'The Palestinian-Spin-Of-The-Century' The World's Most Audacious Marketing Coup

"The Punishment of Korah and the Stoning of Moses and Aaron" by Sandro Botticelli 1481-82, Cappella Sistina, Vatican

 

This is the third part in my Trilogy. The first part was 'Israel Cannot Succeed By Empowering Terrorists' and the second 'Pallywood Does Not Recognize Israel'.

All the excitement surrounding Israel, all the media coverage, more appropriately characterized as a 'feeding frenzy', made me wonder, how is it possible, that the world's best marketeers have fallen victim to what must surely be history's most audacious marketing coup ever to be pulled off.

How is it possible that the world at large has been successfully sold that Israel is the aggressor and the PA, erstwhile terrorist organization PLO lead by Arafat, together with all the Palestinians, are the victims, when the complete opposite is in fact the simple truth.

How could that happen, especially in the West?

Disturbing as it was to find out how Muslims worldwide think according to the Pew findings, it is nonetheless consistent with systematic and state sponsored anti-Semitic indoctrination.

But surely not in the West amongst European and U.S. political and general elites; surely not amongst those, who make learning, reason and rational thought their life's passion; not amongst American Jews.

Well, I wouldn't have thought I'd ever refer to the pseudo academic codswallop of Walt-Mearsheimer's study. But here it serves my purpose in a paradoxical way: If the main assertion of the colorful duo was true, namely, that the 'Israel Lobby' engineered an uncritical support for Israel for decades, then surely one of the first results would have been a total and complete marginalization of the Palestinian issue in the public opinion.

The fact that the opposite is true, surely should convince even the most ardent critics of the complete ineptness of this so called 'Israel Lobby'.  Also, if Walt-Mearsheimer were onto something, I ask, whatever happened to 'whoever controls the media wins the war'?

Better yet, because Jews are at the center of every creative, scientific, cultural, political, ideological movement and endeavor, surely they would have succeeded by now to mute the Palestinian thuggery.

So, how come that despite the fact that Jews are over-represented as Nobel Prize recipients, winning at least 20% (that's 1/5) of all awards given to date; and despite the fact that Jews founded Hollywood, and are today the dominant cultural influence in television, radio, cinema, journalism and theater in America and elsewhere, the Palestinian-Spin-Of-The-Century still eclipses every legitimate trouble-spot in the world?

How is it possible, that despite the fact, that Jews are over-represented in all forms of medicine, in all the professions, in every sport, in modeling and fashion, in law-enforcement and the military, in new-age religion, how is it possible, that the Palestinians manage to dupe them all?

Could it be, that Jews are not as homogeneously organized as the anti-Semites would like us to believe? Could it be, that the Palestinian terrorists remain on our radar screen because of Jews who sympathize with the plight of ordinary Palestinians; Jews who refuse to abandon to see the good in their fellow men despite the effects of age old hate-indoctrination.

Could it be, that the very refusal to adopt black and white stereotypes result in the apologist coverage witnessed every day in the MSM and beyond? You tell me.

The NYT has an epiphany today, perhaps times are-a-changing. Pun intended. On second thoughts, nothing changes, the French are still being, well French: "French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy also condemned the arrest of the Hamas officials, saying that diplomacy was the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that political figures should not be arrested. Israel stated that the arrests were made as part of a criminal investigation into the Hamas officials' involvement in a terrorist organization." That should make absolutely no difference to someone whose agenda has everything to do with being scared out of their wits of the Muslim contingent in their own country.

UPDATE: Corporal Gilad Shalit's kidnappers: "Abu Mujahed reiterated earlier demands from militants that Israel free Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Israel has rejected the demands. “Wasting time is not in their interests,” he said." Yeah right.

UPDATE II: Don't miss reading the NRO great symposium of Middle East experts' opinions on 'Where to go from Gaza?' (h/t Jeremayakovka)

Comments

[M. Simon]

gringo,

I said yesterday over at LGF that the Israelis were going all Russian on the Plais. Let us hope they stick to their guns.

[M. Simon]

Hear those F-16s breaking the sound barrier? Who do they belong to?

Can you recognize us now?

The 155s headed your way. Who do they belong to?

Can you recognize us now?

The missing bridge sections? Who caused that?

Can you recognize us now?

Rinse, repeat.

[jess1dering]

I am crazy about Israel ! No kidding, I want to go live there , even if only as someones housekeeper !! I can't right now because of family, but ooooh the draw ! It is so refreshing to see that nation reject the endless pacifying and posturing to "look" good and just DO WHAT IS RIGHT ! Good for them !!

[gringoman]

Many considered the two strongest wills in Europe--at least in the 20th century--to be the German and Russian. Nietzsche, of the 19th Century, considered the Jews to have the strongest will in Europe.

