Britannia Radio

Communication and Public Policy

Implications for Israel's Public Relations

By Bernard J. Shapiro

[Editor's Note: This article was originally published on February 4, 1993. I feel that its message is critical to the success of the new Netanyahu government.]

 

Virtually every news commentator compares Israel's temporary removal of 400 terrorists to Lebanon with the heinous crimes of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The United Nations is being asked not to have a double standard for Iraq and Israel. In fact, the Palestine Liberation Organization, having been recognized as the world's highest moral arbiter, has been asked by the United Nation's Secretary General Boutros-Ghali to draft a resolution condemning Israel and calling for sanctions. Something is obviously wrong with this picture. It is time for Israelis and their supporters to recognize that Israel has a public relations problem.

 

The actions Israel took to defend its security were quite moderate by Middle East standards. Its ability to explain what and why it took such action was inadequate. Along with most of the pro-Israel community, I'm a frequent critic of Israeli information policies. I had a pleasant lunch last week with an Israeli official and we discussed this very issue. As a result of our conversation, I am convinced that the Israeli government is doing everything in its power to communicate its message to the media, political leaders, and general public. Its just not working.

 

What is needed is a whole new approach to Israeli public relations. Let's call it: THE MARKETING OF ISRAEL, and look at the problem from an advertizing perspective. About nine months ago, I discussed with an executive of a major advertising company the possibility of producing television spots supporting Israel's positions on various political issues. I became discouraged upon learning that the major stations do not permit "advocacy" commercials.

 

And then Yitzhak Rabin was elected in Israel's national elections and there was a major turn for the better in Israel's image.

I think it is time to take a second look at my concept but expand it to include radio, magazines, cable television (cable will accept this type of commercial) and newspapers. The ads should range from the very soft evocative travel type to some hard hitting but subtle political messages. Pretend that Israel is a corporation with a vast market in the United States. Receipts from that market top $6 Billion Dollars ( including US economic and military aid, UJA, Israel Bonds, JNF, plus all the other campaigns from Yeshivas to the Technion). What would you spend to protect a market of that magnitude? One half of one percent would equal $30 million. You can run for president with thirty million dollars. In a wild fantasy, lets say we have that much money. And let's say we hire a talented creative ad man to develop a multi-faceted, multi-media, and multi-year campaign to win the hearts and minds of the American people.

 

This should not be an impossible task. Israel is a good product, lots of virtues, few vices. (Can you imagine convincing the American people to love Saddam?) We could do nothing, but the consequences are not so good. Public opinion polls are beginning to show the Arabs winning more and more sympathy. Yes, Arabs who keep their women in bondage; Palestinians who disembowel pregnant teachers in front of their classes; Syrians who peddle narcotics to American inner city youth and commit mass murder if provoked; Saudis who threaten to behead a man for practicing Christianity; all of these and more are almost as popular as Israel. The Arabs are good at smearing the good name of Israel. Just listen to Hanan Ashrawi some time. No matter what the question, she manages to fit in a lie about Israel in her answer. Israel has already lost the college campus, half of the Afro-Americans, a good portion of the Protestants except for the Baptists and the Evangelicals and some in the Jewish community.

 

The Israel government needs to realize that we are living in a new world where telecommunications brings us closer that ever before to each other. In the fifties when Israel was criticized, Ben Gurion used to say, "Its not what the world thinks, but what the Jews do that is important." It is a different world now and for every Israeli policy, the public relations aspect must be examined. I am definitely not calling on Israel to submit to public opinion but instead to organize and mold it for their benefit. I don't want Israel immobilized by fear of bad public relations.

 

I want Israel to plan, with the help of experts, a strategy to counteract the negative effects of any public policy move. Would Rabin send his soldiers into battle without a detailed plan and strategy to win. The time has come for Israel to develop a strategy the win the public relations battle. The Jewish community in this country is more than willing to lend its money and advertizing talent to aid in this task. Let's do it! (Are you listening Bibi?)

 

Fundamentally Freund: Thinking outside the 'hasbara bubble'

Aug. 18, 2009
Michael Freund , THE JERUSALEM POST

Always on the lookout for a chance to talk up Israel while traveling abroad, I decided to utilize a recent appointment with a physical therapist in Manhattan for more than just a stretch of my stubborn hamstring. As this licensed professional politely twisted me into seemingly impossible contortions, perhaps mistaking me for some out-of-costume comic book hero, I ignored the desire to scream and instead asked what his impression was of the Jewish state.

