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<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel"
datatype="">Ali Abunimah</a></span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2016-04-27T18:03:58+00:00">27 April 2016</span></span>
</p>
<h1 id="reader-title">Israeli propaganda stunt exploits Gaza
children</h1>
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<div class="content">
<div style="display: block;" dir="ltr" id="moz-reader-content">
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xml:base="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-propaganda-stunt-exploits-gaza-children"
id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<article class="node-16461 node node-blog view-mode-full
node-is-page image-landscape">
<figure class="file file-image file-image-jpeg
media-element file-figure" id="file-36876"><source
media="(min-width: 72rem)"><img
moz-reader-center="true" title="" alt=""
src="cid:part3.99AA6765.CA66CCF1@freedomarchives.org"
class="media-element file-figure"><figcaption
class="group-caption field-group-html-element">
<p>Image of Gaza children taken for a day out at a
nature reserve by Israel’s COGAT occupation
authority. COGAT posted the image on its Facebook
page.</p>
</figcaption></figure>
<p>During the most brutal days of apartheid in South
Africa, the racist regime produced <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/01/selling-apartheid-new-book-lays-bare-south-africas-propaganda-war">reams
of propaganda</a>, including glossy magazines that
“featured images of wonderful wild animals, sunsets and
happy Black people on the beach.”</p>
<p>As South African author Ron Nixon documents in two
books, <a
href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-09-06-a-chronicle-of-apartheids-propaganda-war-on-black-america/"><em>Operation
Blackwash</em></a> and <a
href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo25367047.html"><em>Selling
Apartheid</em></a>, such propaganda was often
generated under the guidance of the regime’s
intelligence agencies, with the aim of counteracting
growing international criticism and pressure.</p>
<h2>“Operation Heartbreak”</h2>
<p>One scheme, part of a campaign backed by the racist
government in the late 1980s, was cynically dubbed
“Operation Heartbreak.” It involved a Black US pastor
bringing a group of American children to deliver dolls
to members of Congress.</p>
<p>“Each doll represented a child who would be harmed by
the sanctions Congress had imposed on South Africa,” <a
href="https://100r.org/2013/10/operation-blackwash-apartheid-south-africas-campaign-to-buy-off-black-america/">Nixon
writes</a>. “Organizers of the event also said the
dolls represented children harmed by the tactics of the
African National Congress and its all-out war against
the apartheid government.”</p>
<p>These propaganda messages failed to stop the growing
momentum for boycott, divestment and sanctions on South
Africa – pressure that eventually helped bring down the
white supremacist regime and usher in a non-racial
democracy.</p>
<p>But similar tactics are now being revived by the
apartheid government of Israel, as part of its all-out
assault against the BDS movement.</p>
<p>Nowadays, the same type of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/anti-bds-group-sawtona-impersonating-palestinians/16326">bogus
grassroots campaigns</a> make the same type of claims
that BDS <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-todays-liberal-zionists-echo-apartheid-south-africas-defenders/13168">hurts
Palestinians</a> more than it helps them.</p>
<p>These claims aim to distract from the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/end-all-business-israeli-settlements-says-human-rights-watch">devastating
economic impact and human rights abuses</a> directly
caused by Israel’s occupation and illegal colonization
of the West Bank.</p>
<h2>Israel’s propaganda</h2>
<p>The manipulative South African propaganda came to mind
when I saw a <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/cogat.israel/photos/pcb.997736720322012/997735766988774/?type=3&theater">Facebook
post by COGAT</a>, the Israeli military authority that
rules the lives of millions of Palestinians in the
occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>“A few minutes ago, a group of 23 children from Gaza
crossed through Erez Crossing to have a day of fun in
Israel,” the Tuesday post stated.</p>
<p>COGAT said the children “went for a walk through the
#naturereserve Gan HaShlosha (Sahne) in the north of
the country,” and wished them “a day full of fun and
adventure.”
