Chapter 1
1 INTRODUCTION
The Israel-Zionist Lobby in the United States of America (U.S.A) continues to play an effective role in the American internal and foreign policies, especially towards the Palestinian-Israel conflict (Lieberman, 2014). In 2000, one American official at Camp David agreement said, "Far too often, we functioned as Israel's lawyer" (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2006).
This role has been played by The Lobby for many decades and the primary goal is to get support from the Americans towards various Jewish and Israeli issues. Given the array of issues, the Lobby functions as advocacy groups, non-profit organizations, traditional and digital media (social media such as Facebook).
Over the last decade, the Lobby's organizations have become formidable in their effort to dictate their very own narrative of the Israel-Zionist conflict. This effort has led to the engineering of the American people's consent, opinions and attitudes when it comes to the Israeli and Jewish peoples’ issues (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007). In line with this, the present study explores The Israel Lobby's use of media, discourse, narrative, representation, embedded ideology, power relations, language and communication used on the Israel Lobby's Facebook pages.
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The evolution diffusion of communication technologies into civilians' lives over the last decade have enabled politicians, organizations, Lobby and advocacy groups, etc., to control and have a major effect on the public opinion across various countries. Social media, especially Facebook, reaches a huge number of people, and Americans are no exception of this. By the first quarter of 2018, it had 2.17 billion monthly active users worldwide and around 230 millions of them were Americans (Kemp, 2018). This study focuses on the Israel Lobby's Facebook pages in terms of form and content of their discourse (discourse construction, form, themes, representation, ideology and power relations).
In order to achieve what has been stated above, the present study uses qualitative methodology and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach to analyze the most active and interactive Israel-Zionist Lobby's Facebook pages which are: StandWithUs (SWU), United with Israel (UWI), Stand for Israel (SFI), Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and The Israeli Project (TIP). This study is theoretically guided by "the Engineering of Consent" (EOC) approach, and the Discourse Theory (DT).
This first chapter presents an introduction to this study. It consists of Background of the Study, Problem Statement, Research Aims and Objectives, Research Questions, Significance of the Study, and Limitations and Scope of the Study.
1.2 Background of the Study
The continuous Palestinian-Israeli conflict practically started in 1948 through Jewish occupation of the Palestinian land. This called for Israelis "declaration of Israeli state",
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and what Palestinians consider it as "Al-Nakba"1 meaning (the Catastrophe). The Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been described as one of the most gruesome conflicts in the world. It is said that the Israeli occupies more than (80%) of the Palestinian land. The initiation and origins of the conflict can be traced back to the 1897 Basle Conference which was organized by the Zionist movement in Switzerland when the Zionist movement decided to choose Palestine as a national homeland for Jews and declare their intention to establish Israel in Palestine (Munayer & Loden, 2014; Neal, .)1995
The Israel Lobby in the U.S. is an alliance of mainly Jewish collectives or individuals who seek and make efforts to shape and influence the American foreign policy and Americans attitudes. The Lobby also is mainly concerned with the unwavering support for Israel, its interests, policies and attitudes especially towards the Middle East. Typically, the Lobby does not consist of only American Jewish people. It also includes seculars, Christians, and other groups (Lieberman, 2009; Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007, .)2009
The roots of the Israel Lobby in the U.S. dates back to 1941 when the Jewish Agency and Israel was first represented in the United Nations. In the 1950's, American Jewish people established the American Zionist Council (AZC), and the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs (AZCPA) which in 1959 was renamed as American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Both organizations have been working as
1 "The 1948 Palestinian exodus, also known as the Nakba (Arabic: النكبة, al-Nakbah, lit. "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm"), occurred when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war. The term Nakba also refers to the period of war itself and events affecting Palestinians from December 1947 to January 1949." (Zochrot Organization, 2014, para. 1).
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the first Public Relations units of the Israel Lobby in the United States of America. In and around this time, other important Zionist organizations also operated e.g. Zionist Organization of America. All these organizations worked as the mouthpiece of the issues concerning the Jewish and Israel Lobby mission (Kenen, 1981; Verbeeten, 2006).