So where am I going with this? Glimpse, if you will, today's Israel, Russia and the U.S. in a certain context. Let's make it the context of Islamic terror. The world knows about the American civilian workers who were massacred and hung from lamp-posts, mobs cheering, in the Sunni Triangle. (They know how to do jihad video over there.) We also know about the young U.S. Marines shackled in the brig recently in Camp Pendleton for allegedly violating ROE (Rules of Engagement), in the ultra-dangerous urban combat in said Sunni Triangle, and who are now being charged with murder. We know,too, about the two young Marines recently buried after being captured in Iraq and subject to atrocities--while alive-- so unspeakable your news outlets will not describe them---the same media which went into vivid detail about every U.S. "infraction" with panties at Abu GHraib
or "Koran abuse" at Gitmo. George Bush continues to speak about "the religion of peace" and also leads his nation in calling this conflict "The War on Terror," not "The War on Islamic Fanatics." (Good Republicans generally go with his pc flow.)

Question: In this context, would you say Israel's will today more resembles the American or the Russian?

Oh, for proper perspective, we probably need to note the reaction in Moscow yesterday to the recent kidnapping and murder of four Russians who worked at their Embassy in Baghdad.......................

Mayor Yuri Luzhkov is hosting Saudi prince Salman bin Abdel Asis al Saud in Moscow this week. On Wednesday President Putin personally met with the prince and chose this particular meeting to announce to the world Russia’s response to the jihadists who murdered four Russian diplomatic workers last week in Iraq: “FIND AND DESTROY”.

(Since 1999, Russia has revived its tradition of hunting down terrorists abroad.)

[ZZMike]

A commentator said recently that the demands for release of "women and children" is a typical Hamas tactic. That would not be a surprise.

[Jeremayakovka]

That is a good list of distinguished modern Jewish warriors. I have a book, published in Israel in the 1980s, that lists Jewish members of the Polish armed forces who died in WWII.

Ah, these are good anecdotes to antimilitary cultural material by Jewish writers, like Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and Norman Mailer's Why Are We in Vietnam?.

[epaminondas]

OK so TWO-GUN COHEN has sparked me looking for the appropriate mental imagery..

C'mon Alexandra, why is it that the Arabs have been successful in defeating facts, logic and history to make 200,000,000 victims of the 6,000,000?

That is the way those who have been 'duped' want it.
The oldest racism remains vibrant, alive and unchanged

When I was growing up I thought that the Holocaust had killed 'life threatening' anti semitism...how naieve.

The ONLY...ONLY thing notable about the holocaust is that it gave chance for a modern industrial state to act on what has been unchanged over more than 2000 years.

But for 1400 of those 2000 years, we have embedded in religion:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

Thus sanctified, anti semitism is holy. How perfect for the righteous ignorance of 1.3 billion, and ignorant righteousness of so many more.

Nothing is any different, nor will it be.
http://vwt.d2g.com:8081/2006/04/same_day_any_year_any_milleniu.html

Ever

What more reason can there be for there to be an Israel?
An armed, dangerous, angry and determined Israel.

[liquid]

Thats a lovely list Alexandra! YOU GO GIRLY!
*applaudes*

I would like to add my best friend JESUS to the list! He is definately "tops" in his work!

[Alexandra]

Paul,

Of course I am talking about reaching the top of their professions: owners of sport related entities, sport promotion and sponsorship, sports commentators, management agencies, sport coverage, manufacturing, distribution wholesale and retail of sporting equipment.

Modelling agencies and fashion companies are almost exclusively owned and run by Jewish individuals, as well as most of the top designers like Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren (whose real name is Ralph Lipshitz), Kenneth Cole, Levi Strauss, Isaac Mizrahi to name but a few off the top of my head. All the fashion magazines are controlled by companies like the Conde Nast empire and Advance Publications owned by S.I. Newhouse, and controlling the entire fashion market. Let's not even talk about the clothing manufacturers at a lower level who are all run by Jewish people, the entire diamond and jewelry trade, the fur trade, the textile trade etc.

I am afraid I disagree with you when you say the purely intellectual professions are at the top of the list, although to become the top in any field you need to have your intellect highly tuned in a certain field of expertise. People like Steve Balmer, the CEO of Microsoft who is the richest Jew in the world.

