Top Five Reasons Israel Is Losing the Public Relations Battle

[bemildred]

Right wing Israeli officials are concerned about attempts to ‘delegitimize” Israel, and fund former officials and intellectuals to attempt to combat this perceived trend. But it seems obvious that Israel is gradually sinking in the perception of the outside world, and there are concrete reasons for this change. Most of them derive from the train wreck that is Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Israeli blockade on the civilians of the Gaza Strip. Others derive from the hawkishness of the Likud government and its Kadima predecessor. They have nothing to do with anti-Israel sentiments or hatred of Jews. No one is condemning the municipality of Haifa or the administration of Tel Aviv. The criticisms are criticisms of aggressive expansionism and a trigger-happy government. The criticisms are getting louder and more mainstream, with potentially deleterious effects on Israel’s economy as time goes on.

1. Giving the finger to any ‘peace process. Israeli land theft in the Palestinian West Bank has reached epic proportions under PM Binyamin Netanyahu, with settlement populations surging 18%. The right wing in Israel is so isolated from the real world that they have begun claiming that the Palestinian territories are not even occupied. They claim that the Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist forces them to occupy Palestine (in fact, the PLO recognized Israel as part of the Oslo accords, after which the Israelis screwed the Palestinians over royally). They distort history and say the most ridiculous things, such as that the League of Nations Mandate awarded to Britain in the 1920s allows them to now steal Palestinian land and water without recompensing them! The brazenness and zombie-like relentlessness of this march onto other people’s land has provoked an increasingly influential international boycott movement, targeting the ‘settler-industrial complex’ that preys on the hapless Palestinians under Israel’s control. That is why the Church of England recently endorsed a World Council of Churches-inspired program that brings people to the Occupied Territories to see for themselves what Occupation is doing to the stateless and rights-less Palestinians. The resolution was a major defeat for the Likud, right wing branches of Zionism. Likewise, the US Presbyterian Church very nearly adopted a resolution to disinvest from companies perceived as enabling the Israeli land grab in the West Bank. As it was, they urged positive investment to help the Palestinian victims of Israeli injustice. These votes are straws in the wind. As Israel moves formally to incorporate the West Bank into itself, it must offer citizenship to the Palestinians on the land it covets, or else it would perpetuate the new Apartheid.

2. Hypocrisy: Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu keeps threatening to launch a war on Iran and urging my country to sacrifice its young men, to stop Iran from continuing to enrich uranium (Iran says the enrichment is for peaceful energy purposes and there is no good evidence to the contrary). But Israel itself not only enriched uranium, it made 400 nuclear bombs. There are allegations by an Israeli and American journalist that Israel’s Mossad spy agency has murdered a series of Iranian scientists. (If Iran were alleged to have done something similar at Dimona in Israel, all hell would have broken loose). And, it now turns out that Binyamin Netanyahu was involved in a spy ring that smuggled nuclear triggers out of the United States to Israel. Israel is alleged routinely to threaten to use its nuclear weapons if it doesn’t get its way, deploying a sort of nuclear blackmail. It is very hard to see why Iran’s population should be reduced to a fourth world standard of living by international sanctions for doing much, much less than israel has done, or why Netanyahu should be able to smuggle US high tech out of this country with impunity.

---

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/289-134/12380-top-five-reasons-israel-is-losing-the-public-relations-battle

[oberliner]

1. The usual Juan Cole diatribe

Fascinating comments in response to that article on the site you link to.

Birds of a feather, as they say.

[pelsar]

2. if those are his readership.....

i would say he has a bit of a PR problem:

my favorite:
while i have no problem with the average jewish person in israel i feel the world is overdue in standing up to the ZIONAZIs which run israel and hold undue and very unrecognized influence over my own lame-o country

classic:
1) the disclaimer: "i have jewish friends (and its variation)
2) israels zionist are like nazis (or the PC version also works)
3) Israel controls the US

guess that covers the updated version of the classic jewish blood libel.
______

as far as the article goes, its just a rehash, we read them every few years going back as far as i remember, just the names get changed

[oberliner]

3. Juan Cole is especially fond of "Top Ten" or "Top Five" lists

Maybe his readers need things in bite sized pieces for easier swallowing.