According to Malik (2017), the core agenda of most Israel Lobby's organizations in the United States are; aiding financial and ammunition subventions for Israel, seeking financial support and attempting to influence actions of the White House, influencing public opinion through academics and the regulation of media outlets such as The New York Times and C-SPAN.
Since the Israeli-Arabic October War in 1973, America has been supporting Israel much more than it does any other country, especially against the Middle Eastern countries. This support has been achieved through the influential role of the Israel Lobby in the United States (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007). As of 2003, the total amount of financial support from U.S. to Israel is around $140 billion dollars, given that U.S. provides Israel with about $3 billion annually to develop its artillery concurrently with giving Israel an access to intelligent information and ignoring its nuclear weapons project (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2006). Moreover, the U.S has been notably supporting Israel diplomatically since 1982. And in 2017, the U.S. has used her veto power for forty three times against the United Nations Security Council's resolutions when they criticized Israel (Okhovat, 2011; The New Arab, 2017). In addition to this, the U.S.
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has played a vital role in the negotiations of the 1993 Oslo Accords2. They clearly supported and backed the Israeli agenda.
During Bush's presidency, the main strategy excogitated towards the Middle Eastern issues aimed at improving the Israeli strategic relations and security. This was proved in the invasion of Iraq and the U.S.’s attitude in the last war in Lebanon. They opposed calls for ceasefire according to the Israeli demands. According to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), "The United States and Israel have formed a unique partnership to meet the growing strategic threats in the Middle East. This cooperative effort provides significant benefits for both the U.S. and Israel" (AIPAC, 2015). The U.S. justified its support for Israel on the grounds that it is a weak state surrounded by enemies, and that it is the only democratic country in the region (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007). They also justified it with the fact Jewish people have suffered heinous human rights violations and hence they deserve preferential treatments. This has made Israel to be morally superior to its enemies' behavior, and fighting "Islamic" terrorism, especially after 11 September attack (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2007). On the other hand, these justifications are contrary to the truth, that Israel today is the strongest power in the Middle East. It is the only state that has nuclear programs and weapons in the region. It refuses to grant Palestinians their own
2 The 1993 Oslo Accords "Is an agreement signed between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on September 13, 1993, meant to effectively bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to its end by means of territorial concessions and facilitating the creation of the Palestinian Authority. The accords, representing a milestone in Israeli-Palestinian relations, were finalized in Oslo, Norway, on August 20, 1993. The official signing ceremony was held in Washington the following September, with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat representing both sides and US President Bill Clinton serving as their witness." (Ynetnews, 2009, para. 1).
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democratic state, and it is controlling the lives of roughly 6.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, occupied Palestine (1948), and West Bank (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2006).
Consequently, during the first two years of America’s president Donald J. Trump’s time in the office, he adopted the Israel Lobby and AIPAC’s agenda on the Middle East. He promised before winning the position of the American president election in 2016 that he’d move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem; pushing the Congress and America’s allies to strengthen the nuclear deal with Iran, cutting funds to the Palestinians as a means of forcing them to align more with Israel and the West. In recent times, United States representatives are seen to be releasing strong statements against the United Nations members who oppose the U.S. policies toward Israel (Kampeas, 2018).
As it has been mentioned earlier, the Israel-Zionist Lobby in the U.S. has formed a good number of influential organizations that impacts the U.S.A foreign policy; AIPAC being one of the most powerful and well-known ones. It was ranked as the second most influential organization in the U.S. (International Business Publications, 2009). AIPAC and other key organizations of the Lobby are run by extremists who generally support major policies of Israel's Likud party (right wing) (AIPAC, 2017). The Lobby has two main strategies to get the U.S. support. First, it has the influence and pressure on both the Congress and the executive branch to support Israel in their decisions. Secondly, it ensures that the U.S. public discourse represents Israel positively way, by repeating the Israel-Zionist narratives and myths about Israel- Palestinian conflict to prevent critical comments that could make the Americans critique Israel (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2006).
