How to Start a Blood Libel in Four Easy Steps

This is a guest post by Yedidya Kennard.


STEP ONE - WRITE THE STORY

This is important. This is the story that you will have to stick to till the end, no matter what. It helps if part of the story is already well known - not true, but well known. For example, if your target is known to be an agressor, whether he is or isn't, this saves you a lot of work. For this reason it is important to keep a running campaign of libels, making all of them easily accepted.

The setting for your story is important. Boats are good, they bring to mind sun, beaches, deck chairs etc. If you can make it look like your target is bringing violence to a peaceful place, its always good. Of course, if your target is an army, you have an added advantage - soldiers are always associated with violence.

Try to link words with yourself that are associated with non-violence, that way even if you clearly are shown to be violent people will still be more inclined to believe you. Words like 'humanitarian' are good. Try and create a name for yourself involving words like 'freedom' or similar. It doesnt have to be relevant or true in any way, but if you can make it stick in the media they won't change it, no matter how clearly it is wrong.

STEP TWO - THE ACTION

It is important to be seen to lose. People like an underdog. Most people won't care who started or what happened; the main thing is the result. It may seem strange, but here you only win if you are seen to lose. After that, nothing else is really important. Also important is equipment, again you want to be seen here as the underdog. Words again are key. 'Guns' sounds bad, 'sticks' sound like a playground fight - even if you can kill people with them. 'Slingshots' are great too, remember, they are effective, they were once the long range weapon of choice, but now they sound like toys. Even knives and broken bottles sound harmless when put against guns. If you have to provoke at long range then you can still use this - call your rockets 'homemade' and all people will see is Grandma baking cookies. Harmless.

STEP THREE - GET YOUR STORY OUT FAST.

Speed is key here. Once the story is out there it won't stop being out there. Remember, journalists need stuff to report all the time, so if you get your story out there even 2 or 3 hours before the target gets his version out, you have a massive advantage. Journalists wont check if your story is true or not, as long as it is said by someone, they can report it. Once it is out there and there is no response from the other side, it becomes accepted as fact. It is far harder to change a story, or to challenge an established narrative, than it is to start one.

STEP FOUR - STICK TO THE SCRIPT!

This is perhaps the most difficult and most critical part. Once the other side get their act together they will of course challenge your account, and may even have evidence to back themselves up. What you have to understand here is that evidence is irrelevant. A story, however obviously wrong, will never die. However, some skill is needed to keep it as the mainstream version of events. You need to be able to lie with a straight face, despite the evidence against being right in front of you. You can practise this by looking at the sky and declaring 'The sky is green!". Once you can say this and even believe it, try to make other people believe it.

Remember, someone out there already believes your story; he will want to keep on believing it instead of seeing it being proven wrong. Help him - if he sees someone else denying the evidence, then it's easier for him to do so as well.

A great tactic to use here is emotive language. Put evidence against emotion, emotion always wins. Words again are key. If your side is seen using violence, call it 'passive resistance', it sounds good even if it's wrong. It has the word 'resistance' in it so it sounds plausible. If you can say it enough times, instead of seeing your person stabbing someone, all the viewer will see is an old wisened man in a loincloth. Also, if your words stick, then anyone challenging them is seen to be obviously changing the accepted version of events, which is very hard to do.

That's it! It all comes down to the words, whether they have any bearing on reality at all is totally irrelevant. Get your story out first, get the media to accept your words and the story will run and run. Of course, if you have a media and a population for some other reason ready to accept your version, so much the better! Always remember, the truth is irrelevant, it's the Story that counts.

Here we go...

And a little over a week after the one-week ceasefire was announced, what passed for peace here in Israel might be crumbling. I desperately hope not, but after events this morning, we'll have to wait and see. In case you didn't know, an Israeli soldier was killed and three were wounded this morning when the jeep they were in hit a mine during a standard patrol on part of the Gaza strip perimeter. Consequently Israel was drawn into a relatively low-key gun battle with terrorists and an Arab farmer caught in the crossfire was killed. A number of drones and helicopters were deployed on aerial patrols and one caused a sonic boom over Gaza by way of a statement from the IDF. (EDIT: Later on in the afternooon, 20 tanks and 7 armoured bulldozers backed up by air support entered Gaza but did not engage in heavy fighting. An air strike targeted a terrorist on a motorbike, causing him and a bystander severe injuries, but other than that nobody was reported injured.)

People have asked me whether the ceasefire will hold and I have told them that I am very pessimistic. Hamas undoubtedly want to attack Israel, and have never seen a ceasefire as a reason to actually cease their fire. During the six month period between June and December last year when an uneasy calm existed between Israel and Gaza, there were still over 300 rockets and mortars fired into Israeli terrirtory in defiance of the supposed "Hudna." If Olmert, Livni and Peres were serious when they said Israel had to change the status quo and that it will no longer tolerate such a threat and will respond to each and every rocket, then all Hamas has to do to grab the initiative is to fire a high volume of rockets into Israel. If we do not respond, we will be externally perceived as weak and internally perceived as unable to back up our assurances to the residents of Sderot and Ashkelon, and if we respond then the ceasefire will disappear and we will back in a war-like situation. I fully expect Hamas will most likely wait till closer to the elections and then step up rocket attacks once again to test this theory out. Either way, the Israeli government made a terrible mistake in withdrawing from Gaza as it did - it undermined a huge amount of progress. Hamas can now rebuild it's tunnels, (it already is, and furiously so,) and wait till the right time to attack again.

When will we learn?