[News] Censored film reveals The Israel Project's secret Facebook campaign
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Fri Sep 14 11:33:35 EDT 2018
https://electronicintifada.net/content/censored-film-reveals-israel-projects-secret-facebook-campaign/25486
Censored film reveals The Israel Project's secret Facebook campaign
Ali Abunimah <https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah> and
Asa Winstanley <https://electronicintifada.net/people/asa-winstanley> -
13 September 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Israel Project, a major advocacy group based in Washington, is
running a secret influence campaign on Facebook.
This is revealed in /The Lobby – USA/
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/lobby-usa>, an undercover Al
Jazeera documentary that has never been broadcast due to censorship by
Qatar
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/national-security-cited-reason-al-jazeera-nixed-israel-lobby-film/24566>
following pressure from pro-Israel organizations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp88HJxKj-o
The video above, exclusive to The Electronic Intifada, shows the latest
excerpts to leak from the documentary.
Earlier leaked footage
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/censored-israel-lobby-film-starts-leaking>
published by The Electronic Intifada and the /Grayzone Project/
<https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/09/05/censored-documentary-exposes-the-israeli-governments-attack-on-black-lives-matter/>
has already revealed underhanded tactics by anti-Palestinian groups
planned and executed in collusion with the Israeli government.
In the newest clips, David Hazony, the managing director of The Israel
Project, is heard telling Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter: “There are
also things that we do that are completely off the radar. We work
together with a lot of other organizations.”
“We produce content that they then publish with their own name on it,”
Hazony adds.
A major part of the operation is the creation of a network of Facebook
“communities” focused on history, the environment, world affairs and
feminism that appear to have no connection to pro-Israel advocacy, but
are used by The Israel Project to spread pro-Israel messaging.
“Secretive thing”
In a conversation also revealed in the leaked video excerpts, Jordan
Schachtel, who worked for The Israel Project at the time, tells the
undercover Al Jazeera reporter about the logic and extent of the covert
Facebook operation.
The undercover reporter, known as “Tony,” was posing as an intern at The
Israel Project.
“We’re putting together a lot of pro-Israel media through various social
media channels that aren’t The Israel Project’s channels,” Schachtel
states. “So we have a lot of side projects that we are trying to
influence the public debate with.”
“That’s why it’s a secretive thing,” Schachtel adds. “Because we don’t
want people to know that these side projects are associated with The
Israel Project.”
Tony asks if the idea of “all the rest of the non-Israel stuff is to
allow the Israel stuff to pass better.”
“It’s just that we want to like blend in everything,” Schachtel explains.
One of these Facebook pages, Cup of Jane
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/>, has almost half a million
followers.
Cup of Jane’s “About <https://www.facebook.com/pg/DailyCupOfJane/about>”
page describes it as being about “Sugar, spice and everything nice.”
But there is no disclosure that this is a page run for the purpose of
promoting Israel.
The “About” page does identify Cup of Jane as being “a community
launched by TIP’s Future Media Project in DC.”
There is however no direct and explicit mention of Israel or indication
that “TIP” stands for The Israel Project.
The Electronic Intifada understands that even this vague acknowledgment
of who is behind the page was only added after The Israel Project
learned about the existence of the Al Jazeera undercover documentary and
presumably anticipated being exposed.
The Israel Project also added an acknowledgment
<https://www.theisraelproject.org/socialmedia> on its own website that
it runs the Facebook pages. However its website is not linked from the
Facebook pages themselves.
There is no evidence in the Internet Archive
<https://web.archive.org/web/20170501000000*/https://www.theisraelproject.org/socialmedia>
of the page existing before May 2017 – months after “Tony’s” cover was
blown.
According to Schachtel, The Israel Project is putting considerable
resources into producing Cup of Jane and a network of similar pages.
“We have a team of like 13 people. We are working on a lot of videos,
explainers,” he tells Tony in Al Jazeera’s documentary. “A lot of it is
just random topics and then maybe like 25 percent of it would be like
Israel or Jewish-based.”
Al Jazeera states in the documentary that it “approached all those
featured in this program. None of the pro-Israel advocacy organizations
or individuals working for them responded to our allegations.”
Fake progressives
Cup of Jane tries to establish progressive credibility by posting
pictures and quotations from such Black female icons as Maya Angelou
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/photos/a.604864966335800/1088155591340066/>
and Ida B. Wells
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/photos/a.604864966335800/1088015968020695/>,
whom the page honored on her birthday as a “revolutionary thinker,
writer and activist.”
There are also posts about groundbreaking environmentalist Rachel Carson
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/photos/a.604864966335800/1022026174619675/>
and Emma Gonzalez
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/photos/a.604864966335800/1006168636205429/?type=3&theater>,
who along with classmates launched a national campaign for gun control
after surviving the February 2018 high school massacre in Parkland, Florida.
