Table Of ContentPsychological Warfare in the
Arab-Israeli Conflict
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Psychological Warfare in the
Arab-Israeli Conflict
Ron Schleifer
psychological warfare in the arab-israeli conflict
Copyright © Ron Schleifer, 2014.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-46702-7
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United
States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the
world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers
Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978-1-349-49995-3
E-ISBN: 978-1-137-46703-4
DOI 10.1057/9781137467034
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Library of Congress.
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Design by SPi Global.
First edition: October 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
1 Psychological Warfare Theory 1
2 Principles of Psychological Warfare Management 13
3 Psychological Warfare against the British in Prestate Israel
(the Yishuv) 21
4 Psychological Warfare in the Arab-Israeli Wars (1948–1982) 27
5 The War between Israel and Hezbollah in Southern
Lebanon (1985–2000) 35
6 The Arab-Israeli Conflict and the First Intifada (1948–1989) 51
7 Applying Psywar Themes in the Intifada 61
8 The Palestinian Information Mechanism 77
9 The Israeli Information Mechanism 87
10 Planning Psywar, Defining its Goals 99
11 The Second Intifada (2000–2005) 121
12 The Psyop War 153
13 Psychological Warfare in Operation “Cast Lead” 165
14 The Mavi Marmara Affair 173
Conclusions 179
Epilogue 185
Notes 187
Bibliography 205
Index 209
Chapter 1
psychological Warfare theory
Since biblical times, psychological warfare has been a nonviolent
weapon used to achieve military goals.1 Psychological warfare, or
psywar, has been employed with varying degrees of success in hostili-
ties, ranging from total war to low-intensity conflicts (LICs), and ideo-
logical and organizational struggles. Its implications on political life have
been especially felt since the latter half of the twentieth century. Given the
media’s dominating influence, psywar’s role in policy-shaping is expected to
increase in both war- and peacetime.
Psychological warfare is based on the idea that enemy troops do not have
to be killed or wounded; instead, they can be influenced not to pull (or to
hesitate in pulling) the trigger, even convinced to abandon the battlefield,
or their leaders can be persuaded not to send them into the combat zone in
the first place. In the broadest sense psychological warfare encompasses all
nonviolent activity that aims at realizing the state’s goals. While regular
military operations can have indirect psychological implications, such as the
London Blitz in World War II, Intifada’s psychological warfare, for instance,
stresses nonviolence.
Psywar is a strategic weapon, or force multiplier. The side that applies it
wisely gains a distinct advantage over the enemy. Psywar augments the
fighting effort, and its benefits far outweigh the costs. Its outlay is much
lower than that of violent combat activity, and it assumes the moral high
road by avoiding human loss and material destruction and helping the par-
ties end the carnage as quickly as possible. Put simply, psywar saves lives and
resources. But it demands continuous, expert application alongside diplo-
matic activity. This is true for conventional wars as well as the LICs that
Israel has faced in the last two decades. Civilian populations on both sides
play a critical role as target audiences. Psywar’s aims include boosting home
2 ● psychological Warfare in the arab-Israeli Conflict
front morale, galvanizing the nation’s support in a conflict, and undermining
enemy home front resistance and convincing it to end the hostilities.
The American communications theorist Harold Lasswell devised a
concise formula for the media process: Who’s sending the message?
What is being said? What channel is being used? And, how effective is its
influence? This formula is most useful for analyzing psychological warfare.
The topics in this book are arranged according to psywar messages and
themes, the party deploying psywar, and, of course, psywar’s degree of
influence (success).
Psychological warfare’s importance is apparent at every stage of the
conflict, and this reality has not changed in the last hundred years. For
instance, even before hostilities erupt, psywar is used to convince the
home audience of the need to go to war. When the enemy is far from the
homeland, a different approach is taken as citizens demand to know why
valuable resources are being spent in a distant campaign and why citizens
are being asked to sacrifice their lives when the enemy is not physically
endangering them.
In wartime, psywar has three main target audiences: the home audience,
the enemy audience, and the neutral audience. The home audience has to
be convinced of the war’s justification; the enemy army has to be convinced
that its chances of winning are zero, while the enemy’s citizens have to
be brought to realize the war’s futility; and the neutral audience has to be
co-opted as its support can be of crucial importance. Psywar units continue
operating even after the war is over; their main task at this point is to counter
the local population’s natural hostility toward an occupation force. The
message to be conveyed is that the foreign troops are in their t erritory only
on a temporary basis and have no intention of harming them.
