Information ministry welcomes “Israel in therapy” video

Dimi Reider By Dimi Reider July 7, 2011 | Edit

Yesterday we covered here a masterpiece of self-defeating propaganda showing “Israel” as a distressed and paranoid young woman suspicious of people trying to help her and having flashbacks to edited and censored videos of the IDF raid on the marmara. While the initial suspicion was that this was a trailer for Ami Kaufman’s Izzie series, sources with knowledge of the actress’s engagement confirmed to 972 she was recruited to do a Hasbara video for a government project. Just for the morning exercise of your cringe muscles, here it is again:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKSXXuZRPNM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

The actress, Aimee Neistat, would not confirm, deny or disclose the identity of her employers. We approached the Information Ministry itself for comment, and this is what we got:

“The Information and Diaspora Ministry considers the Internet as a primary Hasbara arena, and welcomes all those individuals and organizations working independently [Heb: be’ofen atzmai, in an independent manner – D.R.] to re the truth behind the provocation of the flotilla organisers.”

I wrote back, asking if they “unequivocally deny any involvement of the ministry in the production of the clip.” The reply I got back was:

“What I sent you is the official comment. Don’t add or redact.”

Alrighty then.

On a personal note, I spent considerable time last night censoring and erasing comments attacking Neistat, many using blatantly sexist language. I would like to stress that this is completely out of place. Even if one disagrees with Neistat’s choice of roles, this is no reason to bully or threaten her; and sexism is out of place on this site in any context, but it’s jarring in a fresh way to see arguments for Palestinian rights being made through violent, misogynist language. The issue here is the policy of the government in Gaza and their surreal antics – not the actors.

Dimi Reider

Dimi (Dmitry) Reider is an Israeli journalist.  His work has appeared in The New York Review of Books,  The New York Times,The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Haaretz,  Jerusalem Post, and  Index on Censorship. "Dimi's Notes" has been quoted and referenced by the following publications:

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