Kasrils on the Offensive...Lies...Again

In its most basic form, propaganda is about presenting information in order to influence thought and behaviour. Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa’s Jewish Minister of Intelligence, has become a master at this, selectively cherrypicking facts and quotes in order to encourage his hate filled anti-Israel viewpoints.

The Star yesterday featured a full page article about Deir Yassin written by Kasrils entitled “Remembering the Massacre – A call to confront the past.”

The piece is a perfect example of Kasrilspeak and is highlighted by the huge image, lying above the fold, of a tragic scene at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. The disturbing images, crudely displaying the sprawled bodies of dead Palestinians, sets the scene for the tone of Kasrils’ article which relies on Palestinian descriptions of alleged Israeli brutality “...then he cut her stomach open with a butcher’s knife.” The brutal images and loaded descriptions are designed to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the subject matter, in an attempt to manipulate the audience’s cognitive narrative of the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

I think the image presents us with a case for an appeal to the Press Ombudsman requesting a correction from the newspaper because no Israelis took part in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. The horrifically graphic image, with the dead bodies of Palestinians in the background, lends credence to the hateful arguments made by Kasrils. It adds a reality, a substance, to the argument. It is also totally misleading.

The caption reads, “Killed like animals: Bodies lie at Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, in this 1982 file picture. The writer argues that because Israel was allowed to get away with mass killings of Palestinians such as the Deir Yassin slaughter, it simply continued on its bloody path.”

Again, no Israeli took part in the Sabra and Shatila massacres. The massacres were perpetrated by Christian Phalangists who were but one of the various warring factions in the Lebanese civil war. Israel had sided with the Christian group, and Ariel Sharon was later held indirectly responsible for failing to foresee the potential for a massacre when the Phalangists entered the refugee camps. Israel had allowed the Phalangists to enter the camp as part of a plan to transfer authority to the Lebanese. It was thought that Lebanon’s geopolitical situation would compel the Christians to seek good relations with the rest of the Arab world and prevent the potential for any retaliatory massacres. That’s a far cry from the message that the picture sends -- that Israelis slaughtered the Palestinians -- slaughtered them like animals.

I don’t understand why The Star is running a full page feature on Deir Yassin. Would they ever run a full page piece on a Palestinian perpetrated massacre of Jews that occurred more than 50 years ago? The answer is no. Why is it that the slaughter of Jews at Hebron, Kfar Etzion or Maalot (to name a few) is deliberately erased?

The article embodies the standard red-rhetoric that we have come to expect from Kasrils, replete with grotesque descriptions of events that even Arab spokespeople from 1947 have denied took place. For Kasrils, accusations that support his argument magically transform into uncontested facts. An example; Kasrils speaks of rapes, sexual assault and the splitting of stomachs of pregnant women.

The allegation - made by a British official who had an ireful relationship with the Jews - that acts of sexual assault had taken place has been hotly contested, most notably by eye witness Arab survivors.

Mohamed Radwan[1], who fought in the battle on the side of the Arabs says, “There were no rapes. It's all lies. There were no pregnant women who were slit open. It was propaganda that... Arabs put out so Arab armies would invade.”

Ayish Zeidan[2], a teenage survivor said “There had been no rape. The Arab radio at the time talked of women being raped, but this is not true.”

Hussein Khalidi[3], a Palestinian leader at the time said “We have to say this [about rape], so that Arab armies will come to liberate us from the Jews.”

I could go on and on, but what’s the point? Do we remain stuck in the blood of previous grievances or do we look forward and ask what we can do today that will make tomorrow better?

Later in the article, Kasrils cites a list of Israeli “massacres” (he includes Jenin 2002). Do we need to respond defensively, explaining once again, that the reports of a “massacre” in Jenin were Palestinian lies and that this was corroborated by the UN investigators. Should we need to explain the context of the Israeli operations, detailing the Palestinian provocations that forced Israel to respond? Or do we need to perhaps respond aggressively, providing our own list of Arab massacres where Israelis have been killed? This is the childish level of debate to which Kasrils descends.

