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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/17075/full/17075/hasbarah-won-t-cure-israel-s-problems-but-it-s-needed/ <br /><br /> <b>Hasbarah won’t cure Israel’s problems, but it’s needed</b> <br /> Friday, January 18, 2002 | by <p>Daniel Bloch </p> <br /><br /><p>Hasbarah is a unique Israeli invention, a special blend of public relations, propaganda and dissemination of information mixed with a few drops of explanation and apologetics. In the early days of the state we were looking for the right word to describe our image-building efforts. Propaganda was what our enemies were doing and PR sounded too capitalistic for our Zionist-socialist founding parents. Then someone invented the word "hasbarah" and the rest is history.<br /><br /> We have had a wonderful scapegoat ever since. If the media do not report favorably on Israel, our hasbarah is to blame. If the Europeans are against us or if Washington hesitates to support us automatically, it is due to our lack of hasbarah. It is more convenient than resorting to the old "ghetto" mentality of being convinced that "all the world is against us," full of open and closeted anti-Semites.<br /><br /> However, sometimes even a paranoid is right. There is anti-Semitism in the world and there are people who would have loved to see us losing our wars and damn the consequences. But at least since the end of World War II, they are a small minority.<br /><br /> The entire world is not necessarily against us. The majority supports our right to exist in peace and security, but in certain cases, questions our actions and policies because we had based our Zionist ideology, since Theodor Herzl's day, on high moral grounds as well as on claims of historical justice.<br /><br /> International politics are not conducted in a high court of justice. We have had to earn our independence and security the hard way.<br /><br /> We have had to fight for it against regular armies and terrorist organizations that are not run by charitable organizations. We wanted to be better than others are and to behave more humanely toward our adversaries. It was not always possible and it is not so easy to explain it to the world.<br /><br /> The underdog usually has a better hasbarah. Ephraim Kishon, our wonderful satirist, once wrote a beautiful piece after the Six-Day War, about how we would have won the support of the international media by losing the war, but unfortunately for them, we had won it. We tried to behave like a benevolent occupier, but the occupied Palestinians did not thank us for that and started acts of violence and terrorism to resist our occupation.<br /><br /> For a long time they succeeded in winning the propaganda war by portraying themselves as "freedom fighters." We lost it because there was a deep internal division regarding our ultimate goal. No hasbarah could have succeeded when we ourselves did not agree on our goal: Do we want to hold all the territories forever? Are we ready to give the Arabs full equal rights? Do we want to push them out of here? Or are we ready to agree to a far-reaching territorial compromise with a Palestinian state?<br /><br /> That absence of a goal was the main reason we lost the hasbarah war. However, that trend began to change when we started to move in the direction of the peace process. The majority of Israelis now support the idea of peace based on sharing the land with an independent Palestinian state, as long as Israel's survival is secure.<br /><br /> We have failed to convey that the Palestinian leadership is to be blamed for thwarting the peace process by refusing to compromise and by inciting violence instead. We thought this would be self-evident, especially since Sept. 11, but the international community and the media are still not sure of our complete lack of blame.<br /><br /> The reason is the failure of our hasbarah, because we lack leadership and talented management to plan, coordinate and do the job efficiently. The Israel Defense Force spokespersons as well as our Foreign Ministry people failed to deliver the message. The tools and good will exist, but the performance is bad.<br /><br /> Hasbarah is not a miraculous panacea for all our problems. It cannot cover bad political decisions, mistakes of judgment or faulty execution of orders. But it can do much better—especially when we can benefit from the terrible mistakes of the other side.<br /><br /> It is time to reorganize our hasbarah effort. It should be headed by a competent person in the Prime Minister's Office, with full authority to direct and coordinate all government efforts to work in a synchronized way, so as not to miss those golden opportunities to present our justified case to the world.</p> <p> </p>

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