Miren Gutierrez* interviews NANCY SNOW, propaganda expert
ROME, Jan 22 (IPS) – The war of words continues in Gaza, in spite of the ceasefire. Nancy Snow, propaganda expert, talks to IPS about information spin strategies and whether we, the public, have learnt any lessons from Iraq.
Snow is a writer and a Huffington Post blogger. Her latest book is “Persuader-in-Chief” about public diplomacy and persuasion in the Age of Obama. She is also Associate Professor at the Newhouse School of Communications, Syracuse University.
IPS: The Israeli propaganda effort is being directed to justify their attack. The sight of Hamas rockets streaking into Israel has been helpful in this respect. But do you think Israel’s effort has achieved anything?
NS: Israel’s effort seems to be designed to shake the confidence of Hamas. Of course, innocent people are in the way of this power struggle. We don’t know yet if Hamas will be emboldened or weakened by the Gaza conflict. We do know that global public opinion is against Israel for its raining of air attacks on a densely populated area. A lot of people died unnecessarily simply because of where they lived.
IPS: On Dec. 28, Israel released a video of a missile attack against what appeared to be a lorry being loaded with rockets. A caption says: “Grad missiles being loaded onto the Hamas vehicle.” As of last week, 632,714 people had watched it. However, it turned out that a Gaza resident named Ahmad Abdallah Muhammad Sanur claimed that the truck was his and that he and his workers were moving oxygen cylinders from his workshop. How do you think this case has hampered Israel’s propagandistic efforts?
NS: If one believes that the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) is acting in self-defence and that Hamas is completely responsible for creating the Gaza conflict, then the resident’s claim that this truck was his and that they were only moving oxygen cylinders places innocent victims smack in the middle of the propaganda war between Hamas and the IDF. If Sanur’s claims are true, naturally it hurts the IDF position that only Hamas is the target of its rockets.
IPS: Has the ban on foreign correspondents “helped”? (The television channels Al-Jazeera and BBC operated there during the attack). The absence of reporters from other major organisations has meant, for example, that Sanur’s story has not been as widely told as it probably would have been, or his account subject to examination.
NS: How do you think the ban is affecting this war of words? I’m all for the complete access of media to conflict areas. If correspondents are willing to put themselves in harm’s way in order to tell the story, completely and truthfully, then they should be allowed in. When a ban takes place, all we can wonder is what is being left out of the story being told? We cannot allow just officials to tell their stories. We need people on the ground, both citizen journalists and foreign correspondents, to complete the landscape picture.