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Accordingly, pro-Israel organizations work hard to influence the American media, think tanks and academic institutions. Numerous of those organizations are funded and ran by people who are committed to the Israeli agenda. The Lobby's perspective of Israel is widely reflected in the mainstream media because the majority of American commentators are pro-Israel. For example, Bartley, one editor of the Wall Street Journals, once stated, "Shamir, Sharon, or Bibi, whatever those guys want is pretty much fine by me" (Mearsheimer & Walt, 2006, p. 19). The Lobby devises numerous strategies in confronting the anti-Israel people. These strategies include writing letters, organizing campaigns, demonstrations and boycotts against these individuals, collectives and media outlets (Barringer, 2002). Some American mainstream media that prominently provide a pro-Israel editorial policy include: New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Washington Times, New Republic, and Weekly Standard (Lieberman, 2009).
One tool that has largely aided the efforts of all of the above-mentioned groups, strategies of the Israel Lobby in the United States is social media. It has been used in political actions, protest movements and public media campaigns, and it has become a coordinating tool for political movements and governments. Israel-Zionist Lobby uses the same technologies and platforms to mobilize and increase pro-Israel sentiments. For example, they convey a positive representation and coverage about the state of Israel (Ayalon, 2015; Nir, 2005). Since 2013, the Israeli government has collaborated with the Israel lobby's media to engage in recruiting social media and digital "cover units" to defeat a wide range of enemies who provide anti-Israel discourse in all fields. At a digital diplomacy conference in 2016, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "Israel is banking on social media to win the hearts and minds of the 7
public" (Ahren, 2017, para. 1). It coordinates the lobby's media in the U.S. and supplies them with posts, publications, and messages, which indicates that the Lobby is linked to the Israeli government (Ahren, 2017).
The Israel Lobby constantly works on the national branding of Israel. These images include the assumption that Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East and the defender of liberal democracy. It also portrays Israel as a global hub of technological and high-tech innovation, and it promotes Tel Aviv as a gay city with open and liberal mind, in other words a metropolitan city. They also portray the Palestinian terrorism as synonymous to ISIS’s i.e. just like ISIS that targets European countries, Palestinian terror targets Israel. Also, the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas are both dedicated to harming Israel and there is no difference between them, Palestinian terrorists attack Israel not because of the occupation but because of its liberal democratic nature and finally, Israel is leading a global war of "light" vs. "darkness" (Manor, 2015, para. 10).
The Lobby uses social media strategies to keep the Israeli narrative alive through varied social media accounts for the Lobby's organizations, leaders, media, and members. They shut down social media pages that belongs to opposite groups or anti- Israel media. They also organize social media propaganda campaigns and secret campaigns etc. (Abunimah, 2019; Silverstein, 2018).
1.3 Problem Statement
It is unmistakable as mentioned in the Background of the Study that the Israel Lobby has an influential role in pushing the Israel and Jewish issues in the American society. Indeed, it has managed to engineer the American public’s consent, opinions and 8
attitudes. They have done this through the discourse and narrative addressed in the traditional and new media platforms.
One of the major concerns and concentrations of this study is the representation of the Israel Lobby in the Palestinian Israel conflict. This representation helps to shape attitudes and perceptions of every element of the war. This representation also covers the attitudes and perception towards the Palestinians, Israeli, Jews, Muslims and other foreign involvements.
Despite the vital significance of the issue, there is dearth of scholarly focus on the Israeli lobby's role in the U.S. especially from the angle of engineering of the publics consent. This is largely because there is evident repercussion from studies like this because of the immense power and opportunities of the Lobby to influence academia across the world.
What is more, this study has even become even more indispensable with the use of social media by the Israel Lobby; hence investigating the, discourse used by them has become a sine qua non.
1.4 Research Aims & Objectives
The current study aims to:
1. Contribute to the scarcity of studies in this area by adopting CDA.
2. Investigate how the language, discourse and communication of the Israel Lobby on Facebook pages is used in engineering the Americans consent regarding to the
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Israeli narrative of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This study adopts the EOC approach in this regard.