Moving on to the military, and obviously talking about the top of their profession. Now this is where I needed help at the time of writing my main text, because it is not my forte

Sir John Monash -- Commanded Australian troops in France during WW1
Two-Gun Cohen -- an infallible mover and a shaker in Chinese history (b. 1887)
Wesley Clark -- fmr. NATO Allied Commander in Europe
Leonard Keysor -- Australian Victoria Cross winner
Yoni Netanyahu -- Commando of Operation Thunderbolt, aka the raid on Entebbe. He was killed in action.
Frank De Pass -- The first Jew to be awarded Britain's Victoria Cross
Issy Smith -- This British infantryman won the Victoria Cross in WW1
Ariel Sharon -- Prime Minister of Israel, Defense Minister
Ben Dunkelman -- A highly decorated Canadian veteran who lead Israel's 7th Brigade during the War of Independence
David Marcus -- Colonel David Marcus, American officer who died for Jerusalem in Israel's war of independence.
Moshe Dayan -- Israeli soldier and statesman, 6-Day war hero
Morris Bright -- The first Jew to rise from the lower deck of the Royal Navy to senior rank.
Maurice Rose -- Colorado's Fighting General: a truly brilliant American soldier
Hyman Rickover -- U.S. admiral, father of the U.S. navy nuclear submarine
Herschel Grynszpan -- assassin of Nazi foreign service officer Ernst vom Rath
Uriah P. Levy -- Commodore of the US Navy
Jeremy Boorda -- U.S. admiral, chief of naval operations
Sam Dreben -- Warrior, Patriot, American Hero
Abba Kovner -- Jewish partisan leader during WW2
Charles Strauss -- diminutive, goateed, bespectacled, gun-wielding Jewish sheriff of Tuscon, Arizona
Yosef Trumpeldor -- A military officer who together with Jabotinsky founded the Jewish legion, died heroically.
Ignác Helfy -- Hungarian freedom fighter in 1848-49 liberty war, Kossuth's palatine.
Alfred Dreyfus -- Captain in the French army, victim of antisemitism (1894)
Ernest Frank Benjamin -- Canadian general who commanded the British Army's Jewish Brigade in WW2
Thomas Gould -- Won Britain's highest award, the Victoria Cross, in World War 2
Sidney Shulemson -- The most decorated Canadian Jew
Emil Kleber -- Commanded the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War

[paul]

Jews are over-represented in a lot of professions but "sport, in modeling and fashion, in law-enforcement and the military" aren't among them. Mental professions, not physical ones

[Jeremayakovka]

That Times "epiphany" is sarcastic, right?

"Hamas Provokes a Fight" - When hasn't it provoked one?

[A]n Israeli military response was inevitable. It should also be as restrained as possible. Israel does not seem to want to reoccupy Gaza, but its reported detention of several cabinet ministers in the West Bank is unsettling. Bitterness and distrust on both sides are sure to increase, and the already dim prospects for a return to peace negotiations will diminish even further.

- "restrained"? Why?
- "unsettling"? Yeah, because it's too tepid.
- "bitterness and distrust on both sides"? What does the Times think Israeli-Pali relations are? A roundtable grad student seminar?
- "a return to peace negotiations"? Oslo-thinking.

[north by northwest]

Sorry I meant to say Botticelli not Michelangelo.

[north by northwest]

What an inspired choice Michelangelo's 'Punishment of Korah' is. I'm impressed how well the subject matter fits your post and how well the three stories in the this fresco relate to our times:

The Punishment of Korah

The message of this painting provides the key to an understanding of the Sistine Chapel as a whole before Michelangelo's work. The fresco reproduces three episodes, each of which depicts a rebellion by the Hebrews against God's appointed leaders, Moses and Aaron, along with the ensuing divine punishment of the agitators. On the right-hand side, the revolt of the Jews against Moses is related, the latter portrayed as an old man with a long white beard, clothed in a yellow robe and an olive-green cloak. Irritated by the various trials through which their emigration from Egypt was putting them, the Jews demanded that Moses be dismissed. They wanted a new leader, one who would take them back to Egypt, and they threatened to stone Moses; however, Joshua placed himself protectively between them and their would-be victim, as depicted in Botticelli's painting.

The centre of the fresco shows the rebellion, under the leadership of Korah, of the sons of Aaron and some Levites, who, setting themselves up in defiance of Aaron's authority as high priest, also offered up incense. In the background we see Aaron in a blue robe, swinging his incense censer with an upright posture and filled with solemn dignity, while his rivals stagger and fall to the ground with their censers at God's behest. Their punishment ensues on the left-hand side of the picture, as the rebels are swallowed up by the earth, which is breaking open under them. The two innocent sons of Korah, the ringleader of the rebels, appear floating on a cloud, exempted from the divine punishment.

The principal message of these scenes is made manifest by the inscription in the central field of the triumphal arch: "Let no man take the honour to himself except he that is called by God, as Aaron was." The fresco thus holds a warning that God's punishment will fall upon those who oppose God's appointed leaders.

[Liquid]

HERE and HERE