The brilliant Palestinian plan to capture the pliable minds of American college students was laid out in front of me 25 years ago, during a very sinister business meeting in Israel.
It was around the time of the Oslo Accords. I had been hired by the Ford Foundation to create a marketing institute for their grantees in the country. Ford was funding the operations of both Jewish and Arab organizations within the Israeli green line, in an effort to help build a vibrant liberal civil society.
Ford put me in partnership with a young Israeli woman, Debra London. (Debra, now one of my closest friends, has just been selected to head up fundraising for the rebuilding of Kibbutz Be’eri.) She and I drew up a plan to interview each of the grantees, as well as Israeli ad agencies and media firms. While we wanted to learn about the grantees, we also planned to secure free marketing work and media to be an essential part of the institute.
When we interviewed the Jewish organizations, the atmosphere was almost giddy with hope, possibility and belief in Shimon Peres’s new Middle East. Each organization we interviewed talked excitedly about peace and co-existence, a flourishing economy among both the Jews and the Palestinians, collaborative projects and interchanges.
But when we interviewed the Arab organizations, the word “peace” never passed their lips. They spoke of independence, dignity, self-rule, a state. One person even told me she would never use the word “du-kiyum” (co-existence). “There is no such thing as co-existence,” she stressed. “We are just the tenants living on the property that the Jews now own. That’s not a balanced co-existence.”
I tried to explain to my fellow Jewish liberals that we — the Jews and the Arabs — were having two very separate conversations. We were talking “peace.” They were talking “independence.” But as the weeks of interviews progressed, I found the Arab organizations were talking about a whole lot more.
I asked hard questions of both the Jews and Arabs in the interviewing process. With the Arab organizations, when I brought up any sensitive, and not-so-sensitive, issues—like terrorism, cooperation and even budget—the interviewee would slam on the brakes.
And then from each organization, the same words were spoken: “When you are in Haifa meeting with Itijaa, you can ask that question to Ameer Makhoul.” Itijaa was an Arab civil rights organization. Ameer Makhoul was its executive director. It became clear to me that Ameer Makhoul had some type of control over all the Arab NGOs I was speaking to.
Finally, Debra and I arrived at the offices of Itijaa. Skinny, bespectacled, young Ameer Makhoul emerged from his office, took a look at me and said, “So this is the Gary Wexler who has been asking all the questions.” And then he ticked off every question I had asked along with the name of each person I had posed the question to.
He brought us into his office and began pacing. “So, Gary Wexler, let me answer your questions in the following way. One: Gary Wexler, who is sitting in front of me now, went to Los Angeles City College for two years where you were an Israel activist and editor of the school newspaper. You wrote a lot about Israel. And continued to do so at California State University, Northridge. You spent five summers as a volunteer on Kibbutz Ayelet Hashachar. Through your marketing agency, Passion Marketing, you service the following clients of the Jewish world and in Israel.” He named every one.
I knew this guy was trouble.
“And now, Gary Wexler,” he sat down, “let me give you more direct answers.” He looked me straight in the eye. “Just like you were a Zionist campus activist, we will create, over the next years, Palestinian campus activists in America and all over the world. Bigger and better than any Zionist activists. Just like you spent your summers on the kibbutz, we will bring college students to spend their summers in refugee camps and work with our people. Just like you have been part of creating global pro-Israel organizations, we will create global pro-Palestinian organizations. Just like you today help create PR campaigns and events for Israel, so will we, but we will get more coverage than you ever have.”
He stood again this time, right over me. “You wonder how we will make this happen, how we will pay for this? Not with the money from your liberal Jewish organizations who are now funding us. But from the European Union, Arab and Muslim governments, wealthy Arab people and their organizations. Eventually, we will not take another dollar from the Jews.”
Then he approached real close. “What do you think of this?”
I took a breath. I remained professional. “Nothing. I’m here on behalf of the Ford Foundation collecting information for a planned marketing institute.”
He came even closer. “I am asking what does Gary Wexler think of what I just said. You, Gary Wexler.”
I repeated my answer.
He came even closer. “I ask again. What does Gary Wexler think of what I just said.”
Debra and I got up. I took my writing pad. “I feel that you are threatening me and we are leaving.”
The next morning I received a call from the program officer at the Ford Foundation. “Gary, we have a problem. We received a call from Ameer Makhoul and we understand you spewed out all sorts of Zionist propaganda and he felt very threatened by you.”
I told him it was a lie.
The program officer continued to press me as to what I had said. I related the conversation word for word. He repeated what Ameer Makhoul had said. I told him to call Debra London who was with me through the entire interview, and verify it with her. I also told him that they better check their funding to these Arab organizations, because Ameer Makhoul appeared to be controlling all of them with some very hateful behaviors.
He backed down.
Debra and I wrote up our recommendations for how they needed to build the marketing institute, including a recommendation for using the pro bono work, worth nearly 1 million shekels, that we had secured from the ad agencies. The program officer, a former academic focused on the nonprofit sector, couldn’t understand the value of businesses being involved and rejected it out of hand. A few weeks later, he told Debra and me that he had hired an NGO consulting team to finish the work. They would be giving several hours of consultation to each organization.
Several years later, I learned Ameer Makhoul had been arrested by the Israelis as a spy for Syria.
As the years went on, I began to see what Ameer Makhoul had laid out to me taking shape. The PR coverage was first: The Muhammad al-Durrah incident in Gaza, when a 12-year-old boy was shot to death on the second day of the Second Intifada, capturing global headlines. The Mavi Marmara, the Turkish Flotilla to Gaza that the Israelis stormed, killing several Palestinian activists, grabbing global headlines. I knew the Mavi Marmara was manufactured for the exposure it would gain.
Then the campuses: The creation of Apartheid Week worldwide. The growth of BDS. The student volunteers who began by the thousands to work in the Palestinian territories and its refugee camps. The shocking creation of anti-Zionist Jewish student groups.
As an award-winning copywriter and creative director in ad agencies and a professor of Communication at USC, I have developed an intuitive antenna to detect similarities between writing styles, idea styles and conceptual creation. In the early years of this pro-Palestinian campaign, I could see the commonalities of excellence, style and manipulation across all their platforms. Teaching on a university campus gave me a front-row seat at this theater of darkening skies.
People of color, particularly antisemitic Black groups like BLM, were organizing to identify with the Palestinians. Many organizations representing people seen as oppressed were moved to identify with the Palestinians. Students of every variety were swayed.
People of color, particularly antisemitic Black groups like BLM, were organizing to identify with the Palestinians. Many organizations representing people seen as oppressed were moved to identify with the Palestinians. Students of every variety were swayed. I could see the commonalities of language creation and transfer — my field — being applied to the Jews. Many of them were old antisemitic tropes into which new life was being breathed:
Israel and Jews are colonialists just like other white oppressors around the world. Israel is an apartheid society, the same as South Africa was.
Jews have white privilege, even though more than 50% of Jews are dark-skinned people from the Arab world, Iran and Africa.
Jews hold power in media and banking, making them the enemy.
Jews center themselves as capitalists and donors.
Jews don’t hold space for anyone but themselves.
Jews need to be held accountable for the pain they are causing.
If you challenged any of this you were a racist, the worst thing you could possibly be accused of.
(Except if you are racist against Jews. Then you prove you are a true ally of the oppressed.)
Our enemies have had a real success. They have formed a winning international communication army with trained troops everywhere.
Israeli writer, producer and former antisemitism envoy Noa Tishby recently said that students, particularly Jewish ones who are protesting against Israel, have been “played,” but I don’t know if even she understands the background and extent of it. They haven’t just been played, they’ve been turned. Many of them are alumni of Jewish day schools and camps. Those students believe they have joined the other side because they were the victims of a propagandized Zionist education and have now seen the light. No, they are the victims of a propagandized, slow, well-crafted plan, laid out to me by Ameer Makhoul.
And what has been the Jewish world’s response to all of this?
Funders are now putting up pro-Jewish and pro-Israel billboards in American cities. As if a clever one-line message can combat all these brilliant, strategized organizing efforts on behalf of our enemies.
Others are organizing TikTok and Twitter troops. But that work is in response to the playing field that has been established and won by the enemies of the Jewish people. We show ourselves in a defensive mode. We are playing on the field they have drawn. We need to draw our own, in a very big way.
There are many good organizations being funded and working on our behalf, but their work, alone, is not the answer.
