2 oct 2016
US soldiers [file photo]
The Pentagon paid a UK PR firm half a billion dollars to create fake terrorist videos in Iraq in a secret propaganda campaign exposed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
PR firm Bell Pottinger, known for its array of controversial clients including the Saudi government and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s foundation, worked with the US military to create the propaganda in a secretive operation.
The firm reported to the CIA, the National Security Council and the Pentagon on the project with a mandate to portray Al-Qaeda in a negative light and track suspected sympathisers.
Both the White House and General David Petraeus, the former general who shared classified information with his mistress, signed off on the content produced by the agency. tweet
The Bell Pottinger operation started soon after the US invasion of Iraq and was tasked with promoting the “democratic elections” for the administration before moving on to more lucrative psychological and information operations.
Former employee Martin Wells told the Bureau how he found himself working in Iraq after being hired as a video editor by Bell Pottinger. Within 48 hours, he was landing in Baghdad to edit content for secret “psychological operations” at Camp Victory.
The firm created television ads showing Al-Qaeda in a negative light as well as creating content to look as though it had come from “Arabic TV”. Crews were sent out to film bombings with low quality video. The firm would then edit it to make it look like news footage.
They would craft scripts for Arabic soap operas where characters would reject terrorism with happy consequences. The firm also created fake Al-Qaeda propaganda videos, which were then planted by the military in homes they raided.Employees were given specific instructions to create the videos. “We need to make this style of video and we’ve got to use Al-Qaeda’s footage,” Wells was told. “We need it to be 10 minutes long, and it needs to be in this file format, and we need to encode it in this manner.”
The videos were created to play on Real Player which needs an internet connection to run. The CDs were embedded with a code linking to Google Analytics which allowed the military to track IP addresses that the videos were played on.
According to Wells, the videos were picked up in Iran, Syria and the US.“If one, 48 hours or a week later shows up in another part of the world, then that’s the more interesting one,” Wells explained. “And that’s what they’re looking for more, because that gives you a trail.”
The Pentagon confirmed the PR firm did work for them under the Information Operations Task Force (IOTF) creating content they say was “truthful”. The firm also worked under the Joint Psychological Operations Task Force (JPOTF). The Pentagon said it could not comment on JPOTF operations.
US law prohibits the government from using propaganda on its population, hence the use of an outside firm to create the content.
Documents show the Pentagon paid $540 million to Bell Pottinger in contracts between 2007 and 2011, with another contract for $120 million in 2006. The firm ended its work with the Pentagon in 2011.
In 2009, it was reported that the Pentagon had hired controversial PR firm, The Rendon Group, to monitor the reporting of journalists embedded with the US military, to assess whether they were giving “positive” coverage to its missions.
It was also revealed in 2005 that Washington based PR company the Lincoln Group had been placing articles in newspapers in Iraq which were secretly written by the US military. A Pentagon investigation cleared the group of any wrongdoing. tweet
The Pentagon paid a UK PR firm half a billion dollars to create fake terrorist videos in Iraq in a secret propaganda campaign exposed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
PR firm Bell Pottinger, known for its array of controversial clients including the Saudi government and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s foundation, worked with the US military to create the propaganda in a secretive operation.
The firm reported to the CIA, the National Security Council and the Pentagon on the project with a mandate to portray Al-Qaeda in a negative light and track suspected sympathisers.
Both the White House and General David Petraeus, the former general who shared classified information with his mistress, signed off on the content produced by the agency. tweet
The Bell Pottinger operation started soon after the US invasion of Iraq and was tasked with promoting the “democratic elections” for the administration before moving on to more lucrative psychological and information operations.
Former employee Martin Wells told the Bureau how he found himself working in Iraq after being hired as a video editor by Bell Pottinger. Within 48 hours, he was landing in Baghdad to edit content for secret “psychological operations” at Camp Victory.
The firm created television ads showing Al-Qaeda in a negative light as well as creating content to look as though it had come from “Arabic TV”. Crews were sent out to film bombings with low quality video. The firm would then edit it to make it look like news footage.
They would craft scripts for Arabic soap operas where characters would reject terrorism with happy consequences. The firm also created fake Al-Qaeda propaganda videos, which were then planted by the military in homes they raided.Employees were given specific instructions to create the videos. “We need to make this style of video and we’ve got to use Al-Qaeda’s footage,” Wells was told. “We need it to be 10 minutes long, and it needs to be in this file format, and we need to encode it in this manner.”
