Day 69 roundtable: Is Israel losing the war?

“Sexual humiliation and harassment has been used as a deliberate policy in torture chambers within Israel for a long time,” academic Abdaljawad Omar told us on Thursday’s livestream.

He was responding to the mass arrest campaigns and the images that have been circulating of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, who have been stripped, blindfolded and paraded around by Israeli soldiers in front of cameras.

“There has been this Israeli yearning, if we want to position it as such, to shame Palestinian manhood and masculinity through this parading of men being semi-naked or mostly naked in front of cameras in a show of Israeli dominance, power over Palestinian masculinity and manhood,” Abdaljawad said.

But, he explained, Israel’s propaganda efforts are backfiring.

“Most people see this as a desperate attempt by Israel to showcase some sort of success, so they actually see it as Israeli weakness and not an Israeli strength.”

Israel is attempting to craft an image of victory – using the brutal spectacle of mass arrests of civilians – as its military hides casualty figures from the ground war in Gaza, says Jon Elmer.

“It does seem that Israel came out of the fighting pause and got feedback from their focus groups on what has to be done to build an image of victory that allows you to withdraw from this war with some semblance of at least operational legitimacy – because we know they’ve lost moral legitimacy, so they want to have a symbol of victory,” Jon said.

“For the Israelis, because they don’t have the operational or moral legitimacy to fall back on, their principal war-fighting strategy is to stay alive. And part of the brutality of the massacres in the Gaza Strip is cowardice – it’s cowardice of their soldiers who don’t want to go and risk themselves.”

Jon, Abdaljawad and Ali Abunimah analyzed a number of videos released by Palestinian resistance brigades over the last week that show the effectiveness of Palestinian-made weaponry against the Israeli army.

At the beginning of the broadcast, I presented a news roundup of the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza and the West Bank.

And Asa Winstanley talked about his latest piece on the official Israeli army admission that a significant number of the hundreds of Israelis who died on 7 October were killed by Israel itself, and not by Hamas or other Palestinian resistance factions.

Watch the broadcast above, or listen via Soundcloud below.

day_69.mp3

Download day_69.mp3 (79.08 MB)

Comments

need for propaganda

Permalink Blake Alcott replied on Fri, 12/15/2023 - 15:41

I think it was Jon who just said one needs propaganda less if one has truth and morality on one's side. I'd like to caution about that: My research on my reference book on the Mandate (The Rape of Palestine) showed me that the Palestinian leadership during the Mandate felt that way, too, but that was a mistake.
The Palestinians need the strongest, cheekiest propaganda they can manage. EI is doing it's part, but I'm afraid having truth and morality on your side leads to fatal complacency. Thanks and love your live streams,
Blake Alcott