On January 15 the UN's Special Tribunal for Lebanon is scheduled to issue indictments against a number of Hizbullah operatives for the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. All of Lebanon and much of the region is waiting in suspense that grows with each passing day.
The news that Hizbullah would
be fingered by the prosecutors was first made public in July. Since then,
Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah has threatened repeatedly to set fire to
Lebanon and perhaps Israel if Daniel Bellemare, the chief prosecutor dares to
go forward. Given Hizbullah's track record of war, murder and intimidation, no
one doubts that the Iranian-proxy force will keep its promise if it comes to
that.
Almost immediately after
Hizbullah was named as the central suspect in Hariri's assassination,
Hizbullah's ally Syria began negotiating a deal with Saudi Arabia, which serves
as the patron of Lebanon's Sunni community. The goal of these talks is to get
Hizbullah off the hook, "in order to preserve stability."
Bellemare made clear this
week that he will not be influenced by politics in dispatching his duties to
the law. If he is true to his word, then Hizbullah members will certainly be
indicted for assassinating Hariri next month.
What this means is that the
most attractive option for Hizbullah and its allies right now is to discredit
the tribunal. To this end, Hizbullah has repeatedly characterized the UN
tribunal as an Israeli and American plot. Syria has insisted that the Lebanese
who testified before the tribunal gave false testimony.
While these allegations may
have convinced their supporters, both Syria and Hizbullah know that the only
effective way to discredit the tribunal is to coerce Hariri's son, Prime
Minister Saad Hariri to disavow the tribunal and withdraw Lebanese governmental
support for its proceedings.
Although such a move would
probably have little impact on the tribunal's ultimate judgment, it might
reduce the political impact of the indictments for Hizbullah in Lebanon.
And so according to Ha'aretz,
Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and Saudi King Abdullah reached a deal in which
Hariri Jr. will disavow the tribunal. In exchange, Hizbullah will agree not to
murder him.
Hizbullah has not
surprisingly announced its support for the deal. Hariri has given a series of
contradictory statements that lend to the sense that he is trying to run down
the clock. This week he met with Abdullah in New York where the Saudi despot is
undergoing medical treatment. On Wednesday he travelled to Saudi Arabia for
further talks.
In the meantime, just to
underline its willingness to make good on its threats, last week Hizbullah had
its affiliated trade union, the National Union for Labor Syndicates stage a
protest against the government. As Hanin Ghadar at the NOW Lebanon news portal
noted, in the days leading up to the terror group's coup in May 2008, it had
its labor affiliates stage similar protests.
AND THAT brings us to the
basic question of why is Hizbullah taking the tribunal so seriously?
What does it care if its
members are indicted for murdering Hariri? This is a terror group that has
always been perfectly willing to kill in order to get its way. And everyone
knows it.
Hizbullah operatives killed
Hariri because he was irritating Nasrallah and Assad with all his talk about
Lebanese sovereignty. Then they killed parliamentarian after parliamentarian to
deny Hariri Jr.'s parliamentary majority the power to form a government or do
anything else without Hizbullah agreement. When even that was insufficient to
force the government to slavishly do its bidding, Hizbullah carried out its
bloody coup in May 2008 in order to take over effective control of the
government and the Lebanese army.
So too, after the June 2009
elections, Hizbullah coerced members of Hariri's coalition to change sides and
so prevented him from forming a coalition without Hizbullah receiving veto
power over all government decisions.
And even if Hizbullah did
care about what its fellow Lebanese think of it, the fact is that Hizbullah is
not an independent actor. It is an Iranian proxy. And the Iranians have made
clear that they do not care what the tribunal does. Iran's supreme dictator Ali
Khamenei announced earlier this month that as far as Iran is concerned, the
tribunal's judgments are null and void. In his words, "This court is a
kangaroo court and every verdict it issues is rejected."
So again, why is Hizbullah so
concerned about this tribunal?
Hizbullah is concerned
because Hizbullah understands the power of symbols. No, its operatives will
probably never be jailed for their crimes. But the tribunal is a symbol. If
Bellmare dares to defy Hizbullah, then others might consider doing so.
On the other hand if
Hizbullah is able to coerce Hariri to withdraw the Lebanese government's
support for the tribunal and disavow its work, it will have demonstrated its
strength and authority in a way that will deter others from challenging it.
Hizbullah's response to the
specter of the Special Tribunal is not only interesting for what it tells us
about prospects for Lebanon's future and for regional stability and peace.
Hizbullah's response to the threat that its members will be exposed as Hariri's
assassins teaches us interesting lessons about the nature of information
warfare.
Information warfare is not
simply a question of competing narratives, as it is often characterized in the
West. Information war is a form of warfare whose aim is to use words, symbols
and images to force people to take real action. These actions can involve
everything from war to terrorism to surrender.
In closed societies,
information warfare is used to cause people to rally around the side of the
group conducting the information operation and to mobilize supporters to act
against the chosen enemy. For instance, when its leadership is interested in
inspiring terror attacks against Israel, the Palestinian Authority broadcasts
around the clock incitement against Israel.
On May 8, 2001 a group of
Palestinians from a village adjacent to the Israeli community of Tekoa in Gush
Etzion got their hands on two Jewish children Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran from
Tekoa. The two boys were bludgeoned to death with stones. The details of the
butchery are unspeakable.
The question is what can make
human beings butcher children? How can a person hurt a child the way that their
killers hurt them?
