Does Israel Have a Public Relations Problem?

Anyone with moral clarity can easily see that the Israelis are the good guys. So I don’t think Israel's problem is a failure to communicate. There are those who will never be persuaded to see Israel’s side let alone take its side, regardless of any hasbara efforts. You can take the most horrific attacks against Israeli Jews such as the slitting of an infant’s throat and there are certain people who will twist themselves into pretzels to explain how the savages were driven to it and therefore Israel and the "settlers" are themselves to blame. The jihadis are provoked just by the mere presence of Jews. Most Americans already support Israel but Europe is a hopeless case. Europeans are irredeemably anti-Semitic.

Via Israpundit:

Israel’s Public Relations Problem


What we have here is a failure to communicate.
by Joseph Puder, PAJAMAS MEDIA

This September 2011, when the United Nations General Assembly meetings open in New York, the Palestinians, led by Mahmoud Abbas, will receive overwhelming international support for recognition of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians have galvanized worldwide support by strategically organizing a targeted public relations campaign.

Recognition of a 23rd Arab state will mark the greatest public relations failure the Israeli government has ever experienced. Israel has categorically failed to convey a simple message: a contiguous Palestinian state will, in no uncertain terms, become a terrorist state, destabilizing both Israel (with over 1 million Israeli Arabs) and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where approximately 70% of its people are easily radicalized Palestinians.

Citizens of a separate Palestinian state, without any semblance of an economic infrastructure, any sea access (unless Gaza is incorporated), or any natural resources, would become like the Bedouin, whose livelihood has traditionally come from raiding neighboring tribes. Only, instead of tribes, “independent” Palestine would attack the neighboring states of Israel and Jordan.

The state of Israel has failed miserably in winning over the English-speaking world, as well as the French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russians, by ignoring the need for an essential media tool — a satellite television channel with an ability to broadcast worldwide news reports and interviews, similar to Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, or the BBC. Even Hezbollah had the foresight to set up a satellite operation, Al-Manar, influencing viewers across Europe and the Middle East. Since Israel is not on the world communications map, it is neither on the geographic map. Israel has foolishly depended on outlets such as CNN and the BBC to bring its side of the story to English speaking households. Its image has been severely damaged as a result, leading to a worldwide willingness to participate in a concerted effort to delegitimize the state through a so-called “BDS” campaign of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions.

Israel controls much of the ground the Palestinians hope to have for their state, and while the IDF is more than capable of circumventing the operations of a Palestinian state, the international community would not permit that to happen. Unless Israel is prepared to be isolated politically and perhaps economically as well, a Palestinian state would possess full sovereign rights. That would mean that the two principal conditions Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set in his Bar Ilan address in 2009 for supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel — recognition of the latter as a Jewish state and demilitarization of the former — would amount to a pipe dream.

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