Hacked Emails Show That Israel Ran Focus Groups With 'Dial Testing' To Sell 2014 Slaughter In Gaza.

Hacked Emails Obtained By The Dissident Show That Israel Ran Focus Groups With "Dial Testing" To Sell 2014 Slaughter In Gaza.

In 2014, Israel carried out “Operation Protective Edge” in Gaza, a mass bombing that slaughtered 2000 Palestinians, including 500 children, and left 10,000 injured.

According to Amnesty International, “family homes were among the targets for airstrikes,” and “several of the attacks directly and deliberately targeted civilians and landmark buildings”.

The Institute for Middle East Understanding noted that during the Israeli bombardment in 2014, there was the “targeting of civilian infrastructure, including Gaza’s only power plant, causing shortages of electricity, clean water, and causing raw sewage to flow into the streets” by the IDF, adding that “the Israeli military destroyed entire neighborhoods and flattened high-rise residential buildings and shopping centers”.

The Gaza Health Ministry documented that 70 percent of Palestinians killed during the bombing were civilians.

But just as they later did with the 2023 genocide in Gaza, Israel needed a way to sell this mass slaughter to Americans.

Recently, the Iranian hacking group Handala released emails from the former Israeli Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2011-2015, Ron Prosor, which were published by the whistleblowing website, Distributed Denial of Secrets.

Emails within this database, obtained by the Dissident, show that Israel ran a focus group for “liberal elites from the DC area” to “see what messages work to bring support for Israel’s security — and what pushes people away” in regard to selling the 2014 massacre in Gaza.

At the time, Ron Prosor was being advised by Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi- A Zionist “nonprofit leader” based in Maryland and “expert in strategic communications, advocacy, and public policy” who claims to have “worked on winning campaigns and successful efforts with presidents, prime ministers, 48 governors, 85 Ambassadors, and leaders at all levels” - to sell the 2014 slaughter to the American public.

She is also the founder of “The Israel Project” (TIP), a non-profit created to whitewash Israel’s image.

Writing about the Israel project, Harretz reported, “Its main mission was to influence media coverage of Israel and improve Israel’s international image. The organization also worked to create a positive image of Israel in the Arab world and the Middle East through social media and online projects”.

In emails to Ron Prosor during the 2014 slaughter in Gaza, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi gave him a list of talking points to sell the massacre, writing that he should say, “that every soldier and settler had left Gaza years ago and that Israel only got rockets in return,” adding, “ I think it would have been much stronger for liberals and center”.

In reality, after Israel “left” Gaza in 2005, they placed a brutal blockade on it, which even former UK Prime Minister David Cameron admitted turned it into a “open-air prison” and “prison camp”.

She also gave him talking points to whitewash Israel’s slaughter of civilians, including by telling him to say that “our hearts break when Palestinian women and children – even those inside schools and hospitals - are used as civilian shields” and that “Israelis want a better future for innocent Palestinian children”.

Ron Prosor responded to her advice, saying he “will try to incorporate some of these ideas in the future”.

Following this, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi announced that “tomorrow we are dial testing some of your interviews”, adding that “we will see what messages work to bring support for Israel’s security — and what pushes people away,” and that “the group is liberal elites from the DC area”.

In 2009, Mother Jones reported that Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi’s Israel project ran a similar focus group for Israel on how best to sell an American war with Iran, asking questions like “How would you feel if Hillary [Clinton] bombed Iran? How would you feel if George Bush bombed Iran? And how would you feel if Israel bombed Iran?”

Laura Sonnenmark, an attendee of the focus group, said to the magazine, “The whole basis of the whole thing was, ‘we’re going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to go along with it?”.

Just as she did with the 2014 bombing of Gaza, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi presumably shared the results with Israeli government officials.

Israeli lobbyist groups used similar tactics to sell the genocide in Gaza.

Journalist Max Blumenthal reported that the Israel lobby groups UJA-Federation and Jewish Community Relations Council hired the pollster Frank Luntz to conduct focus groups, and then “coach elected officials and well-known figures on how to influence public opinion in favor of the Israeli military’s rampage in Gaza” using the results.

These focus groups played a large role in the “mass rape hoax”, the false claim that Hamas raped women on Ocotber 7th, used to justify the genocide in Gaza.

As Blumenthal uncovered:

In one focus group, Luntz asked participants to state which alleged act by Hamas on October 7 “bothers you more.” After being presented with a laundry list of alleged atrocities, a majority declared that they were most upset by the claim that Hamas “raped civilians” – 19 percent more than those who expressed outrage that Hamas supposedly “exterminated civilians.”

From selling war with Iran to selling slaughter in Gaza, Israel is using their lobbyists in the United States to poll the public, in order to find out how best to sell support for Israel and its wars.

---

Note to readers: The Dissident is a reader-supported outlet. If you liked this article, consider becoming a paid subscriber.