Projective Psychological Warfare (PPW): an analysis of Hamas Hebrew videoclips as part of its propaganda campaign against Israel (2007–2014)

Abstract

Hamas invests vast resources in propaganda for a number of diverse audiences, harnessing the communications channels it operates on different media platforms. Over the course of the many years of the Israel-Hamas confrontation, the organization has waged psychological warfare and an ongoing propaganda war against Israeli society, seeking to influence Israelis’ perceptions and feelings. However, there is reason to doubt the effectiveness of this activity. This essay examines Hamas’s psychological warfare activities by analyzing videoclips the organization produced with content in Hebrew, clearly designed for an Israeli audience. Based on an in-depth analysis of the videoclips’ contents, both textual and visual, Hamas’s activity may be defined as Projective Psychological Warfare (PPW), that is, psychological warfare that reflects the beliefs and feelings of the entity operating it rather than targeting its messages to the culture and worldview of its target audience. It is in light of this phenomenon that we seek to explain the inefficacy of Hamas’s psychological warfare against Israel.

Keywords:

• Psychological Warfare
• Hamas
• Israel
• Gaza Strip
• Arab-Israeli Conflict

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Tom Sharon and Ehud Yaari, ‘The Hamas Advertises A Video: Shooting of the Zionist Knesset’, News 2, 15 November 2012: https://tinyurl.com/zweehr6p (accessed 18 July 2022).

2 Kataʾib al-Qasam tasqutu taʾira Israʾiliyya [Al-Qassam Brigades shoot down an Israeli plane], YouTube, 16 November 2012: https://tinyurl.com/39hzp7hw (accessed 18 July 2022) [Hebrew].

3 ‘Psychological Warfare: Israelis Received Messages from the Jihad’, News 2, 7 November 2012: https://tinyurl.com/2fk5xx8e (accessed 18 July 2022).

4 Shikrei Hamas: Ha-hamas toʿanim – Anachnu yodʿim et ha-emet [The Lies of Hamas: Hamas Claim – We Know the Truth], YouTube, 12 July 2014: https://tinyurl.com/59cnut7e [Hebrew].

5 Ron Shleifer, ‘Psychological Warfare in Israel – A New Review, The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University’, Reviews of Middle Eastern Security, no. 5 (July 2002), p.7.

6 Francisco Yus, Smartphone Communication: Interactions in the App Ecosystem (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), pp.1–10.

7 See, for example, Tomer Mozes and Gabriel Weimann, ‘The E-Marketing Strategy of Hamas’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism Vol. 33, no. 3 (2010), pp.211–25, DOI: 10.1080/10576100903555762; Ron Schleifer, ‘Propaganda, PSYOP, and Political Marketing: The Hamas Campaign as a Case in Point’, Journal of Political Marketing Vol. 13, no. 1–2 (2014), pp.152–73, DOI: 10.1080/15377857.2014.866413.

8 Shleifer, Psychological Warfare, p.11.

9 See Mati Steinberg, ‘Religion and Nationality in Hamas Ideology’, in Neri Horowitz (ed.), Religion and Nationalism in Israel and the Middle East (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2002), pp.137–42 [Hebrew].

10 Author unknown, ‘Instilling Radical Islamic Values and Culture of Struggle and Terror Against Israel Amongst Nursery School Children’, The Israeli Intelligence and Heritage Communication Center, 5 June 2007, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/he/article/18612 (accessed 21 Jan. 2013).

11 Rashmi Singh, ‘The Discourse and Practice of “Heroic Resistance” in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: The Case of Hamas’, Politics, Religion & Ideology Vol. 13, no. 4 (2012), pp.537–38.

12 ‘al-maktab al-Iʿlami li-kataʾib al-shahid ʿIzz al-Din al-Qassam’, ['Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades’ information office] Qassamiyun, December 2007, p.75 [Arabic].

13 IDF Editorial Team, ‘Violations of Freedom of the Press in Gaza’, IDF (Israel Defense Forces), 25 January 2018, https://www.idf.il/en/minisites/hamas/violations-of-freedom-of-the-press-in-gaza/.

14 For example, the impact of the Muhammad al-Dura affair on public opinion towards Israel. Nachman Shai, Media War: Reaching for Hearts and Minds (Tel Aviv: Yediot Achronot, 2013), pp.15–35 [Hebrew].

15 See, for example, a ‘wounded’ Palestinian evacuated to hospital during the Pillar of Defense operation who, after a few minutes, stands up and walks away: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfv5uMO1Lj (accessed 21 Jan. 2013).

16 Ron Schleifer, ‘New Media and New-Old War’, Patuach: Journal about Politics, Media and Society Vol. 5 (2003), pp.254–55. [Hebrew].

17 Ron Schleifer, Psychological Warfare in the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014), pp.168–70.

18 Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (London and New York: Routledge, 2004 [1950]), pp.74–75.

19 Roy F. Baumeister, Karen Dale and Kristin L. Sommer, ‘Freudian Defense Mechanisms and Empirical Findings in Modern Social Psychology: Reaction Formation, Projection, Displacement, Undoing, Isolation, Sublimation, and Denial’, Journal of Personality Vol. 66, no. 6 (December 1998), p.1090.

20 Schleifer, ‘Psychological Warfare’, pp.13–19.

21 Ali Waked, ‘The Hebrew Clip of the Hamas Recruited to the War on Fatah’, Yediot Ahronot, 13 June 2007, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3412065,00.html.

22 The video can be seen in the article of Roi Keis, 23 March 2014, ‘Rashut hashigur: K'sheha'oyev nofel betirgum’ [Launching casting Service: When the enemy's translation fails] https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4502446,00.html ]Hebrew].

23 The name of an Israeli advanced tank.

24 Avi Yissasschar and Oded Yaron, ‘This is Not a Parody: Hamas Threats with Suicide Bombings’, 7 November 2012, HaAretz, http://www.haaretz.co.il/captain/net/1.1867037 (accessed 18 July 2022).

25 For more on the Shalit deal and the prisoner exchange negotiations, see Gerson Baskin, The Negotiator: Freeing Gilad Shalit from Hamas (Jerusalem: Toby Press, 2013); Yoram Schweitzer, ‘A Mixed Blessing: Hamas, Israel, and the Recent Prisoner Exchange’, Strategic Assessment Vol. 14, no. 4 (2012), pp.23–40.

26 Netanel Flamer (2022), ‘Offsetting the Offset: Israel’s Strategy vis-à-vis Hamas during the 2021 Gaza War’, Israel Affairs Vol. 28, no. 3 (2022), pp.378–79. DOI: 10.1080/13537121.2022.2066843.

27 al-maktab al-Iʿlami li-kataʾib al-shahid ʿIzz al-Din al-Qassam ['Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades’ information office], ‘Film ʿAmaliat al-Wahm al-Mutabadid’ [The illusion has been shattered], al-Aqsa, October 2012: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv71os (accessed 7 Aug. 2022).

28 See ‘Jadal bayna Hamas wa-Fatah bi-shaʾn khatf junud Israʾiliyyin’, [The dispute between Hamas and Fatah regarding kidnapping Israeli soldiers] , ʿArabi wa-Dawli, 29 May 2013:

https://tinyurl.com/nz378jyk (accessed 7 June 2022).

29 Yonah Alexander, Palestinian Religious Terrorism: Hamas and Islamic Jihad, (New York: Transnational Publishers, 2021), p.331.

30 ‘Mish maʿqul kumidiya sakhira min al-jundi al-sahyuni al-jaban", [Unreasonable: a Funny Comedy on the Fearfull Zionist Soldier], Youtube, 1 July 2011: https://tinyurl.com/ka6xfhzz (accessed 7 June 2022).

