Text Only
Articles

« The asylum debacle

Main

Let us all see the evidence »



 
October 31, 2003
Israel's non-communication pact

Jewish Chronicle, 31 October 2003

A few months ago, I wrote in this space about the lamentable failure by Israel to get its case across. Last week, in Israel at the invitation of its government to talk to officials about public opinion in Britain, I obtained an insight into the full extent of its inability to win hearts and minds.

A few examples illustrate the difficulty. Many foreign journalists arriving in Israel to cover a story check into the American Colony hotel in the eastern part of Jerusalem. This hotel is beautiful, luxurious and fashionable -- with public areas full of fashionable journalists interviewing fashionable Palestinians over exquisitely prepared meals served in exquisite surroundings.

When journalists first check in, their arrival is clearly, if discreetly, noted. Within a few hours, the phone will ring in their room and a helpful Palestinian voice will offer them assistance with travel into the territories, with interpretation, with arranging interviews. Such offers are important because it is difficult to work in the territories without such assistance. It is not difficult to work within Israel, so journalists do not need equivalent help. They depend on helpful Palestinians. They do not depend on Israelis.

Israeli officials grind their teeth over the American Colony, but appear powerless to do anything about it. And the administration as a whole seems incapable of acknowledging that the same techniques spread far beyond that hotel. Despite the fact that the government press office and other ministry spokesmen deluge journalists with information and offers of help, they are still outclassed in the day by day propaganda war. In the bitterly contested incidents where Israel’s international reputation is shredded, Palestinian sources are quick with their own accounts. The Israelis, by contrast, appear not to grasp the pressures on foreign journalists – even on occasion releasing information in Hebrew, which hardly any of them understand.

Statements frequently arrive after journalists’ deadlines have passed. Last week, after an Israeli rocket attack on a car in Gaza, claims were made that the Israelis had deliberately fired on a group of civilian bystanders and killed several. It took a full day after the attack before the Israelis released a film taken by an unmanned drone, which appeared to show there had been no civilians anywhere near the car. The delay was reportedly caused by a row within the IDF over whether or not to release this film. By the time it was released, the Israelis had lost the initiative.

If an incident happens during the evening, journalists will quickly find on their laptops emails from a variety of helpful Palestinian outlets providing an account of what has happened, a selection of quotes for use, an offer of interviews with relevant people and a list of contact numbers which can be phoned all night for further assistance. From the Israelis, there is often silence.

Newspapers, broadcasters and news agencies depend on Palestinian stringers
and cameramen to provide words and pictures. These are often distorted, but the foreign media use them because they have no alternative. When such distortions are circulated by the news agencies, they appear in dozens of newspaper accounts throughout the world. And if foreign journalists happen to see things which the Palestinians don’t want them to report, they are threatened.

The Israelis could help counter this manipulation by setting up their own news outlets and circulating truthful information and assistance to journalists -- in English, and in time. But they don’t, because the administration neither knows nor seems to care that it has so incompetently left the field wide open to propaganda and lies. The shambles of its public presentation simply defies belief. There is no central control, no coherent approach. Spokesmen who pop up on TV or radio are selected – or self-selected – not on the basis of any ability to communicate (often absent) but through political patronage and the power of individual egos, all competing against each other.

I asked Natan Sharansky, minister for the diaspora, why the Israelis were so indifferent to the task of public persuasion. His answer was shocking. The government’s view, he said bleakly, was that throughout their history the Jews had been forced to justify their existence; they were no longer prepared to do so. I heard something similar from many others, who added that attempts to persuade people were all hopeless, especially in Britain and Europe.

This lethal combination of arrogance and despair, the belief that righteousness makes its own case unaided and that the world will never listen, has meant that Israel has simply vacated the most important battleground of all. Sharansky – who is visiting Britain this weekend – knows how catastrophic this is. In a recent article, he wrote of how Israel had abandoned Jewish students on American campuses who were left unaided to run the gauntlet of lies and vilification. He raised the possibility that, with the field thus vacated, even American public opinion could turn against Israel. His is a powerful voice – but will any of his colleagues now listen?

Posted by melanie at October 31, 2003

Comments

Sadly, your article is so true, as I know from my experience in living here. It's no wonder that the Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. The only re-action here is that it's just anti-semitism and what can we expect. Bravo for pointing out the shortcomings here but I despair that you will get the message home.

Posted by: Stuart West at November 2, 2003 12:17 PM

It is worth remembering that one of the keys for success in 1947 was that the Jews had a real PR, while the Arabs simply refused to talk to anyone who did not in principle share their views. At the time, when the UN sent a comission to Palestine to investigate the possibilities of solution, partition etc., they were followed, helped and surveiled at every step by the Jews, while the Arabs simply refused to cooperate. Now the roles have been reversed.
But something I'd really like to know is how much of the Israeli incompetence has to do with a process similar to what, in the US, happens with the State Department, I mean, how many of the guys who should be fighting for Israel's image see rather the Likud or Sharon as their real enemy, how many top guys are Labour or Meretz or other leftist leftovers and so on? I had been here and there in touch with Israeli diplomats who begin straightaway by telling anyone interested that they disagree with their government's policies. Doesn't sound like the best way of winning the war, does it?

Posted by: nelson ascher at November 3, 2003 12:39 AM

Well as I recall Natan Scharansky was a dissident released from the Soviet Union. Perhaps he could reflect on how Russia has changed, how the mechanistic and cyborg diction of the spokesmen in the Foreign Ministry in Moscow are no longer the gravel-voiced, hard-edged Gromyko and Chernomyrdin clones who stonewalled and arrogantly lashed out at Western criticism.

Today, the Russians are smooth, articulate, well-dressed, and persuasive when they meet Western media.

So why has Israel travelled the opposite route with men like Gold and Kissin who sound so brutal, hard and contemptuous of any other opinion but their own, snarling as Gold so often does ?

They boxed themselves in; and if the IDF does not treat Palestinian civilians with the highest respect whilst killing terrorists, it puts itself in the worst aspect of an occupying army. It is the difficult aspect of regarding your opponents as human with dignity and worth which has so denigrated Israel's position in the eyes of outsiders.

Unfortunately, a bunker mentality has developed and with Masada and Armageddon in the history books, it tends to induce depression amongst the populace rather than building morale. Of course, good presentation of a case does not make it right, but a poor advocate convinces neither judge nor jury and loses by default.

Posted by: Peter Williamson at November 3, 2003 11:13 AM

I wanted to comment on the EU Opinion Poll which leaked about Israel being a 'danger to world peace' according to 59% those questionned.

If you go to the EU Website and look at the polling system it is very interesting. 500 persons aged 15- are asked by telephone in each EU country; the results are then weighted by population; ergo Britain and France each represents 15.4%; but Germany 22%....and in those three countries you already have almost 53% of EU opinion on any subject.

The polling organisation is I think French; but the methodology is peculiar with just 7500 persons to represent 350 million Europeans in different countries.

Frankly, having seen this method I cannot believe any poll results on any subject from the EU.

Posted by: Peter Williamson at November 3, 2003 06:48 PM

Whilst it is true that Israel does little to help itself by way of propaganda, or even counter propaganda, it is not altogether clear whether, whatever Israel might say, will make any difference.

The very basic terminology used, describing the people and situation in Israel is, of itself, misleading.

The media talk f 'Palestine', occupied territories, Palestinians, and Arabs as if these terms are synonomous.

The Sykes-Picot agreement, of May 1916, created Palestine; unknown as a nation, country or political entity before. This secret agreement between the British and the French, apportioned the Middle East section of the Ottoman Empire between themselves with Russian Agreement. The name is derived from the Latin Palestrina, used when Hadrian, reacting against the Jewish Revolt of 130-5CE, wished to eradicate 'Jew' from Judea and changed the name to the Latin equivalent of Philistine.

The 1893 Ottoman Empire census revealed that of 193000 inhabitants in an area stretching West from the borders of Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean, and South from there to the Gulf of Aqaba, 96000 were Jews and only 30000 were Arabs.

The mandate, given to Britain at the San Remo Conference of 1920, accepted British requests to be the Mandatory for Palestine, responsible to the League of Nations Mandate Commission. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations deemed all Ottoman Empire countries to be 'provisional Nation States ready for self government, with assistance from the Mandatory'. Article 1 of The Mandate itself, drafted by the British and accepted by the League of Nations, makes the British 'the goverment' of Palestine.Thus the Sykes-Picot agreement became fulfilled.

Unfortunately, during 1915, Sir Henry MacMahon, the British High Commissioner in Cairo, had entered into correspondence with Sharif Husayn of Mecca. The resulting agreement created Sharif Husayn as 'King of the Hijaz'. However, Husayn's ambitions, fuelled by his son Abdullah, were for an Arab Empire carved out of the Ottoman possessions in the Middle East. Some of this was agreed by the British (the Villayet of Damascus)who failed to explain to Sharif Husayn which parts of the 'Arab Empire' related to Palestine and which did not.

This is the root of today's Middle East problems. It is also right to point out that the term 'Arab' is often used synonomously with 'Moslem'. Thus today's difficulties are compounded with differences over religion.

It is difficult to see what Israel can do. She has few friends in the West, apart from the USA who see in her a democratic and meritocratic society. It's often overlooked that Israel is the only democratic state in the whole of the Middle East; potentially destabalising for the Arab Nations and Egypt.

Posted by: John Richmond at November 4, 2003 03:11 PM

You get what anyone gets. You get a lifetime.

Posted by: Wacker Leslie at January 26, 2004 10:24 AM