Regarding the Israel-Zionist Lobby's position on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; this study explores discourse aspects such as, most frequently used terms, news sources, quotations, textual and linguistic features, symbols, ideologies and power relation.
Identify the abuse of power and ideologies within The Israel Lobby's discourse in the U.S. in respect to the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
Find out the themes and major topics that the Israel Lobby discusses and presents to its American audience.
Clarify the kind of relationship between the Israel Lobby and the U.S. in the Israeli perspective which made U.S. as the most pro-Israel country around the world.
Find out how the Israel lobby's Facebook pages represent the Palestinian-Israeli conflict including the representation of Palestinians, Arabs, Israelis, Jews, United States, and Jerusalem.
Define the prominent justifications highlighted by the Israel Lobby for the Israeli occupation crimes in Palestine.
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1.5 Research Questions
This study aims to explore how the content of the Israel-Zionist Lobby is used in engineering the American people's consent, opinions and attitudes through the Israel- Zionist lobby's Facebook pages. In line with this, the researcher seeks to answer the following research questions:
RQ1. How did the Israel Lobby in the U.S. construct their discourse and represent the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the selected Facebook pages in the year 2018?
RQ2. What are the main themes that emerged from the Israel Lobby's discourse in the selected Facebook pages in the year 2018?
RQ3. How did the selected Israel lobby's Facebook pages work to engineer the Americans consent regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict during 2018 in the U.S.? 1.6 Significance of the Study
This research is important for several reasons, the first of which is the lack of studies of scholarly efforts in this area and provide a deeper analysis and explanations about the Israel lobby; there is no study that has focused on the issue yet. Secondly, it is important because it examines the issue through the EOC approach. The third reason is that, a study like this will serve as an important resource for further studies in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Fourth, the study is expected to provide newer insights for researchers, journalists, Public Relations practitioners and governments etc.
What is more, this study will inform the Palestinians publics about the Israel-Zionist Lobby's narrative of their conflict and how it works. Also, the analysis of the Israel-
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Zionist Lobby's social media content provides a clear understanding of the Israel Lobby and how it engineers the world in the Palestinian- Israel conflict.
This study would also provide insights into important events and issues such as the relocation of U.S. embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, pulling out from the Western- Iranian nuclear agreement and other decisions that he took regarding to the Palestinian- Israel conflict (Begley, 2016).
Fifth, the study is also important is the sense that it buttresses other studies that has talked about how social media, big data and new forms of technology are used in engineering the consent of the publics.
1.7 Limitations and Scope of the Study
The current study focuses on the discourse, of the Israel-Zionist Lobby's Facebook pages. It specifically centers on the English language content of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 2018. The Israel Lobby's social media pages and websites of organizations are examined by the researcher and after scrutinizing it, the most popular and interactive five pages are selected for this study. These pages are (StandWithUs, United with Israel, Stand for Israel, Christians United for Israel, The Israel Project).
Furthermore, the researcher chose Facebook because it is the most popular social media platform that the Israel Lobby uses in the U.S.
This study is limited in its focus on content in the year 2018. The study focuses on this year because, first, it comes after the America’s 2016 presidential election which enable the researcher to identify the new president’s policies as it affects the
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Palestinian-Israel conflict in favor of Israel (O. Abu Arqoub, 2018). Second, it analyze the discourse of 2018 which will reveal a recent and newest results about the Israel Lobby's work, role, and discourse.
This study is also limited to the Israel Lobby and the researcher focuses on the Israel Lobby because it is one of the most powerful and influential lobbies in the U.S. They date back to many decades and they’ve helped achieve numerous Zionist goals and hence deserves to be studied.
Furthermore, this study is also limited in its sample considering that it focuses on the 60 most interactive posts on the five pages selected. The content includes texts, images, videos, hashtags, links, and emojis etc.
FURTHER READING: https://www.academia.edu/40463566/Engineering_of_Consent_Analysis_of_the_Israel_Lobbys_Facebook_Discourse_in_the_U_S?email_work_card=title
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