(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Why Do the Brilliant Israelis Seem So Inept at PR? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-29 It was a relative of mine who first called my attention to the shortcomings of Israel’s way of selling its cause to the world. (This was back in the ‘90s.) This relative (of my parents’ generation) was himself an accomplished and highly creative practitioner of political public relations (had been, in his mid-twenties, press secretary to the mayor of Philadelphia). And he was fiercely pro-Israel. He occasionally sent messages to his best contacts in upper echelons of the Israeli politics, offering ideas about how they could do better. If I recall, he said — when I asked about the results — that there was no sign they used any of his suggestions. All of which comes to my mind now, as Israel is paying a big price in world opinion. (And not only Israel, paying that big price, but also those who are standing with it against Hamas— like President Biden losing a big chunk of support in the most recent polls, and Keir Starmer, leader of the British Labor Party, is apparently in political trouble for not joining the chorus calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, which would amount to handing Hamas a huge victory.) Here are two apparent truths that lead me to think in terms of an Israeli PR failure: The Israelis are waging a war against Hamas that is killing many civilian Palestinian residents in Gaza. Hamas’s use of Gazans as “human shields” has (according to reports) gone to the importantly greater lengths of preventing Gazan civilians from leaving threatened areas to gain refuge in safer areas— reportedly forcing them to stay in harm’s way at gunpoint . Looking at those two facts: As I’ve said in every piece I’ve written about this crisis — this is the 7th — I don’t claim to know what the Israelis should be doing. (One of those previous pieces was titled I've Never Seen So Complex a Situation as the One the Israeli Decision-Makers Face.) So what I’m saying here is not about whether the Israelis are making the right decisions (and it is not altogether clear yet what they’ve decided). I’m taking the current situation as a given, and suggesting that the Israelis are missing a major — and valid — PR move. Hamas forcing civilians to stay in harm’s way should be a point of major PR vulnerability. The whole “human shield” practice was always disreputable— like the way Hamas has placed its most important assets in schools and hospitals and such. But when Hamas uses threats to keep innocent civilians in locations where Israeli attacks are more likely to kill them makes Hamas responsible for their deaths. This takes the old matter of “human shields,” which is built into the long-standing structure of Gaza City itself, to a morally far more profound and criminal level. So what’s going on in the world now: Demonstrations all over the world that are essentially anti-Israel, blaming Israel for the terrible toll their war on Hamas is taking on Gazans who should not be party to the conflict. No demonstrations against Hamas (that I know of) for their role in setting up their human shields to die involuntarily in the service of Hamas’s political goals. A proper PR strategy would shine a bright and continuous light on Hamas’s purposeful sacrifice of the innocent lives being lost. Israel’s choices give them some responsibility for the loss of life. But a politically useful contrast can be made between Israel’s killing innocents despite efforts to minimize the loss of innocent life, and Hamas’s deliberate efforts to arrange for the loss of innocent life. (This needn’t involve only the Israelis, but also all those who support it — including President Biden and his administration.) So long as the world focuses all its outrage on Israel’s role in this story of innocents being killed, Hamas’s campaign — which began with atrocities — will be succeeding. But Hamas’s prevention of civilians’ evacuating to refuge should lead to at least a shared burden of blame. The world, that’s now clamoring for a cease-fire (which some argue would amount to an Israeli defeat) should be equally clamoring to Hamas, “Let your people go.” Which would be a big improvement over the current flow of world opinion. (And world opinion ultimately matters, for anyone who wants Israel to survive as a nation for the long haul.) [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2023/10/29/2202334/-Why-Do-the-Brilliant-Israelis-Seem-So-Inept-at-PR Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/