Woven into the stream of progressive-flavored fluff are attacks
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/photos/a.604864966335800/856747347814226/?type=3&theater>
on actual progressive movements, such as Chicago’s Dyke March, whose
organizers faced an Israel lobby smear campaign
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/chicago-dyke-march-accuser-wider-bridge-has-record-fabrications>
after asking pro-Israel provocateurs to leave their march in 2017.
And a posting in October 2016
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/photos/a.604864966335800/708493095972986/?type=3&theater>,
soon after the Cup of Jane page was launched, attempted to portray
Israeli militarism as cute and empowering for women.
“The Israeli Airforce has painted fighters pink in aid of Breast Cancer
Awareness Month. How cool is that?” the post states, accompanied by a
photo of an Israeli fighter jet. “This is fierce. Women, by the way,
need an air force all their own,” Cup of Jane adds, along with a smiley
face.
Other pages identified by the censored Al Jazeera documentary as run by
The Israel Project include Soul Mama
<https://www.facebook.com/SoulMamaCares/>, History Bites
<https://www.facebook.com/HistoryBites/>, We Have Only One Earth
<https://www.facebook.com/pg/WeOnlyHaveOneEarth> and This Explains That
<https://www.facebook.com/ThisExplainsThat/>.
Some have hundreds of thousands of followers.
History Bites does not reveal its affiliation with The Israel Project,
not even with the vague formula used by Cup of Jane and the other pages.
History Bites simply describes
<https://www.facebook.com/pg/HistoryBites/about/> itself as conveying
“The awesome of History in bite-sized chewable pieces!”
That page re-posted Cup of Jane posts presenting Golda Meir, the Israeli
prime minister who implemented racist and violent policies against
indigenous Palestinians, and viewed Palestinian women giving birth as an
existential threat, as a feminist
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/photos/a.604864966335800/1030670153755277/>
hero
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/photos/a.604864966335800/1054790384676587/>.
A 2016 This Explains That video
<https://www.facebook.com/ThisExplainsThat/videos/1124424717672564/>
spreads false
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israels-false-spin-unesco-jerusalem-vote>
Israeli
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/unesco-vote-jerusalem-enrages-occupying-power>
claims
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israel-furious-unesco-rebuffs-its-claim-hebron>
that the UN cultural agency UNESCO “erased” Jewish and Christian
reverence for holy sites in Jerusalem.
History Bites reposted the video
<https://www.facebook.com/HistoryBites/posts/1851080841819295> last
December stating that it “seems to support President Trump’s declaration
today that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state of Israel.”
The video has received almost five million views.
Another video posted by History Bites
<https://www.facebook.com/HistoryBites/videos/1768892476704799/>
attempts to justify Israel’s June 1967 surprise attack on Egypt,
launching the war in which Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip,
Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights.
The video describes Israel’s military occupation of East Jerusalem as
the city being “reunified” and “liberated.”
Israel’s toxic brand
The Israel Project’s resort to a spoonful of proverbial sugar
<https://www.facebook.com/DailyCupOfJane/photos/a.604864966335800/899033766918917/?type=3&theater>
to try to make pro-Israel messages go down more easily is an
acknowledgment of what a tough sell an apartheid state
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/landmark-un-report-backs-israel-boycott>
can be.
As Ali Abunimah, one of the authors of this article, states in the Al
Jazeera documentary, “The Israel brand is increasingly toxic, so you
can’t sell Israel directly. You have to have other hip stuff that’s just
very innocuous, fun and then from time to time you’re going to slip
something about Israel in.”
The Israel Project’s attempts to co-opt progressive sensibilities in the
service of Israel, even though its own policies are on the hard right,
fit into a wider
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/leaked-report-highlights-israel-lobbys-failures>
Israeli strategy
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/how-israel-lobby-using-owen-jones>,
which seeks to divide the left
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/bds-winning-admits-top-israeli-sabotage-strategist>
and weaken Palestine solidarity.
Run by Josh Block, a former Clinton administration official and former
senior strategist at the Israel lobby powerhouse AIPAC
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/aipac>, one of The Israel Project’s
top goals was to scupper the international nuclear deal with Iran.
The Israel Project’s covert Facebook campaign is manipulative on its
face, but is even more cynical given that its mastermind is Gary Rosen.
For years Rosen ran a virulently homophobic and Islamophobic Twitter
account called @ArikSharon – the nickname of the late Israeli prime
minister Ariel Sharon
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ariel-sharon>, who was responsible
for Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the massacres
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/sabra-and-shatila-massacre> at the
Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila that same year.