The videos were created to play on Real Player which needs an internet connection to run. The CDs were embedded with a code linking to Google Analytics which allowed the military to track IP addresses that the videos were played on.
According to Wells, the videos were picked up in Iran, Syria and the US.“If one, 48 hours or a week later shows up in another part of the world, then that’s the more interesting one,” Wells explained. “And that’s what they’re looking for more, because that gives you a trail.”
The Pentagon confirmed the PR firm did work for them under the Information Operations Task Force (IOTF) creating content they say was “truthful”. The firm also worked under the Joint Psychological Operations Task Force (JPOTF). The Pentagon said it could not comment on JPOTF operations.
US law prohibits the government from using propaganda on its population, hence the use of an outside firm to create the content.
Documents show the Pentagon paid $540 million to Bell Pottinger in contracts between 2007 and 2011, with another contract for $120 million in 2006. The firm ended its work with the Pentagon in 2011.
In 2009, it was reported that the Pentagon had hired controversial PR firm, The Rendon Group, to monitor the reporting of journalists embedded with the US military, to assess whether they were giving “positive” coverage to its missions.
It was also revealed in 2005 that Washington based PR company the Lincoln Group had been placing articles in newspapers in Iraq which were secretly written by the US military. A Pentagon investigation cleared the group of any wrongdoing. tweet
1 aug 2016
The Palestine News Agency WAFA, on Monday, monitored incitement and racism published in the Israeli media against Palestinians and Arabs between June 15 and 21 July, 2016.
The 296 issue of the report, reviewed a number of articles and op-ed published by Israeli writers and journalists, which incite against Palestinians and Arabs both directly and indirectly.
Maariv newspaper published a racist article on July 7 by Michael Kleiner, in which he attacked Arab member of the Israeli Knesset Hanin Zoabi as a woman and aan Arab and promoted stereotypical ideas about Arabs.
He asked if the 47-year-old Syria-born single woman would have been allowed to apply makeup, leave the house without a head cover, join protests, wave flags or board a Turkish flotilla, establish a career, receive a salary and appear on media outlets if she was still in Syria, or would she be busy taking care of homeless children that she birthed after being forced to marry an old man and fighting with her husband’s younger wife that was recently added to the family?
Kleiner said that Zoabi is lucky that Jews rejected the Uganda plan and returned to their ancestor’s land where they paved roads, built universities in Jerusalem and Haifa and established a western country where Zoabi can were pants, fight for the rights of women and homosexuals and express her extreme and violent ideas under the pretext of freedom of expression.
Meanwhile, Ze’ev Kam criticized, in a video published on July 19 on NRG website, Arab member of the Knesset Yousef Jabarin, who said that Israel assassinated former leader Yassir Arafat.
Kam said, “There is an Arab member in our Knesset who is extremely jealous of Zoabi and he wishes to receive the same media attention that the former receives. His name is Yousef Jabarin. You do not know him, but he is doing everything possible to gain fame.”
Kam asked Jabarin about the evidence, which supports his groundless claims. The Israeli journalist described Jabarin’s claims as part of Palestinian culture which promotes lies.
NRG website also published an article by Sara Cohen in which she attacked the Israeli army radio station for broadcasting poems by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
She said, “Darwish’s war is the word and his narrative is the Palestinians. The problem lies when we adopt his narrative and mock the words that we do not understand.”
She warned against upholding art, culture, and diversity, which give right to expelling Jews through the use of knives and gunfire.
The 296 issue of the report, reviewed a number of articles and op-ed published by Israeli writers and journalists, which incite against Palestinians and Arabs both directly and indirectly.
Maariv newspaper published a racist article on July 7 by Michael Kleiner, in which he attacked Arab member of the Israeli Knesset Hanin Zoabi as a woman and aan Arab and promoted stereotypical ideas about Arabs.
He asked if the 47-year-old Syria-born single woman would have been allowed to apply makeup, leave the house without a head cover, join protests, wave flags or board a Turkish flotilla, establish a career, receive a salary and appear on media outlets if she was still in Syria, or would she be busy taking care of homeless children that she birthed after being forced to marry an old man and fighting with her husband’s younger wife that was recently added to the family?
