Debunking the 3 D’s of Israeli hasbara – distortions, diversions and defamations [View all]

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/12/distortions-diversions-defamations

On November 27, 2015, a meeting was held in downtown Vancouver, Canada under the title “First Nations & Palestinians at the Frontline of Resistance” organized by the Seriously Free Speech Committee and supported by another 10 community groups (of which Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver was one). On the day of the meeting, the local Zionist apologist paper the Jewish Independent ran an editorial “Co-opting history”, full of the Israeli Hasbara 3 D’s – Distortions, Diversions and Defamations.

Their editorial stated: “The obvious intention is to equate the history of colonial settlement in North America, Canada in particular, with the actions of Israel toward Palestinians.”

Wrong. The editorial conveniently refuses to recognize the Zionist project as settler colonialism, and therefore will not acknowledge that the intention was to draw parallels between settler colonialism in North America and Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine, in addition to exposing “the actions of Israel toward Palestinians”.

The editorial went on to claim: “The concept is flawed at its core, of course, because, as the Palestinian narrative often does, it portrays the Jews as colonial occupiers of Arab land, while denying the legitimacy of ancient and modern claims to the Jewish homeland.”