Basic Terms in Psychological Warfare
In the West, psychological warfare is linked to controversial issues such as
propaganda, brainwashing, and demagogy, all of which tend to evoke strong
antagonism. These concepts clash with the value systems of a democratic
government, values that can be traced back to the French Revolution. Mass
persuasion, for example, generally arouses mixed feelings in Western coun-
tries (including Israel). There are different expressions for “psychological
warfare”: psywar, propaganda, public relations, public diplomacy, hasbara
(Hebrew), political warfare, and psychological operations (psyops).
psychological Warfare theory ● 3
Evolution of Terms in the Twentieth Century
The word “propaganda” was coined in the seventeenth century from the
Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propagation of the Faith),
the Catholic Church’s worldwide organization whose goal was to bring
new believers into the fold. In South America, for example, the organization
was responsible for proselytizing millions of native people, and, in this part
of the world, propaganda still means “publicity” without a negative
connotation.2
Great Britain entered World War I with an extremely limited propa-
ganda machine. Prime Minister Herbert Asquith set up a mechanism
known as the British War Propaganda Bureau whose goals were to win
public support for the war, undermine the enemy’s morale, and convince
the neutral states—especially the United States—to enter the war on
Britain’s side. Asquith appointed a close associate, Foreign Minister Charles
Masterman, an accomplished official, to head the bureau. Masterman
believed that such a mechanism should operate far from the public eye and
therefore set up the bureau in an unassuming office building known as
Wellington House, a name that has since become synonymous with Britain’s
central propaganda machine.
After a change of government during the war, the British propaganda
bodies reorganized, and novelist John Buchan was appointed head of the
organization. His tasks included tracking enemy propaganda and pro-
ducing films and newsreels. Another change soon followed—Lloyd George,
the new prime minister, established the Ministry of War Information and
appointed Harold Beaverbrook, a British newspaper tycoon, as director of
the new ministry. Lord Northcliffe, another press baron and owner of the
prestigious Times, headed the Department of Enemy Propaganda Affairs
and served as Beaverbrook’s subordinate (although the two men preferred to
conceal the exact nature of the hierarchy).3 In this way the British prime
minister gained the support of the press, as well as a vast reservoir of creative
thinking, foreign policy expertise, and the means to convey messages
rapidly.
Twenty years later, with the rise of Joseph Goebbels’ Nazi propaganda
machine, the term “propaganda” took on a categorically negative connota-
tion that continues till today. The British realized the crucial role that infor-
mation played in attaining victory. Therefore, at the outbreak of World
War II, they set up an effective mechanism but were careful to eschew the
term “propaganda,” preferring “political warfare” instead. During preparations
4 ● psychological Warfare in the arab-Israeli Conflict
for the invasion of Normandy (June 1943–June 1944), the Americans and
British established a joint command and coined a new term: “psychological
warfare.” This term is still used when referring to activities that promote
military interests in wartime.4
During World War II, the differences between the democratic and totali-
tarian regimes’ application of psywar were readily apparent. In democratic
regimes, founded on freedom of ideas and choice, citizens opposed central-
ized thought control and looked upon government attempts to influence
their thinking as unethical. People in totalitarian regimes, in contrast,
viewed propaganda as an inseparable part of government organization,
where it was applied extensively for domestic and foreign needs.
With the advent of the Cold War, the United States had to face the
problem of employing propaganda against the Soviet Union and Communist
Bloc. Since the West associated “propaganda” with totalitarian regimes, the
term had to be avoided at all costs, even if its advantages in the superpower
struggle were unarguable. The semantic solution was to find a term with
a positive connotation—such as “diplomacy”—while the organizational
solution was to transfer the propaganda machinery to the area of clandes-
tine activities. It was duly put under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
established in 1947 directly responsible to the president. In the same year,
President Truman approved the creation of a new body—the United States
Information Agency (USIA)—whose goal was to spread information over-
seas. This name was chosen in order to emphasize that, unlike the Soviet
Union, the United States did not engage in “propaganda” but in conveying
“information” to the target audience.
At the same time, the term “psychological warfare” began to go out of
use. During the Korean War of the early 1950s, it referred to conventional
military activity. Toward the end of the war, the US Army looked for a new
term, one without a negative connotation, and decided that battlefield
propaganda would henceforth be called “psychological operations” or
“psyops.” The army apparently believed that the word “operations” brought
to mind a series of brief, local actions. The term “perception management”
was considered but was dropped. Thus, the term “psychological operations”
or “psyops” remained in use while the army continued to look for a better
one. This is how applied anthropological skills are used to constantly update
doctrines and manuals so as to communicate better with non-Western
audiences (“human terrain” in army jargon). Interestingly, the latest devel-
opment in US military doctrine reflects the ever-existing democracy’s
ambiguous attitude toward propaganda. The current usage dictated by the