There are many good organizations being funded and working on our behalf, but their work, alone, is not the answer.
It is imperative we have overall strategizing and coordinating. Right now, it is every organization for itself. It’s an uncoordinated battlefield where each squadron is moving in its own direction, rather than toward the same hill—the only way for victory. It is imperative that we create big, brilliant, creative ideas of engagement. We must view this as a pervasive Jewish community organizing effort for communication purposes, in collaboration with the Israelis.
American Jews are sending cans of food and socks to Israel while the Palestinians are conceptualizing bigger and better worldwide actions. We’re still fighting and demonizing one another. Many organizations have not yet woken up that it is no longer business as usual.
In the last three weeks I have received no fewer than 200 solicitations for 200 separate efforts. American Jews are sending cans of food and socks to Israel while the Palestinians are conceptualizing bigger and better worldwide actions. We’re still fighting and demonizing one another. Many organizations have not yet woken up that it is no longer business as usual. I’m on the board of one that I’ve had to rattle, saying, “No, we cannot position what we are doing just as we always have. Everything now has to be repositioned against the background of this war on Israel and the Jewish people.”
In the propaganda war, we could be learning a lot from our enemies, who have learned a lot from us. Maybe we need our own Ameer Makhoul and all his buddies? Is any leadership team, that we can all get behind, going to step forward?
Originally published at the Jewish Journal.
Gary Wexler was recently honored by the National Library of Israel with the creation of The Gary Wexler Archive, a 20 year history of Jewish life told through the advertising campaigns he created for Jewish organizations in the US, Canada and Israel.
Ameer Makghoul is very clever monster. He reminds me of Antonio Gramsci. that way.
I’d never knew anything about this long term project before. Thanks for the information.
Islam has been the depraved psychopathic murderous scourge of humanity for 1400 years.
Enough already.
Thank you so much for your article. One important issue:
Make campaigns about the Jewish rights (historical and juridical) to the land! I am so tired of defending Israel, and “no one” believe me – an ordinary person – because they have never heard about it. Even jewish presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, representants etc don´t talk about it. Why should people believe a housewife?
In addition to your wonderful unique Book (which is not the right tool to use in campaigns) , Israel have the juridical and historical rights to the land. San Remo, League of Nations, United Nations art 80. Arabs are the invaders and occupiers. As they also are the invaders and occupiers of North Africa and more. THEY are the colonists.
There is no Israeli occupation! You people with microphone stands: please tell the world that there is no occupation! Israel is the only indigenous people that regained its land after world war 1. The rest of the areas was given back to the former colonist – the arabs.
When there are wars people get displaced:
12-14 mill hindus & muslims were transfered when Pakistand was carved out of India.
13 mill germans were forced to move after world war 2 and Germany lost land.
2 mill iboes forced to move.
1 mill chineses to Hong Kong.
1 mill north koreans to the south.
800.000 north vietnameses to the south.
Later, 1 mill south vietnameses out of the country.
860.000 jews from arabs countries.
450.000 finns from Karelia.
The “palestinians” aren´t even a people. They are a created people, a fake people.
About 300.000-700.000 “pals” were displaced, because they chose war instead of accepting reality.
And on top of it: they have Jordan – a much larger country than Israel.
There are no Jewish rights. There are no Muslim rights, no Christian rights, and no atheist rights.
There are no divine rights or ancient tribal rights.
The only rights that exist are the secular Rights of Man, i.e., individual rights. If men wish to coexist peacefully, prosperously, cooperating with each other to mutual benefit, gain, and profit, it is individual rights they must protect, defend, and fight for.
Imagine if Israel were populated only by Jews. But there are many kinds of Jews, there are many sects of Jews, there are many ways that Jews interpret and practice their religion, who’s to say among these different competing interpretations of Judaism, who’s the real Jew and who’s not a real Jew.
What about the Jew that just wants to be left alone to practice Judaism his own individual way with no interference from other Jews. A Jewish theocracy would be a disaster for Israel as well as the Jews.
There’s nothing wrong with Israel being a safe haven for the Jews, I will even go so far as to say that it is rational, proper, and moral for Israel to annex Gaza and the West Bank and expel anyone from Israel, Jew or non-Jew, who is proven to be an active enemy of the state of Israel.
