Why Israel's PR stinks...

Time and again we have heard how bad Israel Hasbara / public relations efforts are. Many reasons have been given for this, among them being the poor English language skills of Israel's spokespeople, as well as the fact that Israel is a "democracy" and as such, we don't always speak in a single voice with a clear message...

While those reasons may be part of the problem, Evelyn Gordon, in her article, Making the Palestinian Argument, accurately assess the root cause of the problem for Israel's poor image in the world.

Nobody ever accused Israel of effective public relations. But the latest tactic adopted by the Foreign Ministry and American Jewish organizations represents a new low: arranging speakers and cultural performances that openly slander the country, in a misguided effort to demonstrate Israel's liberality.

A case in point was the recent tour of Israel organized by the American Jewish Committee for non-Jewish American politicians. It featured a visit to an Arab town where officials from Sikkuy, an Arab advocacy organization, regaled the guests with tales of how Israel mistreats its Arab citizens. Sikkuy's co-chairman, Ali Haider, for instance, told the visitors with a straight face that Arab Israelis are deprived of fundamental civil rights, and "the minute that Palestinian citizens of Israel try to protest, the police kill them..."

THE FOREIGN Ministry prefers its anti-Israel propaganda in the form of cultural events, to which it traditionally devotes about one-third of its PR budget. Last year, for instance, it financed a tour of American college campuses by the Israeli hip-hop group Hadag Nahash. Many of the group's lyrics are "acrimonious attacks" on the government; for variety, it also has some songs advocating socially beneficial behavior such as drug use. Aviva Raz Schechter of the Israeli Embassy in Washington acknowledged to Haaretz that some of the lyrics are problematic, but declaimed: "The intention is not to be so caught up by the minutiae of the lyrics, but to create an atmosphere of peace"...

UNFORTUNATELY, however, Israel's cultural exports almost all follow the Hadag Nahash model. Numerous Israeli films, for instance, have won awards at international festivals. But almost without exception, these films portray Israel as a brutal occupier oppressing the Palestinians for no good reason...

Similarly, the Foreign Ministry routinely finances translations of books by leading Israeli authors and lecture tours by these same authors. But most of Israel's award-winning authors – people such as Amos Oz, David Grossman and Sami Michael – deem Israel primarily to blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and espouse this theory in both their novels and their speeches...

It would seem self-evident that the best way to convince others of the justice of Israel's cause is not by underwriting vicious anti-Israel slander. Clearly, however, this is not self-evident to either the Foreign Ministry or the American Jewish establishment.

With friends like these...

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