Blue Star Chronicles

I ran across a story on al-Jazeera about the public relations campaign Israel is conducting featuring a few of the beautiful women of the Israel Defense Forces. I couldn’t help myself. I read it.

I think it’s generally a good idea to keep up with what the enemy is reporting.

Their version of the story takes the truth and twists it to paint Israel as evil and conniving. No surprises there. The title of the article is a give away of what to expect in the article, Half-naked female soldiers: Israel’s latest propaganda campaign.

They use phrases like, ‘Israel is desperate to improve it’s image’ and that Israel is trying to ‘manipulate people who only link the Jewish state with wars, occupation and brutal aggression against the Palestinians.’

The article goes on to explain that Maxim refused to do the article, so Israel sent them pictures of their 12 top models. They explain it was a ‘Trojan horse’ to present Israel as a modern country with pretty women. The obvious implication is that these were the only pretty women they could find and that Israel had to trick Maxim into publishing the photos.

Ahhh, the choice of words can be so powerful. They can sooth or inflame.

Some of the words and phrases used in the article include: women in their underwear, indecent, pornography, cheap tourism tactics. At one point they refer to the women as ‘naked’ although there are no nude photos in the collection.

The article is full of quotes that have been tampered with to put an entirely different context to them.

What was really said:

The idea originated in the media office at Israel’s consulate in New York, where research showed that Israel meant little to young American men.

“Males that age have no feeling toward Israel one way or another, and we view that as a problem, so we came up with an idea that would be appealing to them,” said David Dorfman, a media adviser at the consulate.

How al-Jazeera twisted it:

Recent polls show that Israel isn’t well-regarded in the country’s closest ally, the United States, where the majority of young men believe that the Jewish state is “too religious and too militaristic.”

The al-Jazeera article goes on to state that this isn’t about promoting tourism or improving Israel’s image, but sex is being used to promote Zionism and ‘gloss over the bitter realities of Israel’s occupation and apartheid.’

See what I mean about the use of words. The same story told using different phrases and words have completely different meanings and impact the reader in completely different ways.

But then, why would we expect anything different from al-Jazeera.

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