But the moral legitimacy of Israel as a country, its right to exist, does not come from the fact that it is a safe haven for the Jews, as necessary as that is today and for the foreseeable future. The moral legitimacy of Israel is derived from the fact that is a country that is fundamentally dedicated, however imperfectly, to the protection and the defense, of individual rights, of the Rights of Man, existing in a region of brutal dictatorships crushing the individual.
This is an important article that deserves to be widely disseminated.
We have Ted Kennedy and his allies to thank for this, as they changed our immigration policy in 1965, allowing entry of millions of Middle Eastern and South Asian Muslims into our country. Initially, they trickled in, but the trickle became a toxic flood. I saw this coming circa 1970, when a Muslim, M.T. Mehdi, began appearing on the NYC airwaves, spreading antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda. In those days, he was considered fringe and was openly disparaged by radio and television hosts, but I knew that as the Muslim population increased here in America, his views would become more widely shared and influential. What I did not foresee was that support for this anti-civilizational madness would be embraced by so many non-Muslim Americans. I now understand why, and we have the likes of Ameer Makhoul to thank for this. But none of this could have been possible had Kennedy et al. not sabotaged our immigration policy.
What you still don’t see is that collectivism and totalitarianism come from religion. Judaism prepared the ground for Christianity, and both, prepared the ground for Islam and Marxism.
If Islam did not exist, then Marxism would eventually re-integrate with Christianity, and Christianity would revert back to its pure theocratic form. You can see that philosophical logic right now with Pope Francis, Marxism, and Islam.
Roman Catholicism is the most intellectual and philosophical branch of Christianity that exists, therefore, it is the most consistent and serious form of Christianity that exists. What did Roman Catholic Christianity produce? A collectivist, totalitarian, brutal, theocratic dictatorship.
“Socialism is really helping religion. The bigger the statism, the more people are accustomed to government rule over everything. The more people are ready for religionists to take over the lead away from the more secular side… the socialists are building the basis for totalitarianism but only the religionists are going to cash in on it and take over….
I believe that the medievals understood much better than the moderns on what basis to build a totalitarian society that would last and not collapse in less than a century. They did it. And the people in the rising religious movements today know that full well. They’re the ones who have millions, upon millions, upon millions, of followers and a real insight into the fact that economics is not the crucial factor in history but philosophy and culture are….
Religion was the root of [totalitarianism] from the beginning. It has ruled in disguised forms and still is. And now the disguise has to be stripped off if there is to be a lasting totalitarianism. For a lasting totalitarian state, religion is the only means.” – Leonard Peikoff
Mr Wexler understands that the issue is not sending hell to Israel and the Jewish People but going on the offensive against the existential threat posed to the Jewish People by the intersectional left that can only be won by raising and being proud and assertive Jews who appreciate the importance of Israel
Makhoul had an advantage that we don’t. Despite the anti-Semitic tropes about the Jews controlling all our institutions, the fact is that in the U.S. they are all controlled by the Left. Although there are two billion Muslims, 57 Muslim nations, and twenty three Arab countries which control 40% of the world’s petroleum reserves, versus 16 million Jews and one Jewish nation, the Left has successfully portrayed Jews and Israelis as oppressors and Muslims as victims. So Makhoul’s project found fertile ground in the Left and the institutions it controls while efforts to combat it do not.
Just another example of whining because “violence is wrong.”
Jews who will not fight and talk of education programs are the reason Israel will lose again.
“and they created a desert and called it peace”
I wouldn’t describe the minds of Hamas supporters in academia (especially those who concurrently espouse LGBTQIA+ rights and feminism) as “pliant”. Indeed, I’m agnostic on the question of whether or not they have minds at all.
I don’t understand, I read this and weep.
When I was in university there was a group running around yelling “Israel Apartheid” and we yelled “Israel is a democracy, there is no apartheid” and “the community leadership” censured us for making a fuss and giving them more publicity. We desperately tried to explain to them that we need to push back and “they” told us we were impetuous children and didn’t understand important things.