The answer is Palestinian
television.
In the weeks before the
murder, PATV (funded by foreign donors) broadcast doctored footage around the
clock of what they claimed were atrocities carried out by Israel. They showed
doctored images of mutilated corpses and claimed that Israel had mutilated and
abused them. Israel and Jews were so demonized by these false images that after
awhile, the Palestinians watching these shows believed that Jews, including
Jewish children, were all monsters who must be destroyed and made to pay for
their imaginary crimes.
This was an act of
information warfare that in the event, led Palestinians to butcher Koby Mandell
and Yosef Ishran.
As for information warfare
aimed at Westerners, here too, the Palestinian Authority, like Hizbullah has a long
track record of success. Journalists know that the PA has no compunction about
kidnapping, arresting and beating up reporters. They do it to Palestinian
reporters routinely. With their sure knowledge, Western reporters who come in
to the PA recognize that if they want to be safe, they have to report stories
that will make the PA happy.
For instance, after a
television crew from Italy's Mediaset network broadcast footage of the PA
police-supported lynch mob murdering and dismembering IDF reservists Vadim
Nozhitz and Yosef Avrahami in Ramallah in October 2000, Ricardo Cristiani,
deputy chief of Italy's RAI television network's Jerusalem bureau published an
apology in the PA's newspaper Al Hayat al Jadida.
Among other things, Cristiani
wrote, "We [RAI] emphasize to all of you that the events did not happen
this way, because we always respect (will continue to respect) the journalistic
procedures with the Palestinian Authority for (journalistic) work in Palestine
and we are credible in our precise work."
Fearing Palestinian revenge
attacks, Mediaset was forced to shut down its offices.
This week, Swedish and Danish
police announced the arrest of four Muslim terrorists who were en route to
carrying out a massacre at the Jyllands Posten newspaper. The attack was
supposed to avenge the newspaper's publication of cartoons of Muhammed in
2005.
A US diplomatic cable leaked
by WikiLeaks and published Monday by Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper
reported that Syria's Assad himself directed the information operation in 2006
that led to rioting against Denmark and Jyllands Posten throughout the
Muslim world in 2006. Assad reportedly ordered Syria's Grand Mufti to incite
his fellow imams to attack Denmark for publishing the pictures.
The Arab world's response to
WikiLeaks shows just how powerful the incitement against Israel and Jews on the
Arab psyche is. According to Hazem Saghiyah from the NOW Lebanon news portal,
the Arab world was beset by confusion by the leaked US cables because Israel
was not exposed as demonic.
As Saghiyeh put it, for Arabs
who have come to believe that Israel controls the world through its satanic
power, "these documents should have provided the decisive argument"
against Israel.
The fact that it is the Arab
leadership, rather than Israel that has been exposed as lying and two-faced,
makes the Arab world writ large view the WikiLeaks operation as a huge Zionist
conspiracy.
WHAT ALL of this shows is
that information wars are not just about getting out the facts. Like kinetic
warfare, they involve power plays, intimidation and the use of subconscious and
visceral manipulation.
Israel has recently awoken to
one aspect of information warfare. It has recognized the consequences of years
of demonization of Israel in Europe and international organizations. But Israel
has yet to awaken to the fact that it is a type of warfare and has to be
countered with counter-information warfare.
Obviously this doesn't mean
that Israel should begin acting like its enemies. But what it does mean is that
Israel must begin using more hard-knuckle techniques to defend itself. It must
begin targeting people's emotions as well has their minds.
For instance, when Israel is
confronted by threats of lawsuits for acts of self-defense, it responds with
defense attorneys. When the US was threatened with lawfare by Belgian courts,
then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld responded by threatening to remove
NATO headquarters from Belgium.
When Israel is accused of
targeting Palestinian civilians, it responds by attaching legal advisors to
combat units. What it should be doing instead is providing film footage of
Palestinian children being trained as terrorists and exploited as human
shields.
War is a dirty business.
Information warfare is a dirty form of war. And if we don't want to lose, we'd
better start fighting.
fecha |
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01/11/2023| |
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21/03/2021| |
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24/06/2020| |
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22/07/2018| |
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10/07/2018| |
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27/05/2018| |
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30/03/2018| |
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30/03/2018| |
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26/12/2017| |
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03/07/2017| |
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18/02/2017| |
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14/01/2017| |
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04/01/2017| |
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03/12/2016| |
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01/10/2016| |
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29/08/2016| |
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11/06/2016| |
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23/04/2016| |
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05/02/2016| |
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18/10/2015| |
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01/08/2015| |
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04/07/2015| |
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16/05/2015| |
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16/03/2015| |
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29/11/2014| |
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22/10/2014| |
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14/10/2014| |
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06/10/2014| |
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19/09/2014| |
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12/09/2014| |
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28/08/2014| |
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22/08/2014| |
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10/08/2014| |
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18/07/2014| |
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22/06/2014| |
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22/06/2014| |
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09/05/2014| |
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30/04/2014| |
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13/01/2014| |
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17/12/2013| |
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06/10/2013| |
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24/08/2013| |
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08/07/2013| |
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27/05/2013| |
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25/03/2013| |
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14/11/2012| |
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22/10/2012| |
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22/01/2011| |
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29/12/2010| |
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25/12/2010| |
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26/11/2010| |
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19/11/2008| |
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25/09/2008| |
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27/09/2005| |
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