The Israel Project's 2009 Global Language Dictionary

by Frank Luntz

How do you sell the American public on the idea that Israel has the right to maintain or even expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank? Be positive. Turn the issue away from settlements and toward peace. Invoke ethnic cleansing.

Those are three of the recommendations made by Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, in an internal study he wrote for the Washington-based group The Israel Project (TIP) on effective ways to talk to Americans about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

The 117-page book, titled The Israel Project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary, was commissioned by the nonprofit group, which aims to promote Israel’s side of the story.

Genres: Israel, Politics, Nonfiction

117 pages, Hardcover

Published July 11, 2009

Reviews

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.
- Joseph Goebbels

[yara ❦ · Rating 1 out of 5]

my goodness, the propaganda handbook. no wonder every zionist and zionist media sounds like a broken record bc they’re trained to say the exact same thing over and over. “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”, all zionist propaganda is summed up in this book.

[Gregisdead121 · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Property of The Israel Project. Not for distribution or publication   2009"

Watching the coverage on the genocide in Palestine, whether it be 50 years ago or today, will drive you mad. You will ask"how has no one stopped this? " "What could justify this carnage?"
You will feel insane, as if the entire western world has decided to collaborate on a conspiracy only you seem to see....this report proves that as fact. Israel supposed sanctity is a cost first world countries have been prepared to make them pay.

This leaked controversial public relations document is horrifying in it's detail. Step by step, it carves out the mechanics of a successful propaganda campaign. Being aware to distinguish the earnest from the intended,at multiple intervals you'll come across passage that spell out how to obfuscate any worthwhile criticism (not with fact but conjecture that changes the conversation).

This type of insight chills deeply due to it's present prevalence, at least in institutions. The repeated phrases of a chosen people, the repeated refrain of HAMAS in the face of any resistance or human shields when casualties come up with catastrophic numbers. It brings to mind the tragic effectiveness of the Nazi regimes own practices in dehumanization . And it's disheartening to see it be repeated. But it's not surprising. We learnt the wrong lessons from the holocaust, the most egregious one being considering it exceptional. Taking it as a uniquely dark segment of human history rather than a pattern of behavior. Being south african and only one generation removed from Apartheid the marks it has left are bold,it's beliefs still linger. Fortunately though there's an emphasis on this part of history during school. And our curriculum is poised to discuss how our conflict isn't unique but is echoed throughout history. This applies to genocides, particularly the one that proceeded our own Apartheid, one that makes admitting that Israel is an Apartheid state much simpler. The Afrikaaner boers were also at somepoint not considered white, and thus after a volley of wars became subjected to concentration camps and extermination by the British. Till this day ,2024 ,it is not hard to find an Afrikaaner who won't go into long discussions about what their ancestors went through...yet when they gained independence they perpetuated their trauma onto what they could now assign inhuman. South africa becoming it's own Israel before Israel- touted as a paradise with gorgeous beaches, safe neighborhoods and opportunity. It hid a darker truth about how those benefits came at the cost of the natives lives, my ancestors lives. That for every pristine white suburb was a hell condescended into ghettos policed by conscripted soldiers.
It is no fluke that Israel and Apartheid south africa were such close allies until the bitter end,to dismantle one is to illegitimize the other. And this is why this report exists. To curb the fates of it's partner's.

We can't let this happen. We can't forget Gaza, we must envision a free Palestine. We must boycott and show active disdain to benefactors/supports of the regime. Overwhelming institutions with shame and ire until the cost of going against the grain is too high. In the face of propaganda like this it's easy to become hopeless but here are a few things to note that were fact during the publishing of this report and aren't anymore due to how knowledgeable we've become post October 7:
1. Being pro Israel is no longer the majority
2. There is no longer a monopoly of media bias towards the zionist cause. There's a page in this report that lists TV and news bias towards Israel as an essential win in the media war. This is no longer true. Tvs and broadcast shows are no longer sole sources for information. We have the internet, social media.
3. We can see the genocide in real time. Hear from it's survivors, presently . Testimonies of truths we otherwise would have suppressed and minimized.
4. We have momentum. Regimes fall, empire's die. It is not impossible. With the ICJ ruling and countries breaking trade ties with Israel, even the pope turning his back: the tide is turning. Apartheid in my country ended not because white people suddenly realized it was wrong and changed. It became too expensive and costly to justify. The world can do it again.

[Ben Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got about 1/4th of the way through before it got respective. Interesting as a specific instance of propagandistic techniques mentioned in Bernays’ Propaganda, Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, etc. Also seems clear that Luntz is putting the principles he explains into practice even as he explains them - I complained about the repetition, but he explicitly acknowledges and explains that it is what most effectively drives the message home.

[Paul Matthis · Rating 1 out of 5]

How-to propaganda, and not even in a particularly clever sense. Every time I finish a reading session with this, I feel like I have to take a bath. What a load of self-obsessed drivel.

[Ahmed Hussein Shaheen · Rating 4 out of 5]

على الرغم من كل الجهود التي بذلها ويبذلها الصهاينة والمتصهينون، إلا أن الأحداث الأخيرة كشفت أن جهودهم ضاعت في كل دول العالم تقريبًا

[Mohamed Gamal Zaky · Rating 2 out of 5]

The meta-textual possibilities are endless in this document, the reader is being Hasbara'd while learning how to Hasbara. Many of the arguments here have since been re-evaluated, but for the most part this project seems to guide the western media narrative and mossad keyboard warirors' scripts to this day. While more PR friendly in its entirety, there is the occasional left-field absolutely statement absolutely lacking in self awareness;

"(To liberal Americans) Israel is so rich and so strong that they fail to see why it is necessary for armored tanks to shoot at unarmed kids or why Israel needs to level homes or attack villages or, most importantly, why a Palestinian state is a threat to Israel’s existence. Making the argument that Israel is a small country with a tiny land mass with hostile neighbors all around you won’t win either the hearts of the minds of liberal Americans."

Fascinating, this should only be read if you have enough background knowledge on the history of the occupation, otherwise the Hasbara might get you too.