[azurnoir]

9. well what a timely and expected comment on a comment

for myself it's a 50/50 that either the commenter is truly antisemitic OR the commenter is actually ProIsrael and attempting to delegitimize those who criticize Israel by hopinh to garner agreement with their comments, we've seen it here on DU too

[bemildred]

4. Eh, two questions:

1.) Do you think Israel has a PR problem, or not?
2.) Why do you think that?

I promise I won't bite.

[oberliner]

5. OK

1. In some circles.
2. Anyone who tries to present positive PR about Israel is labeled a "hasbarist" and their points are dismissed accordingly.

In the real world I think most people don't really care that much about Israel one way or another.

The ones that do care are pretty steadfast in their POV and unmoved, generally, by arguments from the other side.

[bemildred]

7. I'm asking what you think.

Last edited Fri Jul 13, 2012, 04:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Can the kibitzers be safely ignored or not? Is the situation stable or not? And why do you think so?

The fact that substantial resources are put into addressing public perceptions of Israel indicates to me that somebody thinks it's a real problem. And my perception is that public perceptions of Israel are worse than they were, say, ten or twelve years ago. I base that mostly on the fact that I see diatribes like Prof. Coles's here in the mainstream media a lot more than I used to, and pro-Israeli pieces less than I used to. Of course, that could just be change of ownership or editorial policy. If I understand you right, you don't think it's changed much.

So anyway, I think it is a mistake to just dismiss it. But that's just my opinion.

[oberliner]

11. I'm not sure I completely understand your questions

With regard to your second paragraph, I don't think things have changed much over the last 10-12 years other than the broader changes that have occurred in media in general. That is to say that anti-Israel diatribes (and pro-Israel ones) can be disseminated and discussed among message boards, twitter, and on and on in ways that did not used to be possible. But for every Juan Cole who sneaks into the mainstream media (whatever that means these days) now and then there is a John Hagee getting editorials published as well. My point is, I think it's been the same song and dance now for decades as far as the PR goes (pro and con).

I'm not sure what situation you are referencing in terms if it being stable and which kibitzers you are saying can or cannot be safely ignored. Those are the questions I think I may be misunderstanding (or perhaps have unknowingly answered in the above paragraph).

[bemildred]

12. OK, that answers my question well enough, thanks. nt

[azurnoir]

6. Interesting article a Ynet article called it a de-legitimization war

The de-legitimization war

Can the ongoing de-legitimization of Israel be fought? A high-placed Israeli official with an intelligence community career said to me that nothing can be done about it. This is an easy position: If nothing can be done, why try to do anything?

........................................................................................................

The conceptual approach is fairly simple. A first step is to take stock of who is already in this fight on the Israeli side and what part of the front they cover. The second step is to study how one’s enemies operate and who funds them. This is a more complex task because perpetrators of de-legitimization and anti-Semitism come from disparate origins such as Muslim countries, Muslims in the Western world, leftists, neo-Nazis, social democrats, liberal Christians, academics, NGOs, media and so on. Many enemies belong to more than one category.

........................................................................................................

Next, one can systematically analyze the modes by which lies and fallacies are transmitted. These include the media, the United Nations, the Internet and so on. One should also assess how much damage has already been caused to Israel and Jewish communities abroad by the de-legitimizers.

Thereafter, one should develop a detailed and consistent strategy on how to fight this war. How can one turn Palestinians and other enemies of Israel into defenders rather than attackers? How can one spend little time to expose them and cause them to spend much more time and money to defend themselves? This is structurally a project like any other. It will take much time and money, most of which will have to come from the Israeli government. Yet money is just the beginning.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4254171,00.html

[bemildred]

8. Well, the rhetoric changes over time, old jargon gives way to new.

Language becomes stale when used too much. Hence for now we have "de-legitimization", not that it's inaccurate, I've been bringing up legitimacy issues here for a long time. But now we see somebody else has noticed, so we have a new buzzword.

I think the military style analytic approach discussed there is lacking, that's where we are now, and it lacks nuance, but this is the right question:

How can one turn Palestinians and other enemies of Israel into defenders rather than attackers?

But you aren't just going to ram that down anybodys throat, you have to understand your audience, and that's what I see lacking. It's just assumed they must all be antisemites, and that alienates people who might be more sympathetic if not attacked.

[azurnoir]

10. well yes but "delegitimization" is an interesting term

and one that annoyingly my spellcheck keeps telling me is not a word at all, however it seems to have a blanket meaning which leaves little nuance as to what is meant if one "delegitimizes" Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank (oops not supposed use that term anymore either) does it delegitimize Israels existence as a country, we're led to believe it does.

