Earlier this year a Zionist organization in the UK “We Believe in Israel” held it’s first conference in the UK. It was on of the largest of it’s kind in support of Israel. Towards the end of the conference it handed out a toolkit to help supporters of Israel argue in defense of Israeli policies. The kit consist of six sections with the first four offering “How to Guides”.
The first “How to Guide” offers information on “Influencing people”.
“Who can you influence?
The starting point is to analyse who your friends and contacts are.
After mapping who you know, you need to categorise what you know about
their views about Israel:
• If they are already supporters, you need to think about how to mobilise
them to campaign alongside you.
• If you don’t know where they stand, or you know they are undecided,
you need to work out which arguments for Israel will resonate most
with them based on what you know about their views on other issues.
• If you know they are instinctively hostile, you need to assess whether
they are so committed to this view that they are not worth arguing
with, or whether they are open to hearing the other side of the story.”
In the same section, it offers information on “How to Influence People” by quoting a social psychologist which sounds eerily like a manual on how to get information from people by torturing them or getting people to do things they don’t really want to:
“Social psychologist Dr Robert Cialdini has spent his entire career researching the science of influence earning him an international reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation.
His book “Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion” is an excellent guide to how to influence and persuade people.
In it, he identifies six fundamental principles that determine human behaviour and therefore need to be remembered when trying to influence people.”
The second section deals with the use of social media such as Blogs, Twitter and Facebook to advance support of Israel and it’s policies. It also talks about dealing with the media, it’s main advice in dealing with the media is:
“Deliver sound bites first
Best way to cope with a journalist is to…
- Sound bite
- Support points
- Repeat sound bite“
The next two sections deal with how to influence groups and having meetings. It supports joining unions, political parties and organizing on campus all for the spreading of support for the state of Israel.
Basically the message is don’t join a trade union to advance the rights of workers but join it to push your pro-Israel agenda on them.
Section 5 deals with various “factsheets” about Zionism, the UK policy towards Israel, the IDF, International Law, Settlements, Refugees amongst other things.
One of these factsheets deals with BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) which has been very successful in exposing Israeli apartheid policies towards the Palestinians and organizing boycotts and divestment of Israel reminiscent to the South African anti-apartheid movement.
In this section they promote the view that BDS is bad for the Palestinians. They are so troubled with the success of the BDS movement that they are acting like they care about the interests of the Palestinians, now they care about helping the Palestinians.
“A boycott would do nothing to contribute to the advancement of a peaceful and just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Far from helping the Palestinians, a boycott would hinder the development of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians on which prospects for future peace and security rely.
Similarly, an economic boycott cannot help the Palestinian people, whose
future prosperity depends on creating an atmosphere of economic and political
cooperation.”
The last section of the Toolkit offers resources and a host of websites people can visit that provide information justifying and supporting Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.
The release of this propaganda handbook is testament to the success Palestinians and their supporters are achieving in advancing and promoting the freedom for Palestine. The Zionist are worried and are scrambling to mobilize young Zionist to organize in support of Israel like young Palestinians and Arabs have been doing on campuses and in the streets all around the world.