How we look from the outside - the crisis of Israeli advocacy

One of Israel's main problems in the field of advocacy is that we see everything from our perspective, as Henry Kissinger once said - "Israel does not have a foreign policy but only a domestic policy that is operated outside.

What Kissinger did not say is that in the United States and other countries, Israel is not a matter of foreign policy, but part of domestic policy - like this when Erdogan uses the flotilla to score points before the elections in October, and like this when Sarah Palin attacks Obama on the settlements.

Therefore, Israeli propaganda is more complicated than the propaganda of any other country in the world, but is conducted as if it were a secondary matter. Borrowing, it can be said that if the IDF had been the source of information, it would not have looked like the attack on the reactor in Iraq but like Givat Halfon. In this article we point out the main faults in the Israeli propaganda policy, and in the next article we present Tips for improving outreach for the state and for citizens.

'If it's in Hebrew, you don't hear it'

There are many Israelis, including quite senior politicians, who act as if they think that what they say in Hebrew is not understood and translated into foreign languages and tested abroad. As a result, they allow themselves to say a lot of things that make Israeli diplomats tear their hair out. For example, Minister Mofaz is interviewed on Shabbartu in Be'er Sheva and refers to the Iranian threat, and is surprised when The BBC reports This causes the price of oil to jump. Israel's fault, of course...

so what to do? The problem here is not only the politicians but also the Israeli public as a whole. We refuse to accept diplomatic statements that are made for foreign and propaganda purposes, and demand that our politicians speak 'Dogari'. That's why it's important to let politicians speak in a more moderate way, and actually require them to sound more responsible when there's a microphone around.

But worse than that, the Israeli public is also unaware that as a public it is being examined by the world media. That's why when right-wing demonstrations call Obama 'Hussein', 'this negro' and 'the Muslim from Kenya', or when left-wing demonstrations call every incident in the territories a 'war crime', this message gets out.

so what are we doing? It is important that as a public we take care to prevent the legitimacy of any friend or acquaintance who takes an action that you would not want to see on the cover of the New York Times, especially if that friend is from your side of the political map (you will not really be able to influence those on the other side). It is possible to do this by saying something like 'maybe there is another message in the same direction that will not harm our country?' And if you don't feel like fighting, you can just turn up your nose, because if we all turn up our noses at such statements, the same people will be chosen for similar statements that do not harm the country. The frown campaign has gone well as a means of delegitimizing racist expressions in the United States.

A perspective problem

We are so surprised that our message, which we consider ourselves so convincing, is treated outside with a shrug. After all, it is terrible that there are Qassams on Sderot who killed 14 civilians in 10 years. What we miss is that outside 14 deaths in 10 years is very little, and it happens in a trickle of one every few months. Any mention of these rockets as a justification for our massive bombings in Gaza (160 traffic policemen killed in the first minute of cast lead) - looks to the outside as petty. In fact, we forget that what bothers us is simply not that convincing abroad. Then we think that if we take care to spread the Sabrah in more places, or send more fluent speakers, suddenly the world will be convinced.

The most extreme example of this is the hysterical campaign for the release of Gilad Shalit, which is conducted in a way that does not consider the question 'how does the campaign look from the outside?' Hamas sees the campaign as Israeli pressure to close a deal at any cost (and every novice merchant knows that this is an opportunity to raise the price), and on the other hand, he is not bothered at all by the campaign's effect on him and his target audience, because the campaign does not at all try to convince the Palestinians to release Shalit (for example - the entire campaign is in Hebrew ). Therefore this campaign does not really promote Shalit's release and perhaps delays it. And since the campaign enjoys great sympathy and almost full participation of the Israeli public, it follows that all those people at all fail to see themselves and their policies from the outside.

So what to do differently: start every advocacy activity - and every political decision from the question of how it will look from the outside, and understand that the perspective is different.

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