Israel Matzav

Your tax dollars at work on behalf of Obama's 'Palestinian' partners

I've reported earlier that USAID is financing a billboard campaign to convince Israelis that 'Palestinian' terrorists will be our partners for peace. There's more to it than that.

There's also a broadcast media campaign, which is also being financed by the USAID. Caroline Glick brings us some of the descriptions of the recording sessions that have appeared in the Hebrew-language media this week. I will have some of the ads for you later in this post.

ACCORDING TO Yediot Aharonot, the Geneva Initiative has hired Ron Asulin, one of the country's top directors to stage and direct commercials featuring Fatah members telling Israelis they are credible partners in peace. The Geneva Initiative invited Yediot's Alon Goldstein to watch the recording sessions in Ramallah.

His report, published Sunday, is a fascinating glimpse at the Left's propaganda shop.

Goldstein describes how Asulin told Fatah's Saeb Erekat to begin his greeting with the word "shalom."

"It will be effective," Asulin promised.

Among his other achievements, Erekat played a starring role in the PA's 2002 blood libel in which he and his comrades accused Israel of committing a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp during Operation Defensive Shield. He told CNN that Israel had killed "more than 500 people." He also claimed that more than 300 were being buried in mass graves.

In the event, Palestinian losses in the battle stood at 54; some 90 percent of them were combatants. Twenty-three IDF soldiers were killed. The only massacres were the suicide bombings that killed some 500 Israelis - 80 percent of whom were civilians - in the months that preceded Defensive Shield.

Not only has Erekat never retracted his statements. He has repeated them.

But never mind. He said "shalom" rather nicely.

Next on the list of US-funded spokesmen was Fatah strongman Jibril Rajoub, who was instrumental in forging the operational alliance between Fatah and Hamas that facilitated the terror war against Israel 10 years ago. Throughout the roaring '90s, Rajoub assiduously recruited Hamas members to his Preventive Security Force in Judea and Samaria.

As recently as May 10 he appeared on PA television and said, "Building a school and throwing a hand grenade, in my opinion, are resistance. I build the school in order to strengthen the reasons for my people's resolve, as one of several aspects of the resistance, and when there is a need to throw a grenade [or launch] a rocket, I'll do that as well out of my belief in the inevitable victory of my cause and its justness."

Last week the US paid for him to be filmed telling Israelis we should trust him. It was no mean task. According to Yediot, "Asulin had to work hard" to get Rajoub to say the word "partner."

Then there is Fatah's propaganda boss Yasser Abed Rabbo. As Yasser Arafat's culture and information minister, it was Abed Rabbo who ended press freedom in the PA shortly after it was established in 1994. Under his reign, journalists and editors were detained and beaten, newspapers were closed and printing presses were torched. In 2002, Abed Rabbo outdid Erekat in his mendacious condemnations of Israel. He accused Israel of "digging mass graves for 900 Palestinians in the [Jenin refugee] camp."

In 2001 he ordered the PA media to stop filming mass celebrations of the September 11 attacks on the US.

Despite his long career as a propagandist, Asulin still had his work cut out for him. He had to convince Abed Rabbo to stop waving his finger at the camera. "When you wave your finger, you are actually warning me. You are making threats."

Yes, of course, there are Israeli collaborators who are involved in this too. Who are they? Read the whole thing.

Here's 'Palestinian' chief negotiator bottle washer Saeb Erekat. Let's go to the videotape.



Here's Yasser Abed Rabbo. Sorry - only Arabic with Hebrew subtitles in this one. Let's go to the videotape.



And finally, the most popular one, Peter Jennings' ex-girlfriend, Hanan Ashrawi. Let's go to the videotape.



By the way, these were all posted to YouTube in December 2009. At your expense.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:28 AM