Homophobic bigot and racist @ArikSharon
<https://twitter.com/ArikSharon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw> is really top
@SaatchiLA exec @thegaryrosen
<https://twitter.com/TheGaryRosen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>.
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) May 25, 2013
<https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/338384089436540930?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
In transcripts of a recording made by Al Jazeera’s undercover reporter
seen by The Electronic Intifada, Rosen acknowledges operating
@ArikSharon as a “secret account.”
Rosen was employed at the global advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, but
in November 2013 joined The Israel Project, where he is responsible for
digital strategy.
Rosen deleted many of the most offensive tweets from the @ArikSharon
Twitter feed after he was exposed
<https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/338384089436540930> in 2013 by
one of the authors of this article as the person running the account.
But while operating covert Facebook pages attempting to normalize
support for Israel among progressive audiences, Rosen continues to use
the @ArikSharon Twitter account to spread right-wing, pro-Israel messaging.
Anonymous ads exposed
This is not the only covert effort by the Israel lobby to use Facebook
to achieve its goals.
A joint report by /The Forward/ and /ProPublica/ reveals
<https://www.propublica.org/article/dc-pro-israel-group-ran-facebook-ads-to-target-pro-palestinian-activist>
that the Israel on Campus Coalition
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/israel-campus-coalition> ran
anonymous Facebook ads smearing Remi Kanazi
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/remi-kanazi>, a Palestinian
American poet, in advance of his appearances on US campuses.
Israel on Campus Coalition, a DC group funded largely by right-wing
mega donors, anonymously set up Facebook pages to attack my events
in 2016. https://t.co/motLHIbPni
— Remi Kanazi (@Remroum) September 12, 2018
<https://twitter.com/Remroum/status/1039901395170848768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
The Electronic Intifada was the first to report
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/censored-film-names-adam-milstein-canary-mission-funder/25356>
the Al Jazeera film’s revelations about how the Israel on Campus
Coalition’s efforts to smear and harass Palestine solidarity activists
are covertly coordinated with the Israeli government.
A Facebook spokesperson told /The Forward/ and /ProPublica/ that the
Israel on Campus Coalition ads targeting Kanazi “violate our policies
against misrepresentation and they have been removed.”
In 2012, The Electronic Intifada exposed
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-students-get-2000-spread-state-propaganda-facebook>
a scheme by Israel’s government-backed national student union
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israels-pretty-face-how-national-union-israeli-students-does-governments>
to pay students to spread pro-Israel propaganda on Facebook. However the
current covert effort run by The Israel Project appears to be far more
sophisticated.
Since the 2016 US presidential election, Facebook has been accused of
allowing its platform to be used for manipulative Russian-sponsored
propaganda aimed at influencing politics and public opinion.
Despite the hype, these allegations have been grossly overblown or
unsubstantiated
<https://www.thenation.com/article/hyping-the-mueller-indictment/>.
Nevertheless, Facebook has partnered with the Atlantic Council
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/why-did-facebook-ban-electronic-intifadas-ad-killing-gaza>
in an effort to ostensibly crack down
<https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/05/announcing-new-election-partnership-with-the-atlantic-council/>
on “fake accounts” and “disinformation.”
The Atlantic Council is a Washington think tank that has been funded
<http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/support/supporters> by NATO, the US
military, the brutally repressive governments
<http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/LetterChuckHagelfromFredKempe02082013.pdf>
of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, European Union
governments, and a who’s who of investment firms, oil companies, arms
makers and other war profiteers.
As the apparent result of this partnership, a number of completely
innocuous social media accounts
<https://soundcloud.com/moderaterebels/big-tech-social-media-facebook-abby-martin-episode-23>
with few or no followers were recently taken down.
More worryingly, pages run by leftist news outlets
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFXQFI8KiWA> focusing on countries
targeted by the US government, such as /Venezuela Analysis/
<https://sputniknews.com/latam/201808091067084000-Venezuelan-News-Facebook-Censorship/>
and teleSUR
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/Why-Did-Facebook-Delete-teleSUR-English-20180816-0010.html>,
were suspended, though later
<https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Facebook-Page-of-Venezuelanalysis-Back-Up-After-brief-Suspension-20180809-0018.html>
restored <https://www.rt.com/news/436057-telesur-restored-facebook-block/>.
Now with solid evidence of The Israel Project’s well-resourced and
extensive influence campaign on Facebook, it remains to be seen if the
social media giant will act to ensure that unwitting users are aware
that what they are being exposed to is propaganda designed to boost and
whitewash the Israeli state.
In response to a request for comment, a Facebook spokesperson told The
Electronic Intifada the company would look into the matter.
--
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