However to turn Israels detractors into Israels supporters one must alleviate what is causing the detraction but seeing as how according to Mr Gerstein and so many others it is nothing but antisemitism so there is nothing to done but employee spying on the public to remove the detractors ability to detract a simple and simplistic not to mention self serving solution

[bemildred]

13. You need a hyphen: de-legitimization, to make spellcheck happy.

I would think if refers to a reduction in legitimacy.

In political science, legitimacy is the popular acceptance of an authority, usually a governing law or a régime. Whereas “authority” denotes a specific position in an established government, the term “legitimacy” denotes a system of government — wherein “government” denotes “sphere of influence”. Political legitimacy is considered a basic condition for governing, without which a government will suffer legislative deadlock(s) and collapse. In political systems where this is not the case, unpopular régimes survive because they are considered legitimate by a small, influential élite.[1] In moral philosophy, the term “legitimacy” often is positively interpreted as the normative status conferred by a governed people upon their governors’ institutions, offices, and actions, based upon the belief that their government's actions are appropriate uses of power by a legally constituted government. In law, “legitimacy” is distinguished from “legality” (see colour of law), to establish that a government action can be legal whilst not being legitimate, e.g. the Southeast Asia Resolution, Public Law 88-408 (The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), which allowed the U.S. to war against Vietnam, without a formal declaration of war; a government action can be legitimate without being legal, e.g. a pre-emptive war, a military junta. An example of such matters arises when legitimate institutions clash in a constitutional crisis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_%28political%29

Note that it is a term applied to particular governments, not necesssarily to the nation itself, you can change from a illegitimate government to a legitimate one and still be the same country, and legitimate governments can become illegitimate through their own actions, as here in the USA.

Thus for example, one-staters are also de-legitimizers of the current Israeli government. I usually think of it as a measure of a government's expectation of being voluntarily obeyed by its citizens, and other forms of voluntarily support, thus it cannot be coerced. For example the US government has lost a lot of legitimacy in the last ten/twelve years. What I find funny is that such governments almost never reform, they almost always double down.

Edit: for example, as a government becomes less legitimate, you will see it rely more and more on fear and coercion and less and less on appeals to public spirit and pulling together for the common good, a contrast that is most striking in this country over the course of my lifetime.

[azurnoir]

14. well my spellcheck does not like it even with a hyphen I've tried that before

however your analysis of the word while interesting is IMO over complicating the issue in a way and boils down to somewhat the same thing as I said does deligitimizing Israels government deligitimize Israel itself ? Not IMO

[bemildred]

15. DU spellcheck likes it with a hyphen.

Which is what I would expect.

WRT rest of your comment, quite right, but it's being used now in an invented way, and a lot of the people who are being called de-legitimizers are really people who are questioning the Zionist project as such, not just Bibi or his government: revolutionaries, not refomers. I think these distinctions matter, or should matter. The Magistrate's sig line about calling things by their right names comes to mind.

[azurnoir]

16. ah haven't used DU's spellcheck since DU3 came online

partially because at first it wasn't available and partially out of laziness the rest of your comment brought to mind an article from +972 earlier this week its about names and words

The name game: What should we call the situation in West Bank?

First they told us we can’t call it “apartheid”.

Now, they say we can’t call it “occupation”.

But we have to call it something!!!!!

I’m waiting to hear your suggestions in the comments section below. Single-word terms/nouns are preferred (with short explanations even better). I’ll post some of the good ones I get from Twitter and Facebook here, too.

http://972mag.com/the-name-game-what-should-we-call-the-situation-in-the-west-bank/50708/

[bemildred]

17. "Arccupation"

I like puns.

[Violet_Crumble]

18. I dunno. I think Israel's winning the PR battle and has been for a fair while now...

At least in the US that's how it comes across, though it's a feeling I get reading the US media and seeing what Americans say on the internet.

What I do know is that Israel invests a hell of a lot in PR, and to some extent it succeeds. Israel could start marching Palestinians into Jordan and not letting them return to their homes, and Israel would be trying to spin it as a necessary reaction to terrorism and a large portion of the US media and the bandwagon would be jumping right on board...

[bemildred]

19. I'm not going to defend the US media, so I guess you'll just have to win the argument.