Mainlining Hamas Propaganda

CNN's Zain Asher interviews Shaykh Hisham Hellyer

A representative example of CNN journalists interviewing "H.A.Hellyer" (first name Hisham, title Shaykh), who masquerades as a Western analyst but offers propaganda suited perfectly to Hamas' purposes. Despite his relentlessly repetitive and superficial analysis, CNN journalists just can't seem to get enough of him. (For three other examples, see Amara Walker, Eleni Giokos, and Paula Newton.)

A brief introductory note on Hamas propaganda. It’s actually Caliphator propaganda formulated in the promised land. It consists of a “narrative for infidels” that runs as follows:

We are the leaders of a resistance movement fighting for Palestinian freedom. What we do is for liberty. Our enemy is an evil imperial force that oppresses people of color, and deserves whatever we do to them. Israel is to blame for all problems - especially for the human suffering. We are not to be criticized, indeed, we should not be mentioned in any analysis of what the problem is or how to solve it: the pressure needs to be applied to Israel to get them to stand down.

Journalists are expected to communicate to the West all the major themes that support this narrative: Palestinian civilians suffering (with no mention of Hamas); Israeli incitement (with little mention of what they are responding to), the necessity of stopping Israeli military actions. After all, everyone knows, that’s the way to go.

NB: passages in italics are my paraphrases in the voice of the paraphrased.

Zain Asher: Let's just talk about what a war, what a wider war would actually mean for Lebanon. Of all places, this is a country that has been reeling, especially economically. Just walk us through what it would mean for them.

H.A. Hellyer: Thank you for having me on your program. So I think that escalation with Lebanon would be, frankly, quite disastrous, not only for the people of south Lebanon, but more widely regionally speaking, because, of course, it wouldn't just be Hezbollah that would jump into the fray. I think that you you could see an expanding of escalation with the Iranians. And I think that you would not see the accomplishment of, quote, unquote, Israeli goals when it comes to the return of their citizens to the north of the country. It would just be more war, more devastation, more destruction and the risk of wider regional conflict.

In other words, any serious Israeli resistance to Iran’s tightening noose will only make things worse. In all his four interviews on this subject, this is the only mention Shaykh Hellyer makes of the ca. 80,000 Israelis evacuated from the north as a result of Hizbullah bombing that began on October 8. “Quote unquote Israeli goals.”

Zain Asher: And worth noting that Lebanon has, of course, been reeling since that 2020 port explosion which killed 200 people and wounded 7000, right.

Also worth noting that that devastating event was the result of Hizbullah’s reckless endangerment of the Lebanese civilian population.

But let us not tarry on the implications of such an observation for the attitude of Hizbullah for Lebanese civilians. Let’s talk about Nasrallah’s options here.

I do want to talk about what options Hassan Nasrallah has in terms of how he responds, because he has to. I mean, the calculation here is really key. He can't overreact. He needs to show strength without sort of dragging Hezbollah and Lebanon into a wider war. How does he do that? How does he thread that needle?

One might wonder if Zain’s asking for advice on what Nasrallah has to do to keep firing on Israel and emptying her border towns, without provoking wider war “which nobody wants.”

H.A. Hellyer: Well, I think it's very difficult for Nasrallah, but frankly, it's also incredibly difficult for the Israelis.

Well that’s an interesting question, so let me change the subject to the boogey man.

But the Israelis have shown a high degree of recklessness when it comes to avoiding escalation in the region over the past 11 months, over 12 months now.

In other words, blame any escalation reckless, even when that’s from a state under attack by a rogue army that has the neighboring country in its talons, trying to have its citizens return to their homes after 9 months. When the escalations come from Hizbullah or Hamas, they do not register on him, and if they register briefly with CNN (et al.) they rapidly disappear from the minds of his interviewers.

And they've just reconfirmed that when it comes to southern Lebanon. And unfortunately, the part of the the reason for this, frankly, is about the United States. The United States has laid down a number of red lines over the past six months, in particular when it comes to Israeli operations in the region, in Lebanon and Gaza. And the Israelis have walked all over those red lines and not face any consequences or accountability for them. So, unfortunately, impunity breeds more impunity. And what we've seen over the last couple of days, I think, is the direct result of that.

For him, the problem is that the US is not preventing Israel from dealing with its enemies. That such a strategy, which the Shaykh then takes as a given - certain red lines - becomes the proper US strategy, which, frankly, if they’d just enforce, this operation against Israel could continue. For Israel to act in defiance of this policy is to go unpunished. No one is talking about punishing Hizbullah, say with the enforcement of the 1701 UN Resolution.

Hellyer’s approach blames Israel for fighting back against a situation in which Hizbullah bombs Israel daily, burning her forests, destroying her agriculture, displacing her people. The “axis of resistance” could not ask for a more useful (if to the West, own-goal) diplomacy.

