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Remarks to the Jubilee Conference of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy Many topics have been proposed for discussion in this session. In the brief time available to me as a panelist, I would like to put forward some thoughts about the control of narrative and the manipulation of information as an essential element

December 3, 2012 / 8 minutes of reading Remarks to the Jubilee Conference of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy Many topics have been proposed for discussion in this session. In the brief time available to me as a panelist, I would like to put forward some thoughts about the control of narrative and the manipulation of information as an essential element of modern warfare. The Israelis call this “hasbara.” Since they are without doubt the most skilled contemporary practitioners of the art, it seems appropriate to use the Hebrew word for it. And, since Israel’s most recent war (against the Palestinians in Gaza) sputtered to an end just ten days ago, I’ll cite a few examples from that war to illustrate my main points. Before I get to specifics, let me provide a general description of hasbara and its purposes. Hasbara is usually translated as “explanation.” That does not do the concept justice. Hasbara links information warfare to the strategic efforts of the state to bolster the unity of the home front; ensure the support of allies; disrupt efforts to organize hostile coalitions; determine the way issues are defined by the media, the intelligentsia, and social networks; establish the parameters of politically correct discourse; delegitimize both critics and their arguments; and shape the common understanding and interpretation of the results of international negotiations. Hasbara is multifaceted and well-adapted to the digital age. It embodies a public-private partnership in which the state leads and committed volunteers follow in implementing an information strategy. In its comprehensiveness and complexity, it bears the same relationship to unidimensional public diplomacy as grand strategy does to campaign plans. Hasbara has its roots in earlier concepts of propaganda, agitprop, and censorship. Like them, it is communication calculated to influence cognition and behavior by manipulating perceptions of a cause or position with one-sided arguments, prejudicial substance, and emotional appeals. Unlike its progenitors, however, hasbara does not seek merely to burnish or tarnish national images of concern to it or to supply information favorable to its theses. It also seeks actively to inculcate canons of political correctness in domestic and foreign media and audiences that will promote self-censorship by them. It strives thereby to decrease the willingness of audiences to consider information linked to politically unacceptable viewpoints, individuals, and groups and to inhibit the circulation of adverse information in social networks. Past efforts by states to shape domestic and foreign opinion depended on the production of persuasive information and efforts to deprive audiences of access to contradictory information by interrupting its supply through censorship, jamming, and other techniques directed at reducing its flow. By contrast, hasbara assumes the free flow of information within an open marketplace of opinion. In that context, it seeks to promote selective listening. The purpose is to constrict the demand for information, not its flow. Although hasbara includes efforts to impede access to information through a wide variety of techniques adapted to new information technologies, it focuses on limiting the receptivity of audiences to information. In this context, hasbara recognizes the control of narrative as a potent weapon. Narrative is an element of rhetoric. It defines context. When successfully imposed, it provides a cognitive filter. Narratives offer a comprehensive framework for connecting and interpreting events. They substantiate “group think,” establishing baselines for conformity and hence for ostracism. In politics, perception is reality. Narratives legitimize some perceptions and delegitimize others. Narratives can be drawn upon to reinforce stereotypes by imposing favorable or pejorative labels on information and its sources. Such labels predispose recipients of information to accept some things as credible, to disbelieve others, and to regard still others as so tainted or implausible that they can and should be ruled out of order and ignored. (Not incidentally, adherence to narratives is the usual cause of intelligence failure – the inability to accept or even consider evidence that something outside the established frame of reference is in the process of occurring.) As the recent fighting in Gaza illustrates, the modern state has at its disposal a wide variety of means of creating and sustaining narratives. Israel announced the war on Twitter. Israeli-controlled or guided sources then saturated American media outlets with talking points that went unchallenged by previously conditioned anchors and journalists. In addition to traditional techniques of agitprop, disinformation, and propaganda in conventional media, the Israeli hasbara apparatus made heavy use of more focused channels of communication like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It inundated audiences with information favorable ...

Hasbara and the Control of Narrative as an Element of Strategy - Middle East Policy Council