Kasrils cites 254 as the number of Arabs killed at Deir Yassin. Anyone versed on the literature however, knows that there is consensus today that the number of dead did not exceed 120 – a fact concluded by Palestinian researchers at the West Bank Bir Zeit University .

I don’t mean to argue over the numbers, but in this case the use of the number 254 is quite revealing. Prior to the research at Bir Zeit university, 254 was generally accepted as the correct number of deaths. Could it be that Kasrils is relying on outdated sources for his facts, instead of doing a thorough research of the new literature on the topic?

Earlier today I watched the controversial film “Fitna” by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The film has been slammed all around the world as inciting hatred against Muslims. But what is the difference between a film like Fitna, which abuses actual facts to make its provocative statement, and this article by Kasrils, which distorts every element of the truth in order to foment hatred of Israelis? Fitna makes it seem as if Muslims view the lives of non-Muslims as worthless. Kasrils claims Israelis regard Arab life as worthless. (“Israelis will continue to regard Arab life as worthless and will continue to live by the sword and deceit...”) This shared message however, will not produce a shared condemnation.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre
[2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre
[3] - BBC report, Israel and the Arabs, cited in The Case for Israel, Dershowitz

Update

• The Star Sticks to Old Lies to Support Kasrils

Comments

[Gary]

Only a week ago, the venomous hatemonger Stalinist-supreme ,Kasrils, had a letter published in The Star, which I responded to , and in which i mentioned some of the Arab atrocities against Jews in Israel but The Star ignored it.
Now they publish this vomit.
So they publish Kasril's vile accusations against Israel but refuse to publish my letter on Arab atrocities against Jews.
Now why will they not publish anything on Arab atrocities against Jews?

[Steve]

Gary, I don't follow the letters in The Star but my gut feeling when I read your letter (which Gary posted in a comment here) was that it had no chance to be published because it was just too long. I wouldn't have known where to even start reading it.

Shorter letters have a better chance of being printed.

Furthermore, The Star typically avoids letters on the Middle East, except when the author is Kasrils of course.

In sum, your letter had zero chance because
a - too long
b - on the Middle East
c - not authored by Kasrils

Perhaps you should sign your name "Ronnie Kasrils Minister for Intelligence Services" to stand a decent chance?

Kasrils' article was an op-ed; not a letter. But even op-ed's typically do not receive a whopping full page like Kasrils received.

There is a clear bias here - either against Israel or against normal perons with normal profiles - in getting opinion pieces published.

[JoeTalin]

d - you are Jewish
e - everyone knows that Jews lie
f - any pro-Israel talk is clearly Zionist propoganda

[JoeTalin]

g - Israel is an apartheid state and can't be defended
h - Israeli's do NOT rape Palestinian women. This is racist.
i - Israel exists. This is a problem.
j - Jews exist. This is a bigger problem.

[Gary]

Maybe the problem is that we are just too tame.
After all when Arabs and Moslems are enraged by articles that are far milder than this, they issue bloody threats and embark on violent and histrionic protests.
when we do have the occasional march or rally it is lovy-dovy and tame.
Maybe we need more curry in our diet, but perhaps if we reacted the same way as the Moslems then the media would be less inclined to publish such hateful agitprop.
It all boils down to the quote by |Yeats that "The best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity."
As for the HRC ruling that Kasril's vomit is not hate speech, the HRC is in the hands of the ANC/SACP as much as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is hands of the ZANU PF.
Neither of these 'independent institutions' can be relied upon to give a fair ruling.

Kasrils should no very well about slicing open the stomachs of pregnant women as this was the exactly what (mainly Jewish-born) Bolsheviks did to Russian and Ukrainian women under Lenin.

[Gary]

Kasrils should no very well about slicing open the stomachs of pregnant women as this was the exactly what (mainly Jewish-born) Bolsheviks did to Russian and Ukrainian women under Lenin.

Kasrils should grow a beard and move to Gaza. He would be in his element with his Hamas buddies firing rockets into Israel