Kleiner said that Zoabi is lucky that Jews rejected the Uganda plan and returned to their ancestor’s land where they paved roads, built universities in Jerusalem and Haifa and established a western country where Zoabi can were pants, fight for the rights of women and homosexuals and express her extreme and violent ideas under the pretext of freedom of expression.
Meanwhile, Ze’ev Kam criticized, in a video published on July 19 on NRG website, Arab member of the Knesset Yousef Jabarin, who said that Israel assassinated former leader Yassir Arafat.
Kam said, “There is an Arab member in our Knesset who is extremely jealous of Zoabi and he wishes to receive the same media attention that the former receives. His name is Yousef Jabarin. You do not know him, but he is doing everything possible to gain fame.”
Kam asked Jabarin about the evidence, which supports his groundless claims. The Israeli journalist described Jabarin’s claims as part of Palestinian culture which promotes lies.
NRG website also published an article by Sara Cohen in which she attacked the Israeli army radio station for broadcasting poems by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
She said, “Darwish’s war is the word and his narrative is the Palestinians. The problem lies when we adopt his narrative and mock the words that we do not understand.”
She warned against upholding art, culture, and diversity, which give right to expelling Jews through the use of knives and gunfire.
26 may 2016
By Ramzy Baroud
Merely being in the company of hundreds of Palestinian journalists and other media professionals from all over the world has been an uplifting experience. For many years, Palestinian media has been on the defensive, unable to articulate a coherent message, torn between factions and desperately trying to fend off the Israeli media campaign, along with its falsifications and unending propaganda or ‘hasbara’.
It is still too early to claim any kind of paradigm shift, but the second Tawasol Conference in Istanbul, which took place 18 to 19 May, served as an opportunity to consider the vastly changing media landscape, and to highlight the challenges and the opportunities facing Palestinians in their uphill battle.
Not only are Palestinians expected to demolish many years of Israeli disinformation, predicated on a make-believe historical discourse that has been sold to the world as fact, but also to construct their own lucid narrative that is free from the whims of factions and personal gains. It will not be easy, of course. My message in the “Palestine in the Media” conference, organized by the Palestine International Forum for Media and Communication is that, if the Palestinian leadership is failing to achieve political unity, at least Palestinian intellectuals must insist on the unity of their narrative.
Even the most compromising of Palestinians can acknowledge the centrality of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the destruction of their towns and villages in 1947-48.
They can – and should – also agree about the hideousness and violence of the occupation; the dehumanization at the military checkpoints; the increasingly shrinking spaces in the West Bank as a result of the illegal settlements and the colonisation of whatever remains of Palestine; the suffocating hold on Occupied Jerusalem (al-Quds); the injustice of the siege on Gaza, and the one-sided wars on the Gaza Strip that have killed over 4,000 people, mostly civilians, in the course of seven years, and much more.
Professor Nashaat Al-Aqtash from Birzeit University, perhaps more realistically, downgraded the expectations even further. “If we could only agree on how we present the narrative regarding Al-Quds and the illegal settlements, at least that would be a start,” he said. The obvious fact is that Palestinians have more in common than they would like to admit.
They are all victimised by the same circumstances, fighting the same occupation, suffering the same violations of human rights, and facing the same future outcome resulting from the same conflict. However, many are strangely incapable of disconnecting from their tribal-like, factional affiliations. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having ideological leanings and supporting one political party over another.
It becomes a moral crisis, though, when the party affiliation becomes stronger than one’s affiliation to the collective, national struggle for freedom. Sadly, many are still trapped in this thinking. But things are also changing; they always do. After over two decades of the failure of the so-called ‘peace process’, and the rapid increase in the colonisation of the Occupied Territories in addition to the extreme violence used to achieve these ends, many Palestinians are waking up to the painful facts.
There can be no freedom for the Palestinian people without unity and without resistance. Resistance does not always have to mean a gun and a knife, but rather the utilisation of the energies of a nation at home and in ‘shatat’ (Diaspora), along with the galvanisation of the pro-justice and peace communities all over the world.
