Thursday, March 30, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
The caption is "Occupation violations of Al Aqsa." It shows the Arab world smoking a hookah, eyes closed, while the Dome of the Rock burns.
There is a huge difference in the quality of propaganda between saying that Jews are determined to destroy the mosques on the Temple Mount - and saying that Arabs are ignoring that destruction.
After all, if the entire cartoon was the left side of the cartoon, and the main point was that Jews were destroying the structure, casual readers would consciously realize that this is the message that the cartoonist is trying to convey, and they could evaluate the message on its merits. The claim that the Jews are hellbent on destroying Al Aqsa have been rampant for over a hundred years, and nothing has happened in that century, so the reader might be resistant to that message.
But when the message is that the Arab world is ignoring Israel's destruction of the site, then the reader's attention is no longer directed towards what the Jews are doing but what the Arabs are. The message that Jews are destroying Al Aqsa is almost subliminal - it must be accepted as a given before the viewer can evaluate the claim of about the foreground of the picture.
By only saying indirectly that Jews are destroying Al Aqsa, that message is that much stronger.
There is another layer here, though: the image of the Dome of the Rock burning would cause a visceral reaction of anger to Palestinian Muslims. It is like an image of a burning Quran. In that sense, it is incitement. But, again, the message is magnified by not being the main focus of the cartoon, but the artist wants a twofold reaction: one of anger towards Arab leaders, but also to inspire Palestinian Muslims to "defend Al Aqsa" themselves - which practically means attacking Jews.
I cannot tell how effective this is. But it is a model for effective propaganda that is meant to rile up people.
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