31 ‘Hadhihi al-'ard Lana Lana’ [This Land is our land], ‘al-I'ilam al-harbi idha'at saut shabab’ [Hamas combat information broadcast the voice of the Youth], Facebook, 24 March 2011: https://www.facebook.com/ikhwanragab/videos/120496001359581/?extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C&ref=sharing (accessed 27 June 2022) [Arabic].

32 Shaul Bartal and Nesya Rubinstein-Shemer, Hamas and Ideology: Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaraḍawi on the Jews, Zionism, and Israel (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), pp.51–53.

33 On the theological concept of the abrogation of Judaism and Christianity as true religions by Islam see Moshe Pearlman, ‘Ha-Pulmus bayn ha-Islam la-Yahadut bi-Yemei ha-Baynayim’, in Lazarus-Yafeh (ed.), Sofrim Muslemim ʿal Yehudim ve-Yahadut (Jerusalem: Mercaz Zalman Shazar le-Toldot Yisrael, 1995), pp.137–38 [Hebrew]; Camila Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazam (Leiden, New York and Cologne: Brill, 1996), pp.192–223; Brannon Wheeler, ‘Israel and the Torah of Muhammad’, in John Reeves (ed.), Bible and Qurʾan: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), p.81.

34 Hamas Covenant, August 1988, Paragraphs 11 and 12.

35 On the close ties between Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Hamas see Bartal and Shemer, Hamas and Ideology, pp.99–169.

36 Nesya Rubinstein- Shemer, ‘Qaradawi’s View on the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict’, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology Vol. 20 (2016), pp.81–102.

37 Ibid., p.93.

38 See, for example, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s declaration in Adam Rasgon, ‘Abbas: Settlements will be Swept Away, Palestinians Came from Ancient Canaanites’,” Times of Israel, 13 August 2019 https://tinyurl.com/2p8n8aru and see also Shemer, ‘Qaradawi’s view’, p.81.

39 Yifrah and Zilberman, The Myth of the Canaanite Origins of the Palestinian Society (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for the Research of Israel, 1993) [Hebrew].

40 Nissim Dana, Who Does this Country Rightfully Belong To: A New Inquiry into the Quran and Classic Islamic Sources on the People of Israel, their Torah, and their Links to Jerusalem and the Holy Land (Jerusalem: HaOmanim Press, 2013), pp.60–62 [Hebrew].

41 For a discussion regarding Judaism as anti-ideal in Islamic classical discourse, see Zeʾev Maghen, After Hardship Cometh Ease: The Jews as Backdrop for Muslim Moderation (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2006), pp.72–83.

42 Bartal and Shemer, Hamas and Ideology, pp.64–65. On the Khazars see, for example, Peter B. Golden, Haggai Ben-Shammai and András Róna-Tas, The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007).

43 Hassan al-Bash was born in 1947 in Haifa, Palestine. His family immigrated to Damascus, Syria during the Nakbah of 1948. Al-Bash received a teaching certificate for the Arabic Language at the University of Damascus in 1973. Later, he completed his doctoral studies in the study of religions. He subsequently became extensively involved in many areas in journalism. For example, he was the editor of majalat al-jihadiyya. Hassan al-Bash is considered a leading scholar of the culture of Zionism and of Judaism. He is the author of 32 books, most of them dealing with related topics, all slandering Judaism and presenting falsifications about the Torah and Christianity.

44 ‘Harakat al-Jihad tanʿa al-Duktur Hassan al-Bash’, Filastin al-Yawm, 28 April 2016: https://tinyurl.com/mrya7ufb, (accessed 17 July 2022).

45 Hasan al-Bash, Al-Qurʼan wa-ʼltawrat: Ayna Yatafiqun wa-Ayna Yaftariqun [The Quran and the Bible: Consensus and Disputes], (Damascus: Dar al-Kutub, no date).

46 al-Bash, Al-Qurʼan wa-ʼltawrat, p.361.

47 Ibid., p.363.

48 Sariel Birnbaum, ‘Historical Discourse in the Media of the Palestinian National Authority’, in Meir Litvak (ed.), Palestinian Collective Memory and National Identity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp.135–68.