There must soon be a movement in which Palestinians declare a global struggle against apartheid, involving all Palestinians, their leadership, factions, civil society and communities everywhere. They must speak in one voice, declare one objective, and state the same demands, over and over again. It is bewildering to realise that a nation that has been so wronged for so long being so greatly misunderstood, while those who have done the harm are largely absolved and seen as if the victim.
Sometime in the late 1950s, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion became aware of the need to unify the Israeli Zionist narrative regarding the conquering and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.According to a revelation by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Ben-Gurion worried that the Palestinian refugee crisis was not going to go away without a consistent Israeli message that the Palestinians left their land of their own accord, following instructions to do so by various Arab governments.
Of course, that, too, was a fabrication, but many supposed truths often start with a sheer lie. He delegated several academics to present the most falsified, yet coherent, story on the exodus of the Palestinians.
The outcome was Doc GL-18/17028 of 1961. That document has, ever since, served as the cornerstone of the Israeli ‘hasbara’ concerning the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The Palestinians ran away and were not driven out, was the crux of the message. Israel has been repeating this falsehood for over 55 years and, of course, many have believed it.
Not until recently, thanks to the effort of a burgeoning group of Palestinian historians – and courageous Israelis – who counter the propaganda, a Palestinian narrative is taking shape, although much is yet to be done to offset the damage that has already taken place. In fact, a real victory for the truth would only happen when the Palestinian narrative is no longer seen as a ‘counter narrative’ but as a sovereign story of its own, free from the confines of defensiveness and the burden of a history laden with lies and half-truths.
The only way I see that happening is when Palestinian intellectuals invest more time and effort in studying and narrating a ‘people’s history’ of Palestine, which could finally humanise the Palestinian people, and challenge the polarised perception of them as terrorists or perpetual victims. When the ordinary individual becomes the centre of history, the outcomes are more relatable, more effective and poignant.
The same logic can be applied to journalism, as well. Aside from finding their common story, Palestinian journalists need to reach out to the wider world, not only to their traditional circle of dedicated friends and supporters, but to mainstream society. If people truly appreciate the truth, especially from a humanist perspective, they cannot possibly support genocide and ethnic cleansing. And by ‘wider world’ I am hardly referring to London, Paris and New York, but to Africa, South America, Asia and the entire South.
Nations from this hemisphere can fully understand the pain and injustice of military occupation, colonisation, imperialism and apartheid. I fear that the emphasis on the need to counter Israeli ‘hasbara’ in the West has meant the allocation of a disproportionate amount of resources and energy in a few places, while ignoring the rest of the world, whose support has for long been the backbone of international solidarity.
They must not be taken for granted. The good news, however, is that Palestinians have been making great strides in the right direction, although with no thanks to the Palestinian leadership.
The key, now, is to be able to unify, streamline and build on those existing efforts so that such growing solidarity translates into greater success in raising global awareness and holding Israel accountable for its occupation and violations of human rights.
Dr Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com.
Merely being in the company of hundreds of Palestinian journalists and other media professionals from all over the world has been an uplifting experience. For many years, Palestinian media has been on the defensive, unable to articulate a coherent message, torn between factions and desperately trying to fend off the Israeli media campaign, along with its falsifications and unending propaganda or ‘hasbara’.
It is still too early to claim any kind of paradigm shift, but the second Tawasol Conference in Istanbul, which took place 18 to 19 May, served as an opportunity to consider the vastly changing media landscape, and to highlight the challenges and the opportunities facing Palestinians in their uphill battle.
Not only are Palestinians expected to demolish many years of Israeli disinformation, predicated on a make-believe historical discourse that has been sold to the world as fact, but also to construct their own lucid narrative that is free from the whims of factions and personal gains. It will not be easy, of course. My message in the “Palestine in the Media” conference, organized by the Palestine International Forum for Media and Communication is that, if the Palestinian leadership is failing to achieve political unity, at least Palestinian intellectuals must insist on the unity of their narrative.
Even the most compromising of Palestinians can acknowledge the centrality of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the destruction of their towns and villages in 1947-48.
They can – and should – also agree about the hideousness and violence of the occupation; the dehumanization at the military checkpoints; the increasingly shrinking spaces in the West Bank as a result of the illegal settlements and the colonisation of whatever remains of Palestine; the suffocating hold on Occupied Jerusalem (al-Quds); the injustice of the siege on Gaza, and the one-sided wars on the Gaza Strip that have killed over 4,000 people, mostly civilians, in the course of seven years, and much more.
