Ido Aharoni: Spreading Disinformation on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Utica, NY
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Ido Aharoni, Consul for Media and Public Affairs at the Consulate General of Israel in New York City, came to the small city of Utica on 22 June and spoke at the Jewish Community Center (JCC) on the current situation in Israel/Palestine.
Earlier in the day, I was invited to ask him a few questions for a story I was doing on the conflict for a local rag. He was at the JCC in a luncheon with several local ministers and pastors who were involved with the increasingly popular divestment campaigns. I was led in the room early and caught the last fifteen minutes of the luncheon. Question after question, comment after comment was raised by the pastors concerned for the plight of the Palestinians.
Mr. Aharoni’s demeanor was calm, restrained – it seemed as if he truly cared about the Palestinians’ cause and meager existence… at least in front of this particular crowd. His voice would change drastically later that day when he spoke to a bunch of Israeli nationalists.
But while I was in the luncheon he spoke of the “security fence†(Israelispeak for apartheid wall) and stated that the fence would not be removed until the PA starts to clamp down on militant Palestinian groups. When a pastor voiced his concern about Palestinian women in childbirth facing complications at checkpoints, Aharoni’s bluntly responded that “it’s war.â€
He tried to leave on a positive note and declared that it’s all just a matter of understanding and getting the right news (American corporate media in his perception has a strong bias against Israel).
The pastors left and I asked him questions about what exactly it is he does. In sum, he’s engaged in media relations, community outreach, visiting campuses, and “pure public relations [in an effort to] re-brand Israel in the eyes of Americans.†He gave me the company line about how similar America and Israel are, how Israel is democratic and pluralistic, how Israel is safer than the US, and on and on.
I asked him if his office had any position on the Palestinian resistance and solidarity events at both Rutgers University and Colombia University. He told me that he spoke at the “Israel Inspires†event at Rutgers, but also told me that his office does not get too involved with campus affairs. He implied that a number of students at Rutgers who were involved in the anti-war, anti-globalization and other “anti†movements just threw Israel into the mix – apparently, to him, these students don’t have the intellectual capacity to determine what is just and unjust and have a fetish with being anti anything. He also wrote off New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) for being unfounded and anti-Semitic in his poem “Somebody Blew Up America†which eventually resulted in his being purged from his position.
In the evening, he gave his speech to a group of Jews at the JCC, most of them elderly, most of them very nationalistic. A couple of folks spoke before him. One woman voiced her concern about Americans’ gross misconceptions about Judaism (she pointed out that some people still believe Jews have horns!) and then briefly reminded us that in the 1930s the Germans were highly educated people but taught their children that the German race was superior, among other things.
At this point, an elderly gentleman muttered that Palestinians teach their children the same views of racial superiority. Behind him was a woman rocking back and forth, wearing a bright orange tee-shirt with the words “Israel belongs to the Jews!†Around her neck dangled an enormous, diamond-studded Star of David bling.
Ido Aharoni finally came in the room, albeit a little late, and described the time he recently spent with Ariel Sharon in New York City. It did not take long for me to notice that a very different Aharoni was speaking to the Jews than was speaking earlier to the Christian pastors. He struck at the emotional chords of the crowd, softening and slowing his voice when speaking of 11 September, 2001, suicide bombings of buses, the Munich Massacre of ’79. His voice would crescendo into a stinging, powerful defiance when he spoke of “violent†Palestinians, (stateless) terrorism, the PA, PLO, Arafat. He again spoke of the “security fence,†saying, “The fence saves lives – period!â€
He did admit a few things about Israel when he stated, “no democracy should engage in the elimination of its enemies gladly.†I guess the Israeli government does not have a smile on its face when it’s ridding the land of Palestinians.
His overall language in regard to “the nature of the beast,†as he stated, of his enemy, was underscored and riddled with a white man’s burden tone. I also found it interesting that not once did he ever utter the name “Palestineâ€. It is never Israel and Palestine to the Consulate: it’s Israel and “the Palestiniansâ€.
Aharoni further disinformed the people present by saying that “there is no second Intifada†because it was not spontaneous and was largely orchestrated by Arafat. This statement stands in sharp contrast even with people like the head of Shin Bet, Ami Ayalon, who stated that “…Arafat neither prepared nor triggered the Intifada. The explosion was spontaneous…â€
Even more frightening was how Aharoni painted the Palestinian resistance and all Palestinians in general, as a violent, democracy-hating force. To him there are no select violent or hostile individuals; rather, there is a total of “1.3 million hostile Palestinians.â€
What topped this off though, and I would not even mention this if I believed Aharoni had no legitimacy in what he’s saying (the man just met and talked at large about the conflict with Sharon for a few days), was his chilling statement, “There is a price-tag attached for your historical mistakes†and therefore “the days are over with working with the Palestinians.†Even though Aharoni believes Arafat to have been the main problem in the conflict, he also believes that “historical mistakes†should never be forgotten and should impede and interfere with a future feasible solution.
Now, Ido Aharoni is no run of the mill, low level Israeli spokesperson; he works in sink with the high echelons of the Israeli government and military; he was highly involved with the Oslo Peace Accords. When someone like Aharoni states that Israel will not work with Palestinians anymore, fear of what will come is the least of our worries – fear of what already has arrived should be in the front of our minds.
But even Aharoni is accompanied with fear. His voice was shaken a little when he spoke of the possibility of there not being a Jewish majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, for this will be, he asserts, “the end of Zionism as we know it.†His fears are well grounded. If history repeats itself then perhaps today’s modern apartheid state (Israel) will be overrun by the blooming populations of the Bantustans (Occupied Territories) and a binational state with the foreign notion of “one person – one vote†may be implemented.
But we cannot and should not stand idly by while Palestinians are being slaughtered in the East and a strong campaign of propaganda and disinformation is being spread in the West.
Looking back, when I saw him speak at the JCC a few years ago I asked him why the IDF, when it blows up cars of suspected militants, also kills civilian bystanders in the process. His response? “There is no moral equivalence between the death of an Israeli child and the death of a Palestinian child. Whenever an Israeli child is killed it is because he’s a target… whenever a Palestinian child is killed… it’s an accident.†I leave you with one question: how many “accidents†must it take for us to have our own Intifada in defense of the oppressed Palestinians?
 -writing from the Valley of the Mohawk,
Subcomandante Maslauskas