Hasbara helps 'Israel' when exploiting the Holocaust fails: Haaretz
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Hagai El-Ad, in an op-ed published in Haaretz, explains how the Hasbara machine saves "Israel's" image when it is exposed to the world for its genocide in Gaza.
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Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gather for a protest against the Israeli-led genocide in Gaza ahead of the final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden, Saturday, May 11, 2024 (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
In 1955, German-American historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt said Israeli settlers treated Palestinians and Arabs still on Palestinian lands in a way that would cause international backlash against the Israeli occupation.
Hagai El-Ad, the former executive director of the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, revisits Arendt's declaration and says that it took the world almost 70 years to start echoing her words.
In an op-ed published in Haaretz, Hagai detailed how the Israeli regime exploited every memory of the Holocaust and used it as a shield to commit its genocide based on the Nazi book of antisemitic crimes.
The fact was expedited when Benjamin Netanyahu came into office almost in 1996. "Israel", under Netanyahu, was still eradicating Palestinians, not only gradually, but publicly with the declaration of the 2018 Basic Law on "Israel" as the Nation-State of the Jewish people, which gives settlers the right to live on every inch of Palestinian land, extending jurisdiction to lawfully displace Palestinians from their homes and lands.
Hagai argues that it was not only support for Netanyahu that effectuated the law, but the general settler consensus that aimed at frustrating the people of Palestine into believing they were defeated, specifically after positive developments were materialized in the normalization deal with Saudi Arabia.
However, they were proven wrong, because Palestinians did not leave despite all the death and destruction they had experienced, and were now experiencing since October 7, 2023. In light of their righteousness, the recycled Hasbara PR move the Israeli occupation has exhausted began to lose effect.
The Hasbara at service
The world has now begun to think about the reality of what "Israel" is and its genocide in Gaza has been taken to the International Court of Justice. To counter the consequences "Israel" would suffer at the international condemnation of its crimes, Netanyahu repumped the Hasbara cry and accused everyone and everything of being antisemitic to "whitewash his crimes" and avoid prosecution. This has been true for years, but especially when an investigation was launched against the Israeli Prime Minister by the International Criminal Court.
To this day, however, it has failed to issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu or any Israeli war criminals. The International Court of Justice has also failed to adequately prosecute "Israel" for its genocide in Gaza. El-Ad, for his part, says this is because the court itself is controlled by highly influential attorneys and military officials who have approved these crimes.
Despite having legal protection, "Israel" is slowly losing its hue and is being exposed to the world in a way that even the exploitation of the Holocaust would not be able to save its reputation among the international community.
El-Ad, however, says the Hasbara is on call and would step in, once again, to regain public support by turning the world against Arabs and Palestinians, because, as he argued, they do not see them as equals.
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