Hasbara and a Stone: Israel’s Ambassador Brings Both to the U.N.—Ian Williams

Hasbara and a Stone: Israel’s Ambassador Brings Both to the U.N.

By Ian Williams

FOR YEARS ISRAELI representatives at the U.N. have competed in an Orwellian competition to see which of them could invert reality in a way that most affronts common sense and common decency—and which would lend the most advantage to their domestic political careers in Israel. Based as they are in New York with large crowds of uber-Zionist donors within “earshot,” Israeli diplomats have few incentives to stay within the bounds of reason. They tend to have the diplomatic skills and finesse of the heralds who started the Thirty Years’ War.

However, one cannot deny the effectiveness of the hyperbolic hasbara this exemplifies, which is aided and abetted by their complaisant Security Council audience, who tend to be too polite to shout, “taurine excreta!” To be charitable, they are perhaps cautious that the media would pillory any such ripostes—no matter how justified they are by reality—as anti-Semitic.

At the beginning of February, we saw some of this when Whoopi Goldberg had to grovel in a latter-day auto-da-fé for raising entirely rational objections to the standard Zionist talking point. In no way did she challenge the existence or the barbarity of the Holocaust but quibbled about the orthodox Israeli creed that seems to have osmosed into public dogma.

Like the Red Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, who shouted in pain five minutes before the open brooch pricked her, Israeli supporters shout “anti-Semitism” pre-emptively about anticipated injuries—and it usually works. Would-be critics know that a world of pain on the pillory awaits anyone who dares to depart from the approved script.

Even so, hasbara practitioners know how much the market can stand and official spokespeople have the sophistication to resist the temptation to go too far. That fear of blowback restrained their criticisms of, for example, South African leaders Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela, leaving the more hysterical and insupportable accusations to the likes of the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman (who was just appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council by President Joe Biden). However, in January Israel’s Permanent Representative to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, went further than most, toting a rock into the Security Council and demanding a resolution condemning what he called “Palestinian terrorism,” since Ambassador Gilad Erdan, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, demands a U.N. resolution on Jan. 19, 2022, condemn‐ing Palestinian terrorism or rock throwing. the locals sometimes throw stones at occupiers’ vehicles. Even by his own lax standards, it was an unconvincing performance. The accusation coincided with yet another expulsion of a family from Sheikh Jarrah, which even the U.S., let alone the rest of the world roundly condemned. If Security Council members could rein in their diplomatic politeness, they could reasonably have asked if the stone he brandished was from the rubble of the Palestinian homes that Israel had demolished that week. And then, overall, there is the typical solipsistic trait which weighs a stone hurled at occupiers as much heavier and more destructive than air strikes and bulldozers. Logistical constraints perhaps inhibit the Palestinian delegation from driving a bulldozer or a tank into the Security Council chamber, let alone sending in a drone, but one wishes... In particular, Erdan overlooked the contrast between his overblown charges and the national narrative of David and Goliath, in which a shepherd boy lays low a heavily armored Philistine giant. In the Book of Samuel, it did not mention that David had drones, tanks and artillery, rather, “David prevailed over the Philistine with a

PHOTO BY LEV RADIN/PACIFIC U.N. correspondent Ian Williams is the author of UNtold: the Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War (available from Middle East Books and More).

sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David.”

Erdan was also busy on other fronts at the U.N. In January, Israel steered through a General Assembly resolution commemorating the Holocaust, deploying hasbara’s most abused—and potent—weapon. The resolution passed with no dissent, because, of course, every moral human condemns the Shoah—except that Likud’s allies in Poland and Hungary tend to do so much less forcefully than most. But most people also condemn attacks on Gaza, house demolitions, shooting children and the rest of Israel’s Goliathish behavior, and can wince at the contradiction between its diplomats’ shrill protests and the reality on the rubblestrewn ground.

In occupying the spotlight on the U.N. stage, Erdan ironically described hasbara techniques and identified their sources. He announced unblushingly, “It is said that ‘A lie which is half a truth is the blackest of lies.’ And so, Holocaust denial became Holocaust distortion…Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist, once said, ‘If you tell a big lie enough times, people will eventually come to believe it.’” Erdan later added, “Today, this pandemic of distortions and lies uses social media to spread across the globe in the blink of an eye.” The equation of terrorism with children throwing stones during armed enforcement of apartheid, is indeed a lie.

Perhaps accusations of anti-Semitism against Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, the “Squad” or of “terrorism” against Palestinian kids might qualify. But not enough people rise to point out the similarity.

Erdan added Panglossian optimism to his self-absorption when he claimed, on Israeli Radio, that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres “effectively recognized” the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antiSemitism. One speculates that Erdan and his supporters in the U.N. Secretariat thought they had previously secured such endorsement. But they had not. Most of the definition is indeed not controversial, but experience with the IHRA definition shows that Israel supporters consistently misinterpret it, pushing the envelope to brand as anti-Semitism any criticism of Israel. Most politically astute leaders are aware of this tendency and carefully disclaim any intention of outlawing such criticism. It seems that people in the secretary-general’s office kicked back.

Guterres is indeed careful to limit criticism of Israel (and of almost anyone else, from China to the USA!) but even he did not jump into Erdan’s trap and instead simply acknowledged “the efforts of countries that have agreed on the common definition of anti-Semitism,” without, for example, invoking the increasingly challenged IHRA.

Undaunted, again, by reality, Erdan went ahead with a pre-prepared statement that said he was “pleased to hear (Guterres) today adopting and applying the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism in the U.N. bodies,” and milked it for the little it was worth claiming the resolution would help shield Israel from criticism in U.N. bodies.

However, in a spectacular case of bad timing, within days Amnesty International released its meticulously documented report on Israeli apartheid, which optimists suggest would provide yet more ammunition for international legal action against the state. More predictably within hours, to use his own words, we saw the “pandemic of distortions and lies us(ing) social media to spread across the globe in the blink of an eye,” vitriolic accusations of anti-Semitism against Amnesty. Hasbara hath no fury like a lobbyist scorned.

For many years Amnesty and Human Rights Watch tempered their criticism of Israel for fear of such outbreaks, which of course threatened their donor bases. I personally argued with Amnesty about their refusals to give Mordechai Vanunu prisoner of conscience status for revealing Israel’s nuclear weapons program. It is good to see them redeeming themselves.

I do not want to risk falling foul of the IHRA by suggesting that Erdan and Israel have a monopoly on feigned outrage. It was a bad week for hypocrisy at the U.N. Israel’s current MiniME at the U.N., the UAE, unblushingly demanded a condemnation of the Houthi-led government, that controls Sana’a and most of the country, for a missile strike on a UAE airport. With an Erdanesque sense of timing, shortly after, Saudi and UAE forces bombed and killed over 70 people in Yemen, targeting a reservoir and three medical facilities.

In a sense, Israel’s allies had prepared for the move by successfully getting the U.N. Human Rights Council to terminate the mandate of the Group of Experts reporting on all violations of human rights. But while the blame there lies squarely with the unelected feudal chieftains in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, there are tacit accomplices. Would the perpetrators there, or in Israel, get away with such barbarities if the U.N. Secretariat or the Permanent Five were to denounce them, let alone stop providing the weapons they use?

For my part, donations to Amnesty and HRW will in a small way help to counter hasbara’s attempts to choke off their finances. ■

MUAMMAR AWAD/XINHUA VIA GETTY IMAGES

The rubble from a home demolished by Israel in East Jerusalem, on Jan. 19, 2022, the same day Erdan brandished his stone.