The Luntz report: Secretly Spinning Israel's War Crimes

"I have a good friend who says, ‘You sing a lot about the past; you can’t live in the past, you know.’ I say to him, I can go outside and pick up a rock that’s older than the oldest song you know, and bring it back in here and drop it on your foot. The past didn’t go anywhere, did it? It’s right here, right now." –

‘Utah’ Phillips, American folk singer/poet, (1935-2008)

For the 1.8 million Palestinians forcibly confined to that sliver of land called the Gaza Strip – barely 20 percent of their original homeland until 1948 – the distinction between ‘present’ and ‘past’ is simply that, sixty-six years on, bare existence itself has become a never-ending nightmare.

To put the ‘problem’ in perspective, Israel was ‘born’ in 1948 by the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians, forcibly driven out – and into refugee camps – from their original homes in what was then Palestine. Initially, Israel occupied far more than 50% of their land.

On Israel’s subsequent 1967 Six-Day War Encyclopaedia Britannica notes: "In response to the apparent mobilization of its Arab neighbours, early on the morning of June 5, Israel staged a sudden preemptive air assault and destroyed Egypt’s air force on the ground; later that day, it incapacitated a great deal of the Jordanian and Syrian air power as well. Without cover from the air, the Arab armies were left vulnerable to attack, and, as a result, the Israeli victory on the ground was also overwhelming. By the time the United Nations cease-fire came into effect on June 10, Israeli units had driven Syrian forces back from the Golan Heights, taken control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and driven, Jordanian forces from the West Bank. Notably, the Israelis were left in sole control of [the Holy City of] Jerusalem. The warfare resulted in the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees and brought more than one million Palestinians in the occupied territories under Israeli rule."

Since then, through continuing Israeli expansion of illegal settlements, Palestinians have now been squeezed into less than 20% of their own land, and even that extent is constantly shrinking.

Robert Fisk, award-winning author of The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East, writing for London’s Independent on July 10 noted that the conflict always was, and is, about land. "The Israelis of Sederot are coming under rocket fire from the Palestinians of Gaza and now the Palestinians are getting their comeuppance. Sure.

"But wait, how come all those Palestinians are crammed into Gaza in the first place?" asked Fisk, and provided the answer. "Well, their families once lived, didn’t they, in what is now called Israel? And got chucked out – or fled for their lives – when the Israeli state was created (in 1948)."

Fisk explained that the people who lived in Sederot in early 1948 were not Israelis, but Palestinian Arabs. "Their village was called Huj. Nor were they enemies of Israel. Two years earlier, these same Arabs had actually hidden Jewish Haganah fighters from the British Army. But when the Israeli army turned up at Huj on 31 May 1948, they expelled all the Arab villagers – to the Gaza Strip! Refugees, they became. David Ben Gurion (Israel’s first Prime Minister) called it an "unjust and unjustified action". Too bad. The Palestinians of Huj were never allowed back."

And today, well over 6,000 descendants of the Palestinians from Huj – now Sederot – live in the squalor of Gaza, among the ‘terrorists’ Israel is claiming to destroy and who are shooting at what was Huj," wrote Fisk, and added: "Interesting story."

Patrick Cockburn, writing in Counter Punch magazine, chose to focus on the marked ‘enhancement’ in recent years of the PR skills of Israeli spokesmen, and especially "the slick and less aggressive manner" of Mark Regev, the official Israeli Government spokesman.

The reason for this noticeable improvement in PR skills: the playbook they’re using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe. Written by the expert Republican pollster and political strategist Dr Frank Luntz, the study was commissioned five years ago by a group called The Israel Project for use by those "who are on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel". The Luntz report was written in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009, when 1,387 Palestinians and nine Israelis were killed.

Wrote Cockburn: "Every one of the 112 pages in the booklet is marked ‘not for distribution or publication’ and it is easy to see why. The Luntz report, officially entitled The Israel Project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary, was leaked almost immediately to Newsweek Online, but its true importance has seldom been appreciated. It should be required reading for everybody, especially journalists, interested in any aspect of Israeli policy because of its ‘dos and don’ts’ for Israeli spokesmen."

The booklet is full of meaty advice about how Israelis should shape their answers for different audiences. For example, "Americans agree that Israel ‘has a right to defensible borders’. But it does you no good to define exactly what those borders should be. Avoid talking about borders in terms of pre- or post-1967; it only serves to remind Americans of Israel’s military history. For instance, support for Israel’s right to defensible borders drops from a heady 89 per cent to under 60 per cent when you talk about it in terms of 1967."

How about the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled in 1948 and in the following years, and who are not allowed to go back to their homes? Here Dr Luntz has subtle advice for spokesmen, saying that "the right of return is a tough issue for Israelis to communicate effectively because much of Israeli language sounds like the ‘separate but equal’ words of the 1950s segregationists and the 1980s advocates of Apartheid. The fact is, Americans don’t like, don’t believe and don’t accept the concept of ‘separate but equal’. So call it a ‘demand’, because Americans don’t like people who make demands. "Then say ‘Palestinians aren’t content with their own state. Now they’re demanding territory inside Israel’. Other suggestions: say that the right of return might become part of a final settlement "at some point in the future". [It’s the ultimate ‘never-never’ plan!]

Much of Dr Luntz’s advice is about the tone and presentation of the Israeli case. He says it is absolutely crucial to exude empathy for Palestinians: "Persuadables [sic] won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Show empathy for BOTH sides!" This may explain why a number of Israeli spokesman are almost lachrymose about the plight of Palestinians being pounded by Israeli bombs and shells.

In one sentence in bold type, underlined and with capitalisation, Dr Luntz says that Israeli spokesmen or political leaders "MUST NEVER, EVER JUSTIFY THE DELIBERATE SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENT WOMEN AND CHILDREN" and they must aggressively challenge those who accuse Israel of such a crime. [Israeli spokesmen struggled to be true to this prescription when 16 Palestinians were killed in a UN shelter in Gaza on Thursday, July 24.]

Dr Luntz cites as an example of an ‘effective Israeli sound bite’ one which reads: "I particularly want to reach out to Palestinian mothers who have lost their children. No parent should have to bury their child.

Ah a truly heartfelt effort at ‘softening,’ genocide — after the event of course.

Selvam Canagaratna.