Professor Nashaat Al-Aqtash from Birzeit University, perhaps more realistically, downgraded the expectations even further. “If we could only agree on how we present the narrative regarding Al-Quds and the illegal settlements, at least that would be a start,” he said. The obvious fact is that Palestinians have more in common than they would like to admit.
They are all victimised by the same circumstances, fighting the same occupation, suffering the same violations of human rights, and facing the same future outcome resulting from the same conflict. However, many are strangely incapable of disconnecting from their tribal-like, factional affiliations. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having ideological leanings and supporting one political party over another.
It becomes a moral crisis, though, when the party affiliation becomes stronger than one’s affiliation to the collective, national struggle for freedom. Sadly, many are still trapped in this thinking. But things are also changing; they always do. After over two decades of the failure of the so-called ‘peace process’, and the rapid increase in the colonisation of the Occupied Territories in addition to the extreme violence used to achieve these ends, many Palestinians are waking up to the painful facts.
There can be no freedom for the Palestinian people without unity and without resistance. Resistance does not always have to mean a gun and a knife, but rather the utilisation of the energies of a nation at home and in ‘shatat’ (Diaspora), along with the galvanisation of the pro-justice and peace communities all over the world.
There must soon be a movement in which Palestinians declare a global struggle against apartheid, involving all Palestinians, their leadership, factions, civil society and communities everywhere. They must speak in one voice, declare one objective, and state the same demands, over and over again. It is bewildering to realise that a nation that has been so wronged for so long being so greatly misunderstood, while those who have done the harm are largely absolved and seen as if the victim.
Sometime in the late 1950s, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion became aware of the need to unify the Israeli Zionist narrative regarding the conquering and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.According to a revelation by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Ben-Gurion worried that the Palestinian refugee crisis was not going to go away without a consistent Israeli message that the Palestinians left their land of their own accord, following instructions to do so by various Arab governments.
Of course, that, too, was a fabrication, but many supposed truths often start with a sheer lie. He delegated several academics to present the most falsified, yet coherent, story on the exodus of the Palestinians.
The outcome was Doc GL-18/17028 of 1961. That document has, ever since, served as the cornerstone of the Israeli ‘hasbara’ concerning the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The Palestinians ran away and were not driven out, was the crux of the message. Israel has been repeating this falsehood for over 55 years and, of course, many have believed it.
Not until recently, thanks to the effort of a burgeoning group of Palestinian historians – and courageous Israelis – who counter the propaganda, a Palestinian narrative is taking shape, although much is yet to be done to offset the damage that has already taken place. In fact, a real victory for the truth would only happen when the Palestinian narrative is no longer seen as a ‘counter narrative’ but as a sovereign story of its own, free from the confines of defensiveness and the burden of a history laden with lies and half-truths.
The only way I see that happening is when Palestinian intellectuals invest more time and effort in studying and narrating a ‘people’s history’ of Palestine, which could finally humanise the Palestinian people, and challenge the polarised perception of them as terrorists or perpetual victims. When the ordinary individual becomes the centre of history, the outcomes are more relatable, more effective and poignant.
The same logic can be applied to journalism, as well. Aside from finding their common story, Palestinian journalists need to reach out to the wider world, not only to their traditional circle of dedicated friends and supporters, but to mainstream society. If people truly appreciate the truth, especially from a humanist perspective, they cannot possibly support genocide and ethnic cleansing. And by ‘wider world’ I am hardly referring to London, Paris and New York, but to Africa, South America, Asia and the entire South.
Nations from this hemisphere can fully understand the pain and injustice of military occupation, colonisation, imperialism and apartheid. I fear that the emphasis on the need to counter Israeli ‘hasbara’ in the West has meant the allocation of a disproportionate amount of resources and energy in a few places, while ignoring the rest of the world, whose support has for long been the backbone of international solidarity.
They must not be taken for granted. The good news, however, is that Palestinians have been making great strides in the right direction, although with no thanks to the Palestinian leadership.
The key, now, is to be able to unify, streamline and build on those existing efforts so that such growing solidarity translates into greater success in raising global awareness and holding Israel accountable for its occupation and violations of human rights.
Dr Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com.
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