So today, courtesy of UofToronto who would not stand up against lies (yes, Israel Apartheid Week started here in Toronto), and our leadership who would not talk about the lies, we are now surrounded by them. And Mr. Wexler think he’s so wonderful coming out of the closet publicly 25 years later that, when he was running programs for our leadership he knew their plans 25 years ago and he thinks it so good of him to tell us how horrifying it was to hear back then? And he has a solution, we need better coordination and organizing against it. Just a little more organization and we’ll have them beat. He has got to be kidding. First apologize for not listening to us when we came to you pleading for support.
Then apologize to the Gush Katif kids and Amona kids in Israel you did not stand up and support.
Then tell Qatar, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the PA that they are apartheid, fully apartheid, there are roads there you can’t drive on if you’re not Muslim. You have no rights if you’re not Muslim. Stop letting them call Israel apartheid, if you want to talk start pointing out where and what apartheid is.
Then charge Arafat and Abbas with ethnic cleansing in Bethlehem where the Christian population that was 80% is now 20%
Then tell Jordan they ARE Palestine, the 73% that was taken from Israel to make it Arab and stop trying to rip apart our beloved Israel by taking more.
Part 2
Then tell the Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Jordanian Arabs they are welcome to go home if they don’t like living in Israel – from the river to the sea, because the Arabs who do like living in Israel love it as much as we do and are welcome.
Then tell Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan that 75 years later they can let the people out of the camps and let them get jobs, enough discrimination, and the ones who are leaving are on their way, please open the doors, your creation is our present to you.
Then stop tacitly supporting ethnic cleansing. Tell them all that 19 years of ethnic cleansing between 1948 and 1967 in Judea and Samaria is not the golden standard we are going to return to. We’re done with the ethnic cleansing that was Judea and Samaria for 19 years and WILL NOT HAPPEN again in Judea and Samaria as was forced on Gaza by Israelis, because it is legally ours, historically ours, biblically ours and we paid for it several times over with our blood and the blood of our soldiers, a price you can not afford to reimburse so forget about ever having it again. It’s part of Israel now, forever, (will the leadership now have the spine to keep what we have again paid for in Gaza?)
Later Mr. Wexler, after apologizing for not standing up for what you now claim you saw as wrong all along, once all these things are done, you can share your brilliant ideas about how to safeguard Israel. I was horrified when I read this because my friends and I also saw it, more than 25 years ago, We did go public, but the consulting class and the leadership all knew better.
Jewish students should become editors of University newspapers. Right now an anti-Israel Jewish woman named Ariel Koren has a big OPED in the Daily Pennsylvanian the newspaper of the University of Pennsylvania. She accuses the president of Penn, Liz Magill of being complicit in the massacre of Palestinians. I wrote an OPED answering her B.S. but I doubt it will get in. I haven’t received an acknowledgement that I sent it in. The editor of the newspaper is Imran Siddiqui. Need I say more. If it was Omer Tsaddik my OPED might have a chance of getting in.
Israel must annex all of Gaza. Build a second Surz canal for a strategic barrier. An international airport and Cabo style resorts. Staffing by Israelis Jews and Arabs and international guest workers. The Arabs have to pay a price for homicidal, genocidal leadership. If they start wars they lose land. The countries of Eastern Europe expelled 7 million people of German ancestry back to Germany at the end of WWII. Those that refused to leave were murdered. Russia captured 250,000 German soldiers at Stalingrad. When a prisoner exchange happened in 1953 the Russians returned less than 10% of fighting age men. Azerbaijan expelled 100,000 Armenian Cristians a few weeks ago. The world did nothing. Hitler used the silence of the world after the Turks murdered 1.5 million Armenians in the Syrian desert as proof that the world would do nothing if Germany liquidated the Jews of Europe. Hitler and Stalin were both National Socialists. They were responsible for the deaths of scores of millions of humans and China not far behind them. Democracies and Republics are worth fighting for. People want to live free and not under totalitarian regimes whether they are religious or secular. That is, most do.
Are Jews the Chosen People?
“. . .The notion of Jews being chosen has its root in several biblical verses. One of the most prominent, Deuteronomy 7:6, says, “For you are a people consecrated to Adonai your God: of all the peoples on earth Adonai your God chose you to be God’s treasured people. . .” — from My Jewish Learning.
Not Arabs, Jews. Who are we to argue with God?
Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian Christian citizen, living the good and peaceful life in Israel, is a bully, a hypocrite and an asshole.