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The Arab team in the Israeli Army Spokesperson’s Unit is very active on social media. Hardly a day goes by without posting video messages and posts on Twitter and Facebook.
Israeli researchers were interested in the performance of Israeli military speakers in Arabic in order to analyze and develop it, especially the Israeli military spokesman in Arabic, Avichai Adraee, and the head of the Arab Information Office in the Israeli army, Captain Ella.
This interest appeared clear in the studies written by Yonatan Gonen, current deputy head of the Israeli mission in Brazil, who previously held the position of director of the Arabic-language communication sites department in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The most prominent aspect is Adraee’s participation in interviews with Arab satellite channels, to comment on the current events during the war in Gaza. While the broadcasters ask him about incidents of the Israeli army killing civilians, he answers, seeking to convey Israeli messages to the Arab public, and uses various propaganda tactics aimed at justifying Israeli practices.
Motives for appearing on Arab platforms
In media interviews with hostile figures, the broadcaster usually expresses the audience to which he belongs, and asks difficult questions to the guest, leading to attacks on his person to highlight his contradiction and double standards. This turns the meetings into interrogations of the guest aimed at achieving victory in a media battle that coincides with the flames of the actual battle in the field.
Despite this, the Israeli army sees the importance of the participation of its spokesmen in media meetings in which they address the Arab public in their language, even with the limited duration of their participation, as they appear in short guest appearances for a few minutes without an actual presence in the studio or participation in long interviews.
Adraee’s tactics
In this report, we will focus on Avichay Adraee, as the most famous Israeli military spokesman in Arabic, to learn about the tactics he adopts during interviews.
Among the most prominent are:
- Denial and justification:
Adraee denies that Israel is behind incidents targeting civilians in schools, hospitals, and the like, and places responsibility for that on the resistance, under the pretext that it uses civilians as human shields or stores weapons and launches rockets from populated civilian areas.
If he presents clear evidence to refute his words, he says that the Israeli army is investigating the incident. And it is He is not hostile to the Palestinians, but rather to terrorists, and he seeks to prevent harm to civilians, but in wars there are unintended losses.
When Adraee feels the difficulty of his position and his cornering, it appears that he is not telling the truth, and he seeks to get rid of the situation, saying, “The Israeli army does not hide information, and works transparently.”
- Circumventing the question:
When asked about the Israeli army’s use of white phosphorus in combat, he circumvents the question by saying, “The Israeli army does not provide detailed information about the types of weapons it uses, and it acts on the basis of international law.”
When asked about the reasons for the large number of Palestinian civilian casualties, he answers, “There is no country in the world that would stand idly by if it were Israel, and that it would defend its citizens, of whom more than 1,200 people were killed, while tens of thousands of them were displaced from the settlements on the Gaza border.” And on the northern front with Lebanon.
- Mixing appeal to the broadcaster and attacking him:
Sometimes Adraee uses the interviewer’s first name without surnames to suggest friendship and build an intimate connection with the broadcaster.
Other times, he resorts to attacking the broadcaster personally to put him on the defensive by accusing him of lacking impartiality and providing inaccurate information, all the way to saying, “It seems that you do not follow the news,” while offering additions in the form of corrections to the information the broadcaster said.
Sometimes Adraee asks the broadcaster to provide proof of his words, and sometimes he quietly mocks the broadcaster, saying, “Your words are very funny,” to belittle him, and then presents a counter-narrative.
Adraee also expresses anger at the broadcaster’s interruption on the pretext that it prevents him from completing his speech, as he says, “I ask you once again to give me the right to answer the questions put to me. I will not go anywhere, and I will not ignore any question.” This is to suggest that he is presenting the truth and has nothing to be afraid to eat.
- Ask questions to the interviewer:
Adraee resorts to asking questions to the interviewers in a kind of role-playing, and then later provides answers to them. For example, he asks, addressing the broadcaster, “In your opinion, why do all Hamas leaders hide in mosques or hospitals? Why? Because they know that Israel will not attack these sites.”
- Using evidence from Arabic channels:
To enhance credibility and influence the viewer, Adraee resorts to using evidence previously presented by the host channel. He addresses one of the broadcasters, saying, “Have you seen the scenes broadcast by Al Jazeera a few days ago? In which Palestinian fighters appear firing anti-tank missiles from inside citizens’ homes?”
He also said in one of the interviews: “We can devote an entire broadcast to showing all the pictures collected by the Israeli army from Palestinian sources and news agencies. I will present them to you and we can see who is more ethical, the Israeli army or Hamas.”
- Using common Arabic examples:
Adraee uses common sayings and excerpts in the Arab and Islamic cultures, including verses from the Qur’an and hadiths of the Prophet, in order to build an intimate connection with the viewer, as well as employing quotations after distorting their context in the service of his narrative, which is evident in his use of the phrase “He hit me and cried, he beat me and complained” to respond to accusations. Resistance to the occupation army by targeting Palestinian civilians, as it is claimed that the Palestinian resistance first targeted Israeli citizens.
- Body language messages:
During television interviews, Adraei seeks to paint a specific picture of his personality, as he appears wearing official military uniform, and is careful to maintain self-control while smiling without uttering insults or insults, while sometimes addressing the broadcaster as “Dear Sir” to inspire respect and politeness.
Positive image
In conclusion, Afkhai and other speakers seek to paint a positive image of the occupation army, or at least to confuse the negative image formed about it.
To achieve this – according to Israeli Yonatan Gonen – they resort to major tactics that include denying the violations committed by the occupation army while blaming the resistance, and emphasizing Israel’s commitment to international law and the resistance’s violation of it.
They also seek to always emphasize the suffering of Israeli citizens while questioning the resistance narrative and the information it disseminates.
To implement the aforementioned tactics, they direct questions to broadcasters in order to control the conversation and address the Arab audience in their language and culture. If they feel that they are in a situation that harms their image, they evade questions, provide ambiguous or partial answers that are open to interpretation, or change the topic under discussion, without expressing anything at all. Express their regret or apology for Israel’s actions.
