More on the Soviet-generated spread of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda
In line with my recent post on the Soviet influence on pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel – as well as anti-Semitic – propaganda, here are two more articles I recommend. The first was brought to my attention by commenter “Gringo,” and it’s quite comprehensive in featuring examples of Soviet political propaganda that set the tropes, and current examples in the West that follow the same templates.
Some excerpts – but I highly recommend the article itself:
The claim that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians is among the longest-running lies told about Israel. “Genocide Israeli style”; “Zionist-engineered genocide”; “the ‘final solution’ of the Palestinian question”—these may look like snippets from some recent campus proclamation, but they are not. They appeared in a Soviet pamphlet titled “Zionists Count on Terror.” Published in 1984 by Novosti, a Soviet foreign propaganda arm masquerading as a news agency, this pocket-sized brochure was meant to promote the Soviet view of Israel and Zionism to English-language audiences.
The propaganda was designed and intended to spread the world around the world.
English-speaking readers around the world were meant to understand that Zionists were genocidal and racist settler-colonialists who deployed Nazi methods in the service of global imperialism, while suppressing the anti-colonial national-liberation struggle of the Palestinian people. In the pamphlet’s 76 pages, variations on the words genocide, terror, and racist appear some 300 times. Novosti made clear that Zionists were perfidious double-dealers by associating them with the CIA, MI6, and of course, the Mossad in 100 instances. Readers were told to dismiss Jewish claims of antisemitism as Zionist tricks meant to deflect attention from Israel’s crimes.
The terms of the argument are the same ones so very popular among our young people now. I think the propaganda campaign (which of course was not limited to that pamphlet) can be counted a great success, if one measures success in terms of the scope of the indoctrination. Again, please read the article; it’s quite informative and illuminating if you’re puzzled by what’s going on these days.
Here’s another recommended article that’s related. It details some of the Soviet support through the KGB, starting in the late 1960s, for the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The idea that the USSR was behind a great deal of this sounds like a conspiracy theory. But some conspiracies exist and some conspiracy theories are based on solid fact. I don’t think there’s much doubt about the truth of this one. Does it matter anymore, now that the propaganda has been spread around the globe and is accepted by so many people, even in our country? I think it’s not just of purely academic interest to understand how these things occur, in order to help counter them now and prevent them in the future. Of course, much more is needed than understanding. A plan of action would be nice, and the hour is late and getting later.
It was not a conspiracy theory.
Sennacherib:
As I said, based on fact.
I read somewhere that over half of the KGB’s budget went to non-spycraft items, nor basic intelligence items. Mostly propaganda. If true, that’s pretty incredible.
Of course it’s not a conspiracy theory. It is understandable that people often interpret Middle East conflict in terms of ethnic rivalries stretching back generations or even millennia. But an awful lot of it after WWII was Cold War proxy.
For instance at the time of the Six-Day War Israel was not allied with the US and they were certainly not fighting on our behalf but for their own national survival. But the Israeli victory ultimately turned into a huge Cold War strategic win for the US because it led to the ouster of Nasser for Sadat and then the flipping of Egypt from the Soviet orbit.
FOAF:
Actually, for the most part, the present conflict in that area between Jews and Arabs started in the 1920s or 1930s (for example, this massacre of Jews by Arabs that drove the Jews from Hebron). Prior to that, the many Jews in the area were Jews living in Moslem states (including the Ottoman Empire run by the Turks for centuries and then Britain for a few decades after WWI, Egypt, North Africa, Persia) in fairly stable communities that every now and then were subject to Arab violence, and were under Arab rule. If you go back to Biblical days, there were no Arabs and no Moslems.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s Marxist or Islamist or any other totalitarian ideology. Lying is their stock in trade. The “righteousness’ of their ideology justifies any evil that advances their agenda.
of course wadi haddad, had relocated most of his operations to aden, after the British retreat, this was made possible by the Egyptian incursion, from 1962 on,
The OT recounts quite a few conflicts between Jews and their neighbors- Egyptians, Philistines, Babylonia, Syria even if the genetic history has been shall we say dynamic.
well they had been allied with the French until DeGaulle who thought to curry favor with the Arabs because Algeria. Wilson didn’t really care as much as Eden did considering how Suez turned out,
yes its always been a tough neighborhood Egypt Assyria, Babylon Persia, the Sabeans modern Yemen, were the ones who stole Job’s flock
FOAF:
That’s what my remark about “Biblical days ” was about.
So. The pro-Palestinians Mobsters are not only Communist stooges, but classical Marxist era Soviet propaganda dupes?
And people mocked Diane West for her “Red Thread” book claims about the Hate-Trump “Russia, Russia!” Campaign. No. Simply ahead of the curve.
because it led to the ouster of Nasser for Sadat and then the flipping of Egypt from the Soviet orbit.
==
Nasser died of natural causes in September 1970. Sadat was his VP.
Then Sadat negotiated peace with Israel, for which “crime” he was assassinated by the Islamic Jihad.