As far as one can determine, a talking point for The Israel Project, an Israeli organization dedicated to disseminating propaganda about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East, is a false assertion intended to convince people of some false reality. It is propaganda of the worst kind. If propaganda were simply defined as information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause, then, in its latest effort, the Israel Project appears to be promoting war with Iran. In this matter, the US and Israel are confronting a propaganda machine as much as a real threat, a machine which is deliberately trying to hoodwink, use half-truths and lies, and to suppress, conceal, and distort the facts. Accordingly, this propaganda seeks "bad" ends, the involvement of the US and/or Israel in a regional conflagration.
In the past year, eight diaries have covered the scope of GIYUS, another Israeli propaganda effort, which focuses its efforts on political blogs. In one of these diaries, ormondotvos reported that the government of Israel is funding this website, GIYUS.ORG to distribute (by download) a program, MEGAPHONE, that is essentially an RSS feed so that interested parties can keep track of where on the web they need immediately to go so they can vote in polls and comment in blogs and forums to bolster support for Israel in its various problem areas. The GIYUS site itself is also a useful resource to bloggers in need of "talking points" to counteract any apparently anti-Israel assertion, whether true or not. Needless to say, as the largest political blog in the nation, Dkos has undoubtedly been invaded.
The Israel Project is also active in influencing political talk on blogs, but its role is less clear in that it does not appear to sponsor an "alert system" as does GIYUS, which sends trolls scurrying to various blogs in order to counteract negative information, like the truth about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians or regional issues, like the recent devastation of Lebanon. Still, it is a highly resourceful place to go to find "talking points," especially those recommended by Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster and inventor of the phrase, "death tax," which Republicans tried to use to give still more tax breaks to their wealthy patrons. Frank Luntz consulted for the Israel Project in 2004 and provided numerous "talking points," many of which have certainly been quoted on Dkos, frequently, like, "call them disputed territories, not occupied territories," and repeating the "(supposedly) generous offer" that never was over and over, all to justify the four decade long year military occupation/colonization of the Palestinian territories.
More recently, Israel has turned its propaganda efforts toward Iran. This effort is discussed in an article by JONATHAN COOK, Israel's Plan for a Military Strike on Iran, which described a documentary that is to be distributed by the BBC in which major Israeli politicians invoked Holocaust talk to warn of the Iranian danger to wipe Israel off the map.
The Israel Project has likewise turned its propaganda efforts toward Iran.
The Israel Project reports that it recently sponsored a petition asking the U.N. to help prevent Iran from acquiring the nuclear bomb. It claims that, "84,405 concerned citizens from around the world have signed the petition. They were also asked to forward an email to family, friends and colleagues, who are also asked to sign the petition and forward it on to their friends."
The site also asks participants to learn talking points, which are described as facts about Iran. In spreading the word, it advises to,
Use these talking points to speak up about the dangers of Iran
Here are five facts you can help the world know by writing letters to the editor and op-eds, or calling into talk radio
I have printed the main talking points (propaganda) in BOLD in order to emphasize them. They are relate to the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Only one point, the questioning of the Holocaust, can I verify and it is apparently not a lie. But can anyone verify the truth of the others? Or are they fabricated lies?
·Iran has been identified as
the world’s leading state sponsor of international terrorism,
funding Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas, as well as Shiite insurgent groups. Iran is even
recruiting its youth and students across the Middle East for suicide operations against Western targets.
·Religious extremism, particularly Islamic fundamentalism, is one of the key dangers in the world today.
The Iranian President is a religious extremist who believes that it is his destiny to trigger a period of chaos, war and bloodshed in order for Islam to dominate the world.
·Nuclear proliferation is one of the greatest dangers to world peace. We must act to stop Iran before it can develop nuclear technology, because
the Iranian President has said that he would share nuclear technology with other Muslims.
The President of Iran
believes that he is creating an Islamic "superpower," which will bring down the West, including the United States.
He
says that he will have hundreds of millions of Muslim "holy raiders" eager to become martyrs.
·The Iranian President
does not believe the Holocaust happened
and
has called for the destruction of Israel.
If we do not act, we run the risk of placating an extremist and making the same mistake we made with Hitler, which led to World War II and the deaths of millions.
Calling for the destruction of Israel is of course a mistranslation of Ahmadinejad's words that has been corrected numerous times by Farsi experts, but it is still the preferred interpretation of Israeli propagandists.
Crossposted at Eternal Hope: http://eternalhope.blog-city.com/