Zain Asher: And in terms of, you know, red lines and retaliations, we have to also talk about Iran, because we've been waiting for quite some time for Iran to respond to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran a few months ago. They still haven't responded. Obviously, they were holding their horses until they sort of saw what played out with cease fire negotiations. But they see what's unfolding in terms of Israel and Hezbollah and the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday this week with pages and walkie talkies. Iran sees all of this and thinks what?

Oh, speaking about the axis of resistance and the red lines Israel crossed by provoking them, what about Iran. Why haven’t they weighed in yet. What do you think?

H.A. Hellyer: Well, I think when it comes to the Iranian retaliation, in retaliation, the Iranian regime doesn't need to retaliate immediately. And doesn't need to retaliate in one big blow. The Iranians can retaliate over a long period of time. They define whatever they will consider to be an acceptable response. And what I mean by that is that if they fail to respond in the way that we expect. It doesn't mean that they will regard it as a failure. They will simply present a narrative that says, actually, we meant to keep them on the edge of their seats for such and such amount of time. And we're responding over a longer period of time with smaller pinpoint strikes. You know, they can easily turn around and do that.

This is fascinating. Hellyer is saving face for Iran, giving us a scenario in which they’re the crafty long-game players. So…

if you Westerners, in your crude bar-room understanding of the rules of blood vengeance, didn’t get what you expected, that’s no shame to the Iranians. They can just repeat my talking points, and they’ll save face.

Of course don’t expect from me anything on the danger that the Mullahs in Iran run if they lose face in front of their own people.

But let me also take this discussion back to Israel.

But I think that all of these calibrations and calculations that we've seen over the past few months, they're not calibrated because you can't calibrate the law of unintended consequences. Always supplies if Hezbollah tries to escalate, but only just much if the Israelis think that they can escalate. But only up to a point. Well, they're not they're not in control of all the factors that will mean that it will just be up to that point.

Hizbullah appears here as a rational actor with an agenda much like the “whole world” - prevent this from becoming a regional war.

We're in a very dangerous situation right now. The escalation is really quite paramount as an imperative [to avoid]. But it requires using leverage on the actors involved in order to ensure that they change their behavior. And fundamentally, that's a D.C. what a Washington, D.C. question for the Israelis.

Surprise! after talking about “the actors,” Hellyer takes us to DC for pressuring Israel… not, say, Paris, for pressuring the Lebanese to reign in Hizbullah, for example. The fundamental principle of Hamas propaganda is: Israel must be pressured; we must not.

Zain Asher: When it comes to de-escalation. I mean, obviously, the key way to de-escalate all of this is for there to be some kind of cease fire agreement between Israel and Hamas to put an end to the war in Gaza. Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah came out and said, listen, we the animosity between Hezbollah and Israel is going to continue as long as the war in Gaza continues. How much hope is that, that there is going to be some kind of a negotiated agreement? I mean, obviously, we've seen our hopes dashed multiple times over the past year. How much hope do you have?

Here Zain shows us her party. She speaks in the “we” (ie “the whole world”) of what’s obviously needed, a cease-fire (that leaves Hamas in power). She believes the propaganda line that Hizbullah is bombing Israel only because Israel is bombing Gaza. When Israel stops, they stop. That’s “our” hope. A variant on “linkage” diplomacy.

And “we’ve seen our hopes dashed multiple times over the past year…” Of course it was Israel who dashed our well-meaning, humanitarian hopes.

This is a closed discussion of like-minded folks.

H.A. Hellyer: I'll be honest with you, I haven't had hope for these negotiations for months. And the main reason for that is, frankly, Israeli media. The Israeli media have leaked multiple times that Israel's own negotiating team is incredibly unhappy with their own prime minister for being a spoiler in these negotiations time and again. Incidentally, these are not ceasefire negotiations. These are negotiations for a pause in the fighting to get the hostages out with the explicit and with the explicit demand that the path be laid open for returning to war by the Israelis. I mean, looking elsewhere to this many time, unfortunately, I don't have much hope for this negotiation because I don't think that there's a genuine trust and commitment to actually moving towards a ceasefire.

It’s Bibi not Hamas that’s holding up negotiations. Let me not mention that any agreement that gave back all the hostages (which is probably what Zain thinks they’re about), would never get Hamas approval. For her, any deal is better than this, and Israel’s the one that needs to stop.

Zain Asher: Actually, a lot of Israelis don't necessarily believe that Netanyahu is serious about any kind of temporary cease fire either. Live for us there. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Let me confirm your comments about (self-critical) Israeli society blaming Bibi… Thank you for your narrative dump. Much appreciated.

The impression this interview gives is one of a propagandist from the “axis of resistance” (ie Caliphators) talking to a journalist who is smart enough to master the “narrative for infidels,” but obviously not enough to question it or even notice its anomalies. She clearly receives extensive approval for her talents.

On the other hand, at times she approaches “Otto” academy award quality for looking smart while saying incredibly stupid things.