Watch the film the Israel lobby didn’t want you to see

In January 2017, Al Jazeera presented a revealing documentary about the British Israel lobby. A similar report about the lobby in the US was covered in dust for over a year, under heavy pressure from Israel and the US. However, it is now on display at Electronic Intifada. The Israeli government is interfering directly with politics and elections in the US (but is not punished for that).

In the same way as his colleague in Great Britain, undercover employee of Al Jazeera ‘Tony’ managed to penetrate into the inner sanctum of the Israel lobby in the US. In a series of four episodes, the documentary unmasks how the embassy of Israel spies in the US and falsely accuses or intimidates citizens who stand up for the rights of the Palestinian population. Their attention goes in particular to the BDS movement(Boycott-Divest-Sanction) against the occupation and colonization of the Palestinian territories and against apartheid in Israel itself.

The Israeli Ministry for Strategic Affairs has been specially established to set up secret operations against the growing sympathy for the Palestinian cause, in particular for the growing support for the BDS movement on the university campuses. As with the British series, all 70 people mentioned in the documentary were given the opportunity to view the recordings and give them a reply. Only three people did that.

Heavy pressure proves the claims of the documentary

Although the film was already finished in October 2017, the recordings remained a year in the vaults of Al Jazeera. Qatar, the country where the headquarters of Al Jazeera is located, came under severe pressure from the US government not to broadcast the series. Ironically, this stubborn pressure on Qatar proved the premise of the documentary, namely that there is indeed an Israel lobby in the US and that it has a lot of power and influence. They managed to lobby several members of Congress to pressurize the Ministry of Justice to register Al Jazeera as a 'foreign agent', based on a counter-espionage law from the 1930s.

The Palestinian-American news site Electronic Intifada was able to obtain copies of the documentary. The first two parts are already available, parts three and four will follow.

For the people who speak French: The French pro-Palestinian website OrientXXI publishes the documentary with French subtitles.

In the first part, Julia Reifkind, employee of the embassy, gives some details about her job. She explains how she uses fake Facebook profiles to get in touch with pro-Palestinian activists and to infiltrate during their activities. She confirms that she and others are doing their work in direct consultation with the government in Israel, through the Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

Jacob Baime, director of the Israel on Campus Coalition organization, explains that they have top software of the highest quality to "detect within 30 seconds or less" the beginning of the organization of pro-Palestinian activities at the Internet, anywhere in the US.

Comment

What is remarkable about this documentary is that the lobbyists for Israel make no effort at all to refute the allegations that pro-Palestinian activists express during their actions. All efforts go towards create perceptions. For example, a lobbyist explains to candidate lobbyists the importance of word use. "Never say boycott movement, always say hatred movement."

It is also important to use interchangeably the words Jew and Israeli, Jewish and Israeli. One of the lobbyists in the documentary says it literally: "you discredit the messenger as a way of discrediting the message." Attacking the credibility of activists is mainly done by constantly remembering that activists' motives are anti-Semitic. These tactics are not unique to the Israel lobby in the US. In Britain, since his first election as President of Labor, there has been a continuous smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn.

Intriguing is the commentary of one of the lobbyists about the situation in Europe: "Europe is lost and it's basically over and they're turning a lot of attention now to the US." The first part concentrates on sabotaging pro-Palestinian activism on university campuses. In the second part, another lobbyist says that this is actually useless and superfluous: "We should probably focus on the Congress in Washington, where the real power lies."

Watch the film the Israel lobby didn’t want you to see.

Part1:

Part2: