You make many good points about the PR war against israel. Israel has the talents to do much, much better at doing some positive pr, too! But Israel should not, and can’t afford to, let its enemies lead it into letting a fear of manipulated bad PR (which unfortunately, will continue to spew forth anyway) for positive actions, whether constructive or defensive. That’s a trap Israel fell into several times before, at perilous risk and great cost in lives and security. Defense first, as any decent country must do for its citizens, building of homes and schools and communities second, as any decent people do for themselves and their children, and yes wage the best PR effort possible but that’s 3rd priority. In my humble opinion. (And the anti- Semitic PR assault will, regrettably, continue because the saudis are dumping tons of money into it, along with the madrasahs and camps to indoctrinate the terrorists and train them how to use bombs and missiles). In short, just do the best u can to build and defend your country and yes, try to do a much better PR job along the way. Yes, indeed, although whether Isr can ever match the PR crap being thrown at it? I doubt that. Just how it seems. The infiltration and subversion of the mass media appears quite extensive. Best regards, fhc
Totally agree with everything you say there, but I’d cite the Northern Ireland example as a case in point.
All the time England acted defensively and actively hunted down the IRA, who hid inside communities they terrorised, we achieved diddly squat. The Loyalist paramilitaries cited our support as their motivator, when in fact most of us hated what those guys did in our name. The biggest driver to peace for the Six Counties was Omagh. Because after that event everyone was crystal clear who the real enemies of peace were. There was no argument anymore. Even those who hadn’t decommissioned, did so.
And now what’s left of the Troubles? A band of about 50 bored kids kneecapping drug dealers and hanging round a dozen has-beens who still think they’re part of something big when they aren’t.
I know what I’m saying does sound like a very risky strategy for Israel given it has other enemies in the region, but Ahhmedinajad uses proxies like Palestine simply because Hamas is an easy way to keep Israel’s eye off the real ball.
The stateless nature of the Palestinian people while they’re technically living in a state of occupation is the one thing that enables them to lob rockets over the wall. That’s what empowers Hamas. That’s what makes them useful to Iran.
Take that away from them and they’ll have no military might whatsoever, and no defence. Israel would be able to point a nuke at them. Any remnant dissidents in Hamas will have all the moral and strategic power of an IRA splinter group.
At that point, Palestine will be too busy reconstructing and too scared of the consequences to start anything, and Egypt and Jordan will be quite happy to leave things as they are.
We know that because of all the nutters in the Middle East, Saddam was by far the most unhinged and even he didn’t dare bring it. Ahmedinajad’s nowhere near as insane as Saddam, and we already know he won’t start anything he can’t finish unless he has allies who’re equally willing to commit to huge loss of life for a fight that’s not worth having.
So in the long run, resolving Palestinian statehood will do far more defensively for Israel than building more settlements in contested territory. Even if it means ostensibly giving land away,