After Goldstone, Israel seeks to sharpen PR weapon
2-2-10
Alastair Macdonald-Reuters
HERZLIYA, Israel, Feb 2 (Reuters) - For Israelis, debates at the United Nations over the Goldstone report and its allegations of war crimes in Gaza go far beyond dry legal argument -- their government sees it as a battle for the nation's very survival.
A keynote national security conference this week made clear Israel is considering arming itself with a battery of weapons for a propaganda war against Palestinians and their supporters, who many Israelis fear want to turn the Jewish state into an international pariah reminiscent of apartheid South Africa.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month spoke of a "Goldstone effect" -- action by international courts that might crimp Israel's military superiority -- and ranked it alongside Iran's nuclear programme and the rocket arsenals of Palestinian and Lebanese guerrillas among three main threats facing Israel.
"People are questioning whether we should exist," Eyal Arad, a marketing guru and former government adviser, told the annual Herzliya Conference. "We're ... becoming the South Africa of the 21st century. What we need is a global political campaign."
Serving officials assured audiences in seminars entitled "Winning the Battle of the Narrative" that work was in hand to win hearts and minds abroad. Indeed, one revealed the previous government briefed PR advisers on a Gaza war three months before the December 2008 offensive that left 1,400 Palestinians dead.
Israel refused to cooperate with judge Richard Goldstone, the U.N. investigator who faced accusations of anti-Semitism from fellow Jews for saying Israeli troops may have committed war crimes. But under threat of referral to an international court, it has published measures it took against some soldiers [ID:LDE6100UQ].
Domestic critics say it will take concrete new policies toward Palestinians, not PR, to ease international criticism of Israel. That is a view naturally shared by Palestinians.
But there was a consensus in the Herzliya seminars, a high point of the Israeli political and diplomatic calendar, that better explanation of existing policies and of the threats Israel faces could ease diplomatic pressure coming from abroad.
One Israeli ambassador said the crucial risk was that European governments would limit support for Israel if opinion among their own voters swung further against the Jewish state.
REBRANDING, INTERNATIONAL AID
Proposals aired at Herzliya for improving Israel's image abroad ranged from increasing spending sharply on its embassies through grass-roots diplomacy in the form of citizens engaged in Internet social networking to full-scale "rebranding".
Former diplomat and advertising man David Admon, writing in the leftish Haaretz newspaper, demanded a "Ministry of Hasbara" to coordinate Israel's message -- hasbara, Hebrew for explaining -- has long been a common term for Israeli public diplomacy.
Like Netanyahu, Admon highlighted international media cover of an army hospital sent to Haiti's earthquake zone last month, saying it had helped Israel show a positive face to the world.
Many speakers at Herzliya saw a campaign by Palestinians and their supporters, notably Iran, to "delegitimise" Israel and to undermine support from Western powers by questioning its right to exist, as an alternative to attempts to defeat it by force.
"Their aim is to turn us into a pariah state," consultant Gidi Grinstein, who advises the government, told the conference.
BRITISH EXAMPLE
Many Israelis see an unholy alliance of radical Islam, traditional European Christian anti-Semitism and secular liberal support for Palestinians as putting them in grave jeopardy.
Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador to London, saw a risk that "demonisation" of Israel among a "liberal left" establishment in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, notably in the media and academia, could push hitherto supportive European governments into opposition to Israel in order to satisfy public opinion.
Speaking of a gap between leaders and voters over Israel, Prosor said: "If that gap closes, it will close against us."
Britain, Israeli advocates say, plays a special role as home to major international media, a large Muslim minority and many foreign students. The British government, Prosor said, had shown growing signs it was taking heed of anti-Israel public opinion.
A legal move to have Tzipi Livni, foreign minister during the Gaza war, arrested on a visit to London last year soured relations. Prosor said he was concerned Britain would set an example for anti-Israel campaigns on foreign campuses and elsewhere, notably the United States, Israel's powerful ally.
At a recent debate in Jerusalem, London's ambassador Tom Phillips played down the extent of British hostility to Israel but acknowledged a "narrative shift" -- that early support for "plucky little Israel" had faded after 1967 as images of "the bully occupier" followed its conquest of the West Bank and Gaza.
But better PR was not a full answer, he said, urging Israel to strike a peace deal to give the Palestinians a state: "It is ducking the issue," Phillips said, "If Israel thinks it can get off this issue if this problem of the occupation persists."
Palestinians, too, argue Israel's image problem lies not in how its message is conveyed but in its policies toward them.
One official, who advises President Mahmoud Abbas on media affairs but is not authorised to speak publicly, cited civilian deaths in Gaza, West Bank settlements and other grievances.
"It's not that Palestinians are winning some sort of PR war," he told Reuters. "The whole thing is about trying to cover up what's blindingly obvious to anyone who is on the ground."2