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Where Are The Filters?
By Moshe Zak, Ma'ariv
November 23, 1998
There are those who create baseless atrocity stories against Israel.
The problem is that there are those who swallow them.
The joke is old, but the publication by a British paper that Israel is
developing a "genetic bomb" gives it new resonance. The story is
told of a Jew playing poker at a prestigious London club. In the
opening round, one of the players, a distinguished lord, declared a
"full house". Before the lord could take the pot, the Jew asked to
verify the cards. He was told: We do not check each other, but
believe the winner's word. After I became aware of this custom,
the Jew noted later, my card playing underwent a marked
improvement.
After the Israeli correspondent for the British paper was told that
Israel does not bother to argue libelous stories created against it
by the psychological warfare departments, he was in an analagous
situation. He is certain that the Biological Institute at Nes Ziona,
which is a secret facility, cannot be dragged into a confrontation
over the accuracy of the baseless story, nor can they deny it. He
can publish whatever he wants. He is certain that no-one can
prove or disprove the things submitted to him by hostile
psychological warfare apparatuses, and he mistakenly swallows
their output. The Israeli correspondent cannot be charged with
libel against the state in which he was born and raised, but he was
an innocent victim of a well-oiled apparatus that wanted, precisely
at the moment when Iraq is challenging the United States and the
United Nations over the development of chemical and biological
weapons, to divert the searchlights towards Israel's apparent
dangerous biological weapons program.
Every scientist has declared that experiments with bacteria or
viruses that can affect only Arabs is absolute scientific rubbish.
But psychological warfare is not directed at expert scientists. It is
directed at public opinion, to encourage revulsion and anger
among those who lack the scientific background to understand the
libel. Like the MK who frequently visited Marcus Klingberg in his
cell without checking to see whether any results could be achieved
by these experiments, but was quick to express his opinion that
they experiments are against the Jewish ethos and should not be
carried out, thus unwittingly giving force to the libel.
I am deliberately not naming the failed correspondent or the MK
whom the correspondent used to strengthen the imaginary story's
veracity, since the matter is not personal. The main problem is:
What is the filter that we should use to prevent the readers being
stuffed full of libelous stories prepared by foreign bodies
interested in delegitimizing Israel, who, according to the
important British paper, is carrying out hair-raising experiments on
people, apparently continuing the work of Dr. Mengele. The
publication in London was echoed in the Arab press and will
intensify Arab enmity towards Israel. When it is repeated in the
Israeli press, it makes the authorities of the State hated by its
citizens.
During the Cold War, the communist disinformation apparatus
tended to plant stories of ethnic-based biological weapons in
African newspapers. On the eve of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic
Games, the Soviets tried to scare African athletes with stories of a
biological weapon developed by the United States in order to
injure Africans coming to the games. The story was spread around
the world, and there was no- one in the communist apparatus who
would point to the absurdity of the charge. After all, the black
population in the United States numbers in the millions, and they
have the same genes as the African athletes.
When this trick failed, the Soviets then tried to plant stories that
claimed that AIDS was caused by bacteria with which the
Americans infected Africans, and that it affects only blacks. Since
then, millions of whites have been infected by this disease, and
the Cold War between Washington and Moscow has disappeared
from the world. Psychological warfare has moved to our region,
and it once more bears the guise of a fake biological weapon, this
time directed solely against Arabs. And all this in order to ease
Saddam's situation when he is pressured by the United Nations
over his amassing of biological weapons.
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