</p>
<div class="file file-document file-text-oembed
oembed-rich oembed-default oembed-twitter"
id="file-36911">
<div class="oembed-content">
<blockquote data-width="550" class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">LIVE: A few minutes ago, a
group of 23 children from <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Gaza?src=hash">#Gaza</a>
crossed <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Erez?src=hash">#Erez</a>
Crossing to have a day of fun in <a
href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Israel?src=hash">#Israel</a>
<a href="https://t.co/KsYncAERE0">pic.twitter.com/KsYncAERE0</a></p>
— COGAT (@cogat_israel) <a
href="https://twitter.com/cogat_israel/status/724885689062535168">April
26, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>The occupation authority posted photos of the children,
including the one at the top of this article, with their
faces blurred, on Facebook and Twitter.</p>
<p>“Cool,” <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/cogat.israel/posts/997736720322012?comment_id=998333260262358&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D">commented</a>
Gaza writer <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/refaat-alareer">Refaat
Alareer</a> sarcastically, “Now we Palestinians feel
OK about the thousands of kids Israel has murdered and
the seven decades of occupation, oppression and
humiliation.”</p>
<p>It should be noted that this is the same COGAT that
routinely <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-patients-battle-cancer-and-israeli-siege/15576">blocks
patients from Gaza</a>, including children, from
leaving the besieged territory for lifesaving treatment.</p>
<p>In the first 10 months of 2015, COGAT <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/israels-deadly-restrictions-palestinian-patients">denied</a>
1,035 Palestinians in Gaza exit permits to receive
necessary treatment in the occupied West Bank,
present-day Israel or Jordan. That represents almost
twice as many denials as were issued the entire previous
year.</p>
<p>And yet when it is helpful to Israeli propaganda, COGAT
allows a few children out of Gaza for a single day.</p>
<h2>Destroying children’s lives</h2>
<p>Israel has tried to pull off a propaganda stunt with
Gaza children for a while – an effort to use orphans
from Gaza in a similar manner <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/revealed-gaza-orphans-israel-trip-was-government-backed-pr-stunt">was
foiled in 2014</a> when Hamas put a stop to it.</p>
<p>Palestinian media, citing Israeli media, <a
href="http://zamnpress.com/news/97159">reported</a>
that this time the trip was given the go-ahead by Hamas
after the intervention of Qatar.</p>
<p>The defenders of such cynical gimmicks will undoubtedly
claim that critics like myself, or Alareer, are against
Palestinian children having fun; of course we are not.</p>
<p>I am against Israel imposing conditions that historian
Ilan Pappe has termed “<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-incremental-genocide-gaza-ghetto/13562">incremental
genocide</a>” against 1.8 million Palestinians in
Gaza, about half of whom are aged 18 or under.</p>
<p>I am against Israel <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/balance-un-gaza-report-cant-hide-massive-israeli-war-crimes">massacring
551 children as part of its most recent war in Gaza</a>
and then claiming this as “self-defense.”</p>
<p>I am against Israel destroying vast swathes of Gaza
then <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/tens-thousands-still-displaced-gaza">blocking
reconstruction</a> by maintaining a siege, which
although devastating to Palestinians is <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ryan-rodrick-beiler/how-israel-makes-money-blockading-gaza">very
lucrative</a> for Israeli companies.</p>
<p>According to a <a
href="http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/idps_report_april_2016_english.pdf">recent
survey</a> by the UN monitoring group OCHA, 44,000
Gaza children whose homes were destroyed in the 2014
Israeli attack are still displaced.</p>
<p>“Around 225,000 children in Gaza require psychosocial
support and child protection services,” the report adds.</p>
<p>Will Israel allow them all to visit a nature reserve?</p>
<p>I am against Israel’s systematic abuses of Palestinian
children in the occupied West Bank, including routine
killings <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/impunity">with
no accountability</a> and the fact that Israel is the
only country in the world to annually <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/number-palestinian-children-israeli-prisons-soars">prosecute
hundreds of children (Palestinians only) in military
courts</a>.</p>
<p>I am against all this and I am also against Israel then
using a very tiny number of children from Gaza in a
photo-op to falsely portray itself as benevolent and
caring.</p>
<p>Ironically, the propaganda – or <em>hasbara</em> –
appears to have backfired, at least with many of the
Israelis who reacted with outrage to COGAT’s post.</p>
<p>“Shame on you,” <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/cogat.israel/photos/a.757361664359520.1073741828.724192144343139/997735766988774/?type=3&comment_id=998300996932251&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R3%22%7D">wrote</a>
Leat Bodenheimer in a typical comment, “There are lots
of Jewish children who would have liked this and instead
you went and took a murderous enemy in the hope that
they will love you.”</p>
<p>Such <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/death-arabs">pervasive
attitudes</a> toward Palestinians underscore that the
children of Gaza are not victims of a natural disaster
who just need a nice day out to forget their woes.</p>
<p>They are victims of Israel, its brutal wars, racism,
occupation, settler-colonialism and siege. They need an
end to Israel’s oppression and they need justice for
what Israel has done and is doing to them.</p>
<p>Israel’s cynical exploitation of these children should
cut no more ice with anyone who cares about Palestinian
rights than the crude South African propaganda did with
those committed to ending apartheid.</p>
<h2>Update</h2>
<p>Shortly after this article was published, COGAT appears
to have deleted the Facebook post. Perhaps even they
figured out that this propaganda would not fly.</p>
<br>
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