Pars Today

Pars Today- While the Zionist regime has been committing its latest round of crimes against the Palestinian people, the prevalent narrative on the main stream media in the West continues to be in its favour.

These media have so far tried to "neutrally" portray the clashes in the Occupied Territories as "conflicts" between the "two sides". Thus, they have demonstrated the ruthless Israeli bombardments on Gaza, which have resulted in massacre of scores of thousands of civilians, as "self defence" and a logical reaction to Hamas attacks which uses "human shield"!

The Zionist regime knows well that perception shape reality. While the regime is committing war crimes with impunity, it can continue these heinous acts only through a powerful propaganda apparatus to justify all its crimes and enable it to confront public condemnation and international sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinians.

Hasbara which roughly means explanation in Hebrew, is in fact a communicative strategy seeking to explain actions whether or not they are justified. This propaganda tool acts like a bridge to link the intelligence war of the fake Zionist regime with its strategic goals.

According to the propaganda system of Israel, public diplomacy, strategically, should be considered as a foreign policy priority so that a positive image of Israel is depicted in the world, particularly with regards to the challenges the regime has faced since its fabrication in 1948.

Now, Hasbara propaganda is often published and propagated by the Zionist regime in the form of video, infographic and prevalent posts on social media and hashtags.

The aim of Hasbara propaganda is to change perception and vision of diplomats, politicians and people via media and this is being done through institutes, organizations, research centers, universities and NGOs affiliated to the fabricated regime.

In 2012, Israel announced "Defence Column Operation" or 8-day war in Gaza Strip on twitter. During the operation, the regime made the most use of the media space of the US and Europe and embarked on its Hasbara propaganda via browsers, algorithms, research engines and other mechanisms in a bid to control the content presented to the users and viewers.

In this process, Israel portrays a narrative of itself as an innocent victim of Palestinian terrorism, a narrative which complies with the right to defence of the state against any attack on its existence. This was an onset of aggravation of tensions and bombardment of Gaza.

In 2014, in another Israeli war against the people of Gaza (the so-called "Operation Protective Edge") Hasbara propaganda program and the Israeli media propaganda failed due to the magnitude of global wrath towards their crimes in Gaza.

Publication of images of destruction and carnage of "innocent civilians" on social media by the Zionist regime on social media forced Hasbara decision-makers to further organize their efforts in public relations campaigns and double do their best to justify their crimes.

Once Hasbara propaganda fails, Israel is ready to resort to its old strategy. For instance, it will call Hamas as the representative of global terrorism and introduce itself as opponent of terrorism.

Today, we are constantly witness to this dichotomy in the international media. To put this scheme in effect, Israel has been known as a logical and innocent player which has been provoked by a terroristic and illogical threat; hence, any criticism of the Israeli measures is dubbed as support for terrorism.

But, perhaps, the most common tactic is that any criticism of Israel's policies, whether human rights violation or illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories is related to anti-Semitism.

Among the strategic threats for Israel in the recent years has been the growing Boycott, Divest & Sanction (BDS). Israeli officials have tried to introduce those who support BDS as anti-Semitic and claim that they are affiliated to terrorism, especially that anti-BDS laws have been ratified in the US.

Hasbara propaganda pressures great social media companies to adopt the bogus definition of Holocaust presented by Holocaust Memorial Union. The result is no more than increase of anti-Semitic allegations against any criticism of Israel.