How an Israeli smear campaign took aim at the Madleen Gaza flotilla

From the moment the Madleen aid ship set sail on 1 June to bring desperately needed aid to Gaza, the Israeli government engaged in an intensive propaganda operation against the humanitarian initiative.

Hijacked by Israeli forces in international waters eight days later, during that time, a smear campaign was directed at the Israeli public and international media to downplay and distort the Madleen's message.

The flotilla aimed to highlight the Israeli blockade of the territory and the catastrophic humanitarian conditions in Gaza, which has become "worse than hell on earth", according to the Red Cross.

The international activists on the ship were subjected to ridicule, as well as incitement and smear campaigns, in numerous Israeli media outlets and social media sites, especially the well-known Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry described the ship as a "selfie yacht" of "celebrities", while images of Israeli military personnel offering food and water to the activists during the raid were widely circulated and used by a number of international media outlets.

Despite the widespread international support the Madleen activists received during the ship's voyage, and the demonstrations of solidarity with its crew that erupted in European cities after the ship's hijacking, the flotilla appears to have had no impact on Israeli public opinion, nor did it spark debate inside Israel about the message it was sending.

Israeli propaganda - directed within

Dr Anat Matar, a senior lecturer in the philosophy department at Tel Aviv University spoke to The New Arab about Israel's motives in smearing the ship's crew and raiding the Madleen. "Basically, Israel couldn't allow a crack to be made through which the starving population of Gaza could be allowed a modicum of mercy," she said.

"As we see in the aid centres run by private companies controlled by the [Israeli] military and capital, only a tiny amount of aid is reaching those who are forced both to gamble with their lives, and to collaborate with this occupying agency to access it. If the Madleen had been allowed to enter, there would have been more and more 'Madleens'," she added.

"In this instance, they decided to depict the naval campaign as though it was a stunt carried out by spoiled, brainwashed, fame seekers – 'the Selfie yacht'."

Matar explained that inside Israel, many would embrace this message, while "outside Israel, far fewer would".

However, she added, "this doesn't really concern Israel's propaganda machine which generally directs itself internally, to reinforce public opinion here on a basis rooted in ideology, ignorance and hatred. For this reason, the main reason for attacking the ship was public relations inside Israel, first and foremost".

Matar, an activist with the Academia for Equality group, has been the target of incitement and attacked multiple times for her stance against Israel's occupation, and, most recently, for her solidarity with the well-known Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqa before his death. She believes that Israeli public opinion would never have changed whether the activists had arrived or not.

"The majority in Israel, including those who have recently begun to oppose the war, hate international intervention," she said.

"However, I believe that activists in solidarity with the Palestinian people and the starving and attacked residents of the Gaza Strip won't allow the hunger and living conditions in Gaza to be forgotten. In fact, they are primarily pointing the finger at the countries they came from. These countries must impose harsh sanctions on Israel until it stops the killing and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip."

In other words, she concludes, "each side cares more about itself than it cares about the other. The Israeli government is addressing the Israeli public, and the solidarity activists are addressing the international community. They were never intending to convince Israelis, and certainly not the government".

However, she says, hopefully their message will reach their home countries: "The blood, hunger, disease, and destruction are, indirectly, laid at the doors of those countries that aren't taking concrete action - not just symbolic – to intervene and put an end to them".

Bolstering racism

For her part, leftist, anti-Zionist activist Yael Lerer described Israeli society as oscillating between "indifference and bizarre, reflex responses, ranging from sarcasm to misogyny and xenophobia".

She adds: "When you're in Israel, you feel like what's happening in Gaza doesn't concern Israelis – life goes on as usual for most Jewish Israelis, as though Gaza is not just 60 km away from Tel Aviv".

Even though in recent weeks, maybe due to weather conditions, the bombs in Gaza could be felt even in Tel Aviv, "the parties continue, and the music doesn't stop. The naval campaign hasn't changed anything".

She highlights the mockery emanating from most Israeli media outlets and on social media toward the campaign's participants, where all criticism of Israel is immediately cast as anti-Semitism, describing this trend as "a futile attempt to crush all criticism and reinforce the Israeli sense of 'we are right'".

Lerer says demonstrations and actions carried out by foreign activists don't influence public opinion in Israel, "but instead are exploited by the regime to bolster racism and xenophobia in Israeli society". She believes that the only way to stop the "bloodbath in Gaza" is through effective international pressure and "sanctions on Israel" in which governments are involved, not just civil society.

"Condemnations without action are just empty words," Lerer states. "As long as the West and the Arab world don't act, they share culpability for the genocide being perpetrated by Israel." At the same time, she expressed hope that actions like that of the Madleen would build pressure on foreign governments to act.

Lerer, who grew up in Tel Aviv but now lives in Paris, has French citizenship and almost was elected for the French Parliament. She speaks about the French reaction to the ship which was carrying several French citizens.

"All the French media channels covered the naval campaign and the arrests of the participants in it. All the Leftist parties called for dozens of protests which took place all over France, in which thousands participated," she recounts, adding that French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan enjoys widespread support in France, where her courage has hugely impressed people.

"However, on the other side, she has faced an intolerable incitement, smear and delegitimisation campaign directed by the French Right, as well as some French-Jewish public figures, especially on social media networks. This has included insults and rape and death threats. These same circles are attacking the entire naval campaign in the same way."

Lerer acknowledges that in recent weeks, "the destruction of Gaza, the massacres and the starvation have become the focus of public attention," with even French President Emmanuel Macron, the foreign minister and others strongly condemning Israel's actions and expressing solidarity with Gaza's Palestinians.

However, "these condemnations are meaningless as long as they are not translated into real pressure and effective sanctions on Israel. I hope France will wake up and move from words to action. Unfortunately, I don't think that the naval campaign and the arrest of the activists are enough to change the equation, but I hope that they will add another layer of popular pressure".

This is an edited translation from our Arabic edition. To read the original article click here.

Translated by Rose Chacko   

This article is taken from our Arabic sister publication, Al-Araby Al Jadeed and mirrors the source's original editorial guidelines and reporting policies. Any requests for correction or comment will be forwarded to the original authors and editors.

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