49 Shaul Bartal, The Way of the Jihad in Palestine (Jerusalem: Carmel, 2012), p.77 [Hebrew].

50 On the Quranic story of the Jews who became pigs and apes and the debate regarding it among contemporary Muslim scholars see Neil J. Kressel, The Sons of Pigs and Apes: Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2012), pp.29–33.

51 The English translation is by Abdullah Yusuf Ali: http://www.quran4u.com/aya/Eng/002Baqarah.htm.

52 Nadim al-Jisr, ‘Good Tidings About the Decisive Battle between Muslims and Israel in the Light of the Holy Qurʼan the Prophetic Traditions and the Fundamental Laws of Nature and History’, in D. F. Green (ed.), Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel (Geneva: Editions de l'Avenir, 1971), pp.42–47.

53 See the lecture of Tal Fabel, ‘Physiological Warfare of Hamas During Pillar of Defense Operation’ [Hebrew]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuSy0zVGw5I (seen 24 June 2013).

54 Elior Levi, ‘Hitgaʿganu le-Piguei Ha-Hitbaʾdut’ [‘We missed the suicide bombings’. The transliterated headline is the original spelling of Hamas, using poor Hebrew and misspelling], Yediot Achronot, 19 Nov. 2012, https://tinyurl.com/2p84ybby (accessed 7 June 2022) [Hebrew].

55 Bartal, The Way of the Jihad, p.21, Note 24

56 Meir Litvak, ‘“Martyrdom is Life”: Jihad and Martyrdom in the Ideology of Hamas’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism Vol. 33, no. 8 (2010), pp.716–34.

57 ‘Hamas ohavim et ha-mavet yoter me-ahavat ha-hayim shel ha-yisraelim’ [Hamas loves death more than Israelis love life] YouTube, 18 Dec. 2012: https://tinyurl.com/mry58j89 (accessed 7 June 2022) [Hebrew].

58 Bartal and Shemer, Hamas and Ideology, p.28.

59 ‘Nasrallah Infuriates Israel: Israel Weaker than a Spider Web – Arabic sub English’, Shiatv, 29 March 2014 [26 May 2000]: https://www.shiatv.net/video/1249120761 .

60 Interview with Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Al-Sanara, 18 Aug. 2020.

61 Two examples of many: Son of Ishmael – Erez Amidi (‘Attack, Carry Out Attacks’): The Official Reaction Song, YouTube, 12 Aug. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOBfypKFvF4; Bibi Netanyahu Sings ‘Attack, Carry Out Attacks’, YouTube, 6 September 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDPu1OXY4zw.

62 Attack, Carry out Attacks: Lekha Dodi version, YouTube, 7 Aug. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38sKG6egFxM; Attack, Carry Out Attacks: Hassidic Version, YouTube, 6 August, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzSvYtNt8Ro.

63 The Hamas covenant, 18 Aug. 1988, verse 1.

64 Bartal and Shemer, Hamas and Ideology, pp.56–58.

65 Al-Qaradawi, Al-Quds: Qadiyyat kull Muslim [Jerusalem is the Problem of Every Muslim], p.77, translated in Shaul Bartal and Nesya Rubinstein-Shemer, Hamas and Ideology: Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi on the Jews, Zionism and Israel (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), pp.73–74.

66 Mathieu Guidère, Historical Dictionary of Islamic Fundamentalism (Lanham, Toronto and Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2012), pp.4–7, 113.

67 Hamas Covenant, Paragraphs 8, 9, and 13, as appearing at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp, (accessed on 4 Aug. 2022).

68 Richard H. Shultz, Transforming U.S. Intelligence for Irregular War: Task Force 714 in Iraq (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2020), p.28.

69 For more on the development of intelligence within Hamas with examples in the field of doubling agents, see Netanel Flamer, ‘“An Asymmetric Doubling”: A Non-state Actor Using the Method of Doubling Sources – Hamas against Israeli Intelligence’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 36:1 (2023), pp.63–77, DOI 10.1080/08850607.2022.2104054.