Israel's propaganda war

Israel's ability to shape public opinion regarding the flotilla massacre is intimately linked to its long-standing campaign to manipulate global public perceptions of what has been happening in Palestine all along since Israel's birth in 1947. Its policy remains consistent. It is a successful strategy always focusing on Jewish victimhood. The success is rooted in a political reality. Where knowledge is limited, and the desire and means to learn and understand the complex reality or issues doesn't exist, public opinion can be manipulated and shaped by whoever generates the most powerful symbols. The precise truth or falsehood of this portrayal hardly matters. For most of the world thus far, the Palestine issue is poorly understood and not a matter of immediate concern. The manipulators intend to shape the perceptions of a global public with limited interest in or understanding of the issues, filling in the blanks with their own narrative. Their use of the media is a powerful political weapon designed to define perceptions. Using an amalgam of incidents and images to display, a propaganda war is being waged to create sympathy. The moral question has been made ambiguous. What seems to matter is the ability to identify the victim as victimizer through obfuscation and confusion thus helping form global opinion that would lead members of the international community to adopt political stances advantageous to the opinion managers. Israel's success in establishing its own narrative in the public sphere as the dominant one is in no small measure due to the excellence of the Jewish community in the media field. Moving stories made into movies like the "Exodus" and many others are poignant accounts of Jewish suffering. It is equally important to recognize the Palestinian/Arab inability to offer their own narrative in a coherent constructive way Times have changed. Because of plethora of technologies now there are opportunities for many to present alternative ideas and counternarratives and be heard across this planet...   The ground seems to be shifting.  The flotilla incidence has gotten the State of Israel in a pickle. Though all its faithful propagandists are out in public arguing that there was nothing wrong with the raid on the ships carrying aid to Gaza, and the American media are straining every which way and even very much against their better instincts, to cooperate, they are not succeeding in making a dent in the public perception. There remains in the minds of most people across the globe the perception that things truly shocking and fundamentally unacceptable took place out there on the high seas.  Eyewitness accounts have begun to come back from those arrested on the ships.  With all clarity it is apparent that the Israeli forces did their best to pre-empt the account of the story, giving thereby prima facie evidence of careful planning for exactly what happened. They took care to cut off all communication from those ships at sea except their own. All cameras, electronic devices that could hold any pictures or video were confiscated and have not been returned. That was an accomplishment, as practically everyone on board had cameras and recording devices. It was only by hiding away a few of those tiny memory cards that passengers were able to retain any of the horrifying pictures and video that are now beginning to emerge. Even now, few people have seen those other than on Internet postings. Our America media are not publishing them.