 

"Israel? That's near Gaza or something, isn't it?" he said, applying yet another sideways yank to one of my legs, which quickly began to resemble those obtuse angles we had learned about way back in high-school geometry.

 

"Yes," I practically screeched, while quietly praying that his knowledge of human anatomy surpassed his acquaintance with Middle Eastern geography, "that's correct."

"And aren't they fighting against you, or at least they were?" he asked without any sense of irony as he applied a technique to my lower body that I was sure had originated with the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of the Iraqi insurgency.

 

In between bouts of occasionally gut-wrenching pulls and stretches, I proceeded to give him a brief discourse on the history and intricacies of the Arab-Israeli conflict. How effective it was I cannot say, though thankfully it did appear to distract him somewhat, giving my tormented muscles some much-needed relief.

 

Finally, before parting, he told me that he had always liked Israel and wanted to visit, and truly hoped to make it there someday.

AS I hobbled down onto the busy streets of New York, I began to consider the anecdotal evidence that I had just gathered regarding Israel's status in the minds of Americans, and what lessons could be learned about our efforts at hasbara, or public diplomacy.

 

Here was a well-educated non-Jewish professional in media-saturated Manhattan, where hardly a day goes by without various media outlets bashing the Jewish state, and yet he nonetheless felt a basic sense of sympathy and even support for our predicament. And while he would apparently have trouble finding Israel on a map, let alone understanding the intricacies of our military, diplomatic and political challenges, he had heard of our little country and thought of it as a place he would very much like to see.

 

This scene repeated itself - minus the leg stretches of course - in various other conversations that I had with a range of people in the New York metropolitan area. Clearly, there is a lot of general backing out there among the American public for the Jewish state, much more than perhaps many of us suppose.

 

Sure, I know what you think. New York is not America, and it would be a mistake to suggest that it is anything close to being a representative sample. Granted, that may be true. But the assertion that Israel enjoys widespread support in the US received some compelling scientific backing in the results of a survey published last week by the widely-respected Rasmussen Reports.

 

The venerable polling firm asked Americans from all walks of life "to assess America's relations with the key Middle Eastern countries in the news." Whereas only 39 percent said they deem Egypt to be a US ally, and just 23% consider Saudi Arabia to be one, the results regarding Israel were far and away superior.

 

A whopping 70% of Americans said they view Israel as an "ally," versus just 8% who consider her an "enemy."

That is a pretty astonishing figure. Indeed, many European countries probably wouldn't score as high on a popularity contest either in Washington or Wichita.

 

THUS, CONTRARY to conventional wisdom, Israel is doing quite well in American public opinion. Even with the regularly-scheduled bombardments directed against its image, support for the Jewish state has proven to be fairly inelastic and durable among wide swathes of the American populace.

Obviously, this does not mean that Israel and its supporters can rest on our laurels, kick back and relax. There is still plenty of work to be done in terms of rebranding Israel's image so that it is not constantly associated with war, conflict and turmoil. But it does underline an important point: most of us live in a hasbara bubble, where we are so consumed by the minutiae of each and every event and how it is reported or distorted that we often lose sight of the forest for the trees.

 

And so, when an unflattering article appears in the Boston Globe, or a derogatory piece is published in The Los Angeles Times, many pro-Israel activists plunge into crisis mode, investing countless hours in trying to rebut something that most people probably never even bothered to read. Since they live and breathe Israel, and follow everything that happens here with meticulous care, they often forget that the details actually matter far less to most people.

 

Now don't get me wrong - combating specific instances of media bias is important, and eliciting corrections when newspapers err is an essential part of the struggle for truth. But at the end of the day, what really counts is the "big picture," the themes and narratives that take hold in the public's mind when (and even if) they think about the Jewish state. It is there that Israel and its supporters need to devote more of their time and energy.

 

What is so desperately needed is a comprehensive strategic vision for hasbara, one that clearly articulates a set of objectives for what kind of image Israel can and should project, while spelling out an array of tactics for achieving them.

 

So let's start focusing just a little less on yesterday's Washington Post, and more on how to position Israel and improve her brand name in the future.

When it comes to hasbara, we desperately need to start thinking outside the box. But we also need to look beyond the bubble. For it is out there, in the physical therapist's office, the corner grocery and the local pizzeria, that the battle for American public opinion can, and ultimately will, be won.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418640288&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull