Don't Mention The War: Israel Seeks Image Makeover!

Extracted from Yahoo News, 26.10.06
By Dan Williams (Reuters)

After decades of battling to win foreign support for its two-fisted policies against Arab foes, Israel is trying a new approach with a campaign aimed at creating a less warlike and more welcoming national image.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has argued that the protracted conflict with the Palestinians is sapping Israel's international legitimacy, this week convened diplomats and PR executives to come up with ways of "rebranding" the country.

"When the word 'Israel' is said outside its borders, we want it to invoke not fighting or soldiers, but a place that is desirable to visit and invest in, a place that preserves democratic ideals while struggling to exist," Livni said.

The campaign is a departure from the government's long-held practice of "hasbara," or "explaining" itself to Western audiences that may have little sympathy for crackdowns on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Now Israel wants to create an alternative image abroad, focused exclusively on assets like tourist attractions and business innovations. In the words of one campaigner and ad executive, the aim would be to create "a narrative of normalcy."

"Israelis feel the need to explain themselves, to prove that they are in the right, but this doesn't always create empathy," said Guy Toledano, who represents British PR firm Saatchi & Saatchi and is helping the Foreign Ministry free of charge.

The brain-storming team has been asked to come up with four proposed strategies, one of which will be launched in January.

Palestinians, who have found it harder to push their own message abroad since the election of a Hamas Islamist government that has come under a Western aid embargo for its refusal to recognize the Jewish state, accused Israel of a white-wash.

"Nothing Israel can do in its campaigns or media influence cancels the fact that they are an occupying power," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, a moderate.

Amir Gissin, public relations director at the Foreign Ministry, said that the image makeover was also about keeping Israel on the right side of the U.S.-led "war on terror."

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Whatever the Israeli government tries to do nothing can prevent it from concealing the truth about its domestic policies.

Many people can see that Israel's policies inflame the anti-Western violence of Islamist militant groups. It also encourages Jewish hatred.

The settlement issue in Palestine is one of the simplest puzzles to solve yet the Israeli government make it a difficult and complex issue by directly and indirectly encouraging settlers and funding of settlements from various global sources. There is little hope for the Palestinians as their land (illegially occupied) is slowly annexed little by little by Israal.



“When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing... You can't defend yourself when you're militarily occupying someone else's land. That's not defence. Call it what you like, it's not defence”.
- Noam Chomsky

Inside Israel, Arab Christian and Muslims that were forced to leave the state of Israel during its creation are not allowed to come back to Israel but Jews from London, New York, Moscow (and all around the world) are allowed to buy properties and settle in Israel.

Today the United States invests approximately $6billion annually to Israel. About 60% of the aid represents Military Arms (these exclude free weapons). Since the creation of Israel, the United States has invested over $100 billion in taxpayer’s money to secure Israel. It is unlikely that Israel will ever pay this back.
Is it in Americans interest to back Israel? Many argue that the Israel has helped America combat Arab Nationalism in the Middle East, it scares it neighbours and protects US access to oil and other national resources and finally it helps the US in Central America with providing military assistant in regimes US propped dup in the 1980’s.

Why was this money not used to secure peace in the region and encourage Israel to co-operate and love thy neighbour? Isn’t this a worthwhile investment? Many people of all faiths (including Jews living inside Israel) have condemned the Israeli government for it violence yet whilst these atrocities are reported freely in Israeli media, the US media takes a different stance.

It has been reported that companies like CNN have different news coverage in the US to its international broadcast. The diluted news coverage of news in the Israel by the US media makes a mockery of journalism. Whilst the whole world sees what is happening in Israel, the American public are duped with misinformation or toned down Israeli attacks on Palestinians.

American news coverage is influenced by a complex set of institutional relationships. These influences can be thought of as a series of filters through which the news must travel before it emerges in the voices of news anchors. To understand how American news media report on the Middle East conflict, we need to understand how these institutional filters operate.

Among the most important of these filters are the business interests of the corporations that own the mass media, interests that extend beyond the United States and across the globe to the Middle East. The economic interests of media owners are shared by political elites, politicians and policymakers who form a second filter. These political elites have the power to access and influence mainstream media and are themselves part of a system dominated by corporate money and interests. The strategic importance of the Middle East to these two groups is reflected in media coverage of the region and of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



A third filter, Israel's own public relations efforts, further affects the coverage. The government of Israel employs some of the largest American public relations firms as image consultants to coordinate its political and media campaigns. Nine Israeli consulates helped implement these PR campaigns by developing relationships with journalists and monitoring media outlets.

Scores of private American organizations, both Christian and Jewish, reiterate the official line and organize grassroots opposition to any coverage deemed unfavorable to Israel. The most important of these is AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, widely regarded as the most powerful foreign lobby in Washington. This institutional framework of American business and political interests in combination with Israeli public relations shapes media coverage of the Middle East.

At the same time, those progressive organizations opposing Israeli government policy, such as Jews Against the Occupation and Americans for Peace Now, rarely make it through these filters. Finally, if any news stories critical of Israeli policy do surface, there are a host of media watchdog groups that monitor and pressure journalists and media outlets, the most important of which is CAMERA.

For an accurate reporting on how the US media influenced by I STRONGLY RECOMMEND the links below (particularly the video of Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land). It is only one hour and 20 minutes long – well worth the coverage.

Further Reading/ Viewing:
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Video: Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land (US Media And the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict)
[Google Video] / [You Tube]

Democracy Now!: Censorship and propaganda in the US [Google Video]

Democracy Now!: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy [You Tube]

Wikipedia: American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)

Wikipedia: The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA)

SpeakeroftheTruth: To Israel With Love