years. Military aid to Israel, the terms, amounts and purposes are detailed in this report to Congress. Aid figures are easy to find online.
Actually Turkey, India, Egypt and China all receive more foreign aid in total than Israel, although not per capita, since their populations are much greater. US military aid to Israel does have some terms more favorable to Israel than what some other nations receive, and with good reason. However, per capita the “Palestinians” receive roughly the same amount of foreign aid as Israel. By some accounts Palestinians receive more aid than Israel per capita, and by other accounts they receive less, which means the numbers are close.
The type of aid received by Israel and Palestinian Arabs is different, and the tally tends to be influenced by the counter’s politics. For instance anti-Israel people include the Holocaust reparation payments from Germany and private contributions to Israeli charities as foreign aid to Israel, but do not include private contributions to Palestinian charities or organizations, and exclude much of the UNRWA support of Palestinian Arabs in order to make the aid gap look wide. If you include only direct regular foreign aid, both unilateral and bilateral, which for Israel is only the US military aid package, Israel receives far less than the Palestinians.
Also, anti-Israel bean counters tally up all aid to Israel since 1949. Aid to Palestinians only began in 1993, since there was no Palestinian Authority before that time: previous to 1993 Fatah and the PLO were simply terrorists and thugs, and the territory they claim was held by Jordan, Egypt and Israel at various times. Needless to say if you include the aid for Israel through 54 more years of existence, you get much higher numbers for Israel. Strangely aid to Israel is assumed to be a bad thing, although there are no objective reasons to call aid to Israel a bad thing, any more than aid to Turkey, Egypt, China or India, all of which receive very large amounts of foreign aid.
Promised contributions to the PA and Gaza for 2008-2010 amount to approximately 10 billion for 3 million people. This makes Palestinian Arabs the greatest recipient of foreign aid in the world. However, those are pledges, which might not be paid in full. What is the real amount of aid to either country? It depends on who’s counting. Both Israel and the Palestinian Arabs receive a great deal of various kinds of foreign contributions. The issue is a not a true issue, but simply a tool for those who work for the day when there will be a world without Israel.
What Israel returns to the US in technical advances, intelligence and special projects for Washington would cost far more than the military aid it receives, if the services were paid for as security or business contracts. Since the military aid has the stipulation that Israel must use 74% of the money to buy military hardware from US contractors, and these same contractors sell advanced weapons all over the world, including to Israel’s neighbors, this is more a subsidy to the US defense industry than it is to Israel. US aid accounts for 0.7% of Israel’s GNP. This is not exactly propping up the nation. If the 3 billion were withdrawn, Israel would miss the money, but it would not collapse and might well find the sovereignty refreshing.
The only interesting thing about this movie was that it spelled out the strategy and purpose of the anti-Israel movement, as we see it working across the western world, and even in Albuquerque New Mexico.
This movie, Occupation 101, was a primer for the “narrative” lies that anti-Israel people disseminate to the unwitting public, and a statement of the purpose of this propaganda.
What is the purpose? To convince the American public, subliminally if not directly, that Israel is an evil nation conceived and created for evil purposes, which no moral person would want to support. While logic, history and current events contradict their story, they put it forward with smoothness, with the dramatic emotion of a soap opera, and with a great deal of financial support from the Arab nations, the EU and other sources. The expectation is that in time the propaganda will finally be believed just because it is said so often by so many people. Who says it? The far left factions of the world, Islamic nations, the EU the UN, the US State Department and thousands of university professors. Do these groups have anything in common? That’s a different article. However, by the force of repetition, and the “everybody says so” argument, distant publics have been made to believe that they are paying for evil deeds in the Mideast through their taxes. Indeed, US tax money does pay for evil deeds in the Mideast, but it is not Israel who is the source or who is doing most of the damage.
However, as stated before, the loss of $3 billion dollars per year would certainly not put an end to Israel, and those who are working so hard to destroy a nation realize this. What is the real purpose of these slanderous campaigns against financial contributions to Israel, and for “divestment”? The real purpose is to have a strawman to use for advancing the various forms of blood libel against the nation of Israel. We see this here, in dishonest billboards meant to drive hatred into the minds of a public which has no cause to hate. Few believe the billboards, but the effort is like a jackhammer, which by many repeated blows, finally breaks a hole in its target, or like the Chinese water torture, where the endless dripping of water finally drives the subject nearly insane, so that he capitulates to his tormentors. That is the purpose: to weave the hatred of Israel and consequently of Jews into the conscience of the American public, not by fact, but by deceit and determination.
Is that far-fetched? Look at Sweden, Norway, Britain and the intelligentsia of the US. Look at the European papers repeating the most ridiculous Arab stories against Israel as fact, without a qualm. The success of this method is proven in today’s world. Why not? It is only the continuation of yesterday’s world, as every generation is, especially when a generation is taught that there is nothing beneficial to learn from the past.
