“It’s not what you know…”
September 17th, 2007You would think the launch party for a big Israeli defence firm would be the perfect place for me to find out exactly what happened during Israel’s raid in Syria. The Mikal Group, the new controlling company for a collection of defence suppliers with its eye on the export market, held a glitzy gathering tonight at the Tel Aviv port. There were hundreds of guests - weapons-business executives, army colonels, brigadier-generals, ex-brigadier-generals (identifiable by their close-cropped greying hair and gimlet-eyed gazes) and journalists. The drinks were free, and the bar staff were pouring them damn strong. Someone had to blab.
Not a chance. While the US and British press continue to dish up scoop after supposed scoop, the Israeli media remain censored and those in the know stay mum. Of course, it’s hard to tell who’s really in the know. All you get is little nuggets here and there - so-and-so’s friend in the air force told him they were preparing for this months ago, such-and-such heard that the pilots weren’t even told what they were going to bomb. I learned nothing. I felt terrible. I felt better after a military-affairs journalist with years of experience told me she had been pumping all her sources and learned nothing either.
I think it’s still OK to say that Israel launched a big raid and had good reasons for doing so. Beyond that, nothing is verifiable. The cheerleaders point to hints of something fishy, such as changes to the port records of a ship that docked in Syria three days before the raid carrying (supposedly) cement. Doubters turn up signs that what Israel hit, if anything, wasn’t nuclear. An Israeli journalist, Yigal Laviv, repeats the argument that if there were proof of nuclear material in Syria, Israel and the US would surely be trumpeting it to the skies (partial translation here). But then again, if there was nothing incriminating in Deir al Zur, surely Syria would be doing the same.
I mentioned to an Israeli acquaintance at the Mikal party how strange it was that, after this barrage of leaks and stories, we still knew basically nothing. “And that’s as it should be,” he said. From Israel’s point of view, the eerie silence at home mixed with tantalising media stories from abroad is working wonders. As I’ve noted before, when there is no hard information, rumours fill the gap, and he who controls the rumours controls the truth (Orwell forgot to include that one). Israelis are starting to believe in their army after its failures during last summer’s Lebanon war. Westerners are beginning to wonder whether there aren’t WMD in the Middle East after all. Arabs are fearful at the thought that Israel can still strike deep in their territory and get away with it. It may all be true; it may all be false; but in terms of the effect on the world, that’s irrelevant. “It’s not what you know,” my interlocutor said, “it’s what you think you know.”
All of which may answer my earlier question about why the Israeli media blackout on the event continues - and suggests that it may not be lifted after all.
Update (September 19th): I was wrong on two counts. One is that the official silence has already been broken - albeit by Bibi Netanyahu, who despite not being a member of the government, let alone one of the three ministers reportedly involved in the decision to attack, claims he was “involved… from the first moment”, whatever that means.
The second is that I apparently misheard over the noise at the Mikal party: the phrase was “it’s what they think you know”. I actually liked the wrong version better.