from EretzYisroel.org

A Technique of Propaganda Called "Turnspeak"

by Joseph E. Katz

The Arab League makes use of a cognitive technique of propaganda called "turnspeak", where you attack someone and then turn it around 180 degrees and claim they attacked you. Because the truth is the exact opposite of the information being disseminated it is psychologically difficult to counter and leads to confusion.

Turnspeak leads to psychological confusion and a feeling of being "burned-out" or "overwhelmed" with too much information, effectively creating a blanket of "white noise" which makes clarity difficult to achieve.

Joan Peters, former White House consultant on the Middle East writes:

The term was first used by journalists to describe German propaganda after it invaded Czechoslovakia in March of 1939.  To win sympathy for their invasion, the Germans practiced what has  become known as "turnspeak". They turned the blame back on the Czechs for trying to precipitate an all-out war in the region. In other words, the Czechs in their attempt to hang onto their land were ready to plunge all of Europe into war.

How did the rest of Europe respond to this lie? They believed it. World leaders decided that something had to be done to preserve peace at any cost.

Author William Shirer, who was a reporter in Europe at the time,  distilled the truth simply when he wrote, "Thus the plight of the German  minority in Czechoslovakia was merely a pretext...for cooking up a stew in a land he [Hitler] coveted, undermining it, confusing and misleading its friends and concealing his real purpose...to destroy the Czechoslovak state and grab its territories..." ¹

The Arab claim that Jews are "Nazis" is not without motive.  They are trying to obscure their own close connection with the Nazis.  During World War II leading Muslims including Haj Amin al-Husseini worked for the Nazis in Germany and called for a intifada against Britain. Haji Amin al-Husseini was the grand mufti of Jerusalem, as well as Yasser Arafat's close relative and mentor

The Arabs, especially Iraq, sided with Germany during W.W.II. In May 1941, Haj Amin al-Husseini issued a fatwa - "summons to a holy war against Britain". The Mufti's widely heralded proclamation against Britain was declared in Iraq,  and was instrumental in his 1941 pro-Nazi intifada in Iraqi. The Mufti also requested Arab-Americans not to support FDR. 

Yasser Arafat's actual name is Abd al-Rahman abd al-Rauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He shortened it to obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi and Mufti of Jerusalem.²

Saddam Hussein was raised in the house of his uncle Khayrallah Tulfah, who was a leader in the Mufti's pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in May 1941. Both Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein were greatly influenced by the Mufti during their time in Cairo during the 1950s.

Side-by-side comparison of "turnspeak"

Many examples of "turnspeak" abound in today's news media.  For example a article in a leading Western news service reported "The settlers are a roaming the west bank with guns and randomly shooting at Palestinian civilians... making Palestinians prisoners in their own villages", or another article that said "They [the settlers] are hunters... They go into jail through one door and out the other."  An even more obvious example is Arafat's claims that Israel is stopping the peace process.