Robert Inlakesh
The Palestine Chronicle / July 4, 2024
A huge disinformation campaign has been used to intimidate and silence pro-Palestinian voices.
Doxing, disinformation, buying political candidates, Islamophobia, racism, meritless accusations, physical assaults, verbal attacks, censorship and even antisemitism are all tools that have been used and abused by pro-Israeli propagandists in order to intimidate and silence pro-Palestinian voices.
A recent investigative piece published by The Guardian exposed the central figure operating the Shirion Collective, an Israeli disinformation network, that offered “bounties” for information on pro-Palestinian activists.
This report, which revealed the tech entrepreneur, Daniel Linden, to be heading the self-described “surveillance collective”, raised many eyebrows about the pernicious nature of Israel’s information war waged separately from its genocidal assault on Gaza.
Doxing pro-Palestine advocates
On top of endorsing conspiracy theories that cross over into classical antisemitic ideas about Jewish people, the Shirion Collective alleges that its campaign of distributing proven disinformation, for the benefit of Israeli public relations, is in fact designed to combat antisemitism.
One of the most harmful aspects of the online disinformation network has been to work on doxing pro-Palestine advocates, especially students involved in the anti-war encampments that spread across North America and then the entire world.
While the peaceful student encampments that swept across the globe were demonized as being antisemitic protests that were equivalent to actions taken in the 1930s Germany against Jewish people, professors and staffers at various universities were purged from their roles, and/or subjected to smear campaigns, as a result of the pro-Palestinian stances.
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the ADL, a non-for-profit that was recently ranked unreliable by Wikipedia editors, had even alleged at the time that “Iran has their military proxies like Hezbollah, and Iran has their campus proxies like these groups like SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) and JVP )Jewish Voice for Peace).”
UN Special Rapporteur
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), is the latest high-profile subject of a virulent smear campaign under which she is accused of taking money from “Hamas sympathizers”.
Having contributed massively to spreading facts regarding Israeli war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, calling their military assault a Genocide, she has endured a massive pressure campaign, paired with mountains of threats and insults to her person.
Having been described by Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan as a “terror sympathizing antisemite”, the campaign to discredit her has been so overbearing that the United Nations was forced to open an investigation into claims regarding an alleged $20,000 that was undeclared, despite evidence being offered to the contrary publicly.
Disinformation campaign
Al-Jazeera and the Palestine Chronicle itself have been subjected to a pro-Israeli disinformation campaign, while even CNN now stands accused of hiring a journalist allegedly working for Hamas.
This has demonstrated that media platforms, even those that often engage in pro-Israeli propaganda, are not safe from smear and allegations designed to discredit their reporting on the situation in Gaza.
For the most part, however, the mainstream corporate media in the West, particularly in the United States, has towed the Israeli narrative and been demonstrated to take pro-Israeli perspectives, even spreading fact-free hoaxes without critical thinking.
‘Luntz Report’
A lot of what we hear today is in fact the very same propaganda talking points that were compiled in what is known as the ‘Luntz Report’ from 2009, written by the expert Republican pollster and political strategist Dr Frank Luntz.
The 112-page booklet, marked as “not for distribution or publication” was designed for those “who are on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel” and would later be leaked by Newsweek.
If you study the 112 booklet, which is an Israel Hasbara (propaganda) 101 style resource, it contains the same responses, accusations and deflections that are communicated across broadcast media on a daily basis, largely tracked back to the Luntz Report’s guidelines.
If we take the example of Rupert Murdoch, perhaps the most powerful man in media who owns over 100 publications and channels, he maintains close ties to not just the Israeli government, but Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, personally.
So when you watch Piers Morgan Uncensored, which is platformed on Murdoch’s Talk TV, don’t be surprised why every interview begins with “the horrors of October 7”, Morgan’s “moral quandary” over whether tens of thousands of children should be killed or not, in addition to a ritual “do you condemn Hamas?” question.
Whether it be the blatant anti-Muslim rhetoric pushed by the likes of astroturfed gurus of the new pro-Israeli right wing, like Douglas Murray or the ADL openly recording pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic incidents, all the way to the Zionist activists screaming the N-word and assaulting students on campus, its all part of an internationally waged war to enable Israel’s ongoing war.
This is why AIPAC will brag about spending almost $15 million to unseat Jamal Bowman in a Democratic Party primary because this is viewed as being part of Israel’s war effort.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker
