Posted on 07/27/2010 12:17:59 AM PDT by Ari Bussel
Israel’s Pressing Matters by Ari Bussel and Norma Zager
There are several major anti-Israel campaigns underway. Let us look at some ongoing and upcoming events:
1) Israel’s alleged Apartheid’s regime, ongoing 2) Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, ongoing 3) Lawsuits against Israeli officials for war crimes, ongoing 4) Active, economic resistance: Boycott of Israeli products, removing them from shelves, burn Israeli products, Divestment, ongoing 5) Active, academic, medical and scientific BDS (Boycotts, Divestment, Sanctions), ongoing 6) Water, Thirsting the Palestinians, soft prelaunch, major international exposure planned 7) Unilateral self-declaration of Palestine with Jerusalem its capital, advanced planning and preliminary rehearsals 8) Al Aqsa Mosque, Temple Mount Destruction by the Jews, in the last planning stages.
Israel must be aware of some or all of these accusations and campaigns against them. After all, Israel is quite sophisticated. Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs has branches the world over and the Government Press Office follows global news, as does the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Branch. There are NGOs that actually do this for existence, including Jerusalem-based Memri that follows the Arabic news media.
There is also an Information Directorate at the Prime Minister’s Office. They must be well versed in the above, as should Israel’s Minister for Public Diplomacy and the Diaspora and his staff. Then there are the various “policy advisers” and well-paid strategists (all on the taxpayer’s dime) who clearly are aware of these plans.
None of the aforementioned areas of contention should come as news to anyone. After all, they have been readily and repeatedly advertised. Israel’s enemies are not shy in announcing their plans. They do so explicitly, publicly and unabashedly.
Israel and her diplomats, elected and appointed officials and respective support staffs are smart people. All are very well compensated. Clearly, there must not be any surprises in this dispatch, not to them.
So what is Israel doing? Has she gone on the offensive? Are there drawer plans for these certain eventualities? Will she react, as in recent years, or come out with a more pro-active approach? What will she do when events take unexpected turns as in the latest Turkish Terrorist Flotilla of Lies?
Like a script, finished and in the process of being filmed, the attacks against Israel are in advanced stages of production. All that is necessary is the addition of an effective public relations campaign to support the upcoming release.
An enormous budget has been allocated for the new release, a war machine against the Jewish State. It dwarfs that of previous films and is greater than the sum total of all combined expenditures on movie releases in Hollywood for the past decade.
What excuses will be provided next for Israel’s failures on the Public Diplomacy Front? Lack of personnel? Insufficient funds? Politics? Corruption? The “Other” Party or “Someone Else is at fault,” “We did not know,” “We did not expect,” “Events took an unexpected turn,” “It concerns us not,” “What is Israel to do?” There is more planning of excuses than strategies to avoid failure.
Wake up Israel’s leaders and guards. You are entrusted with preparing for such untold and unforeseen eventualities. The events I mentioned have already been acknowledged and your enemies have warned you time and again. Yet, you see not and listen not. You choose to ignore, and it is inevitable you will pay a price. Former glory will not sustain present failure.
The Israeli public is constantly misled into a false sense of security by the plethora of ministerial and governmental entities entrusted with Israel’s Public Diplomacy. More than all other failures, this is the most egregious, for the very existence of structures must be dismantled in order to improve the health and well being of the Jewish state.
Israel must shift her thinking and understand the war machine must be equally divided between two fronts: the armory and public relations.
News Alert for the near future: A defiant Israel is said to continue its harsh stand against the United Nations. In a surprising development, Israel has announced it will not grant entry to the three appointed members of the International Board of Inquiry appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Observers in Israel report this opposition is unlikely to last.
July 23, 2010, AFP, excerpts:
GENEVA — The UN Human Rights Council named a panel of experts Friday to investigate whether Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla breached international law and urged the Jewish state to cooperate.
The 47-member state Human Rights Council condemned the raid as an "outrageous attack" during an emergency session in June. The decision to set up a panel was made at the same session.
The panel would be completely unbiased: Hudson-Phillips was a judge at the International Criminal Court, de Silva was chief prosecutor of the UN court for Sierra Leone while Dairiam serves on the gender equality taskforce of the UN Development Programme.
Although no exact timetable for the panel's work was revealed, the report on their findings was scheduled to be made to the Human Rights Council during its 15th session in September.
[Mark your calendars – two months for release date.]
News Alert (in the not-so-distant future): Palestinians celebrate the creation of Modern Palestine in the areas once known as the West Bank and Gaza. 120 countries have already recognized the newly established country and committed to send their future ambassadors for a swearing in ceremony to take place the day after the Establishment Day scheduled for …, 2010. Israel has vowed to take all measures to prevent the formation of Palestine, but stopped short of declaring war.
July 23, 2010, AP, excerpts (substitute Israel and Palestine as necessary, and the next campaign is already set):
BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia and Kosovo are dispatching competing armies of lobbyists to governments that so far have wavered on recognizing the breakaway province.
"We call on those states who have not yet done so, to recognize Kosovo," U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley on said on Thursday. "Now is the time for them, for Kosovo and Serbia, to put aside their differences and move forward."
In its nonbinding decision announced Thursday, the top U.N. court said it did not rule on the legality of Kosovo's statehood, but only on its declaration of independence.
Regions around the world where separatists may be energized by Kosovo's secession include Spain's Basque country and Catalonia, Scotland, Italy's ethnic German-populated Alto Adige, and parts of Romania and Slovakia populated by restive Hungarian minorities. South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which have declared independence from Georgia, will also be encouraged by the ruling that states that such unilateral declarations of independence are not illegal under international law. Nearby, Armenian separatists in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabah region may seek to legitimize their secession dating back to the early 1990s.
In the Middle East, Kurdish politicians in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region have also said they will carefully study the ICJ decision.
So far, only 69 countries of the 192 in the United Nations General Assembly, including the U.S. and most of EU states, have recognized Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. But a number of important countries, aside from China and Russia, have refused to do so, including India, Brazil, Israel, Egypt, Indonesia, and South Africa.
For Kosovo to obtain U.N. membership, it needs a two-third majority in the General Assembly, plus the approval by all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France.
The EU countries that have not recognized Kosovo are Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus and Romania — most grappling with separatism issues.
End Quote
The script from AP, brought almost in its entirety alongside its key elements, is so elegantly played out that one does not need to engage any specialists to create a sequel. All that is needed are the appropriate name substitutions. I am already marking my calendar with great anticipation!
Viva Palestine, the eternal homeland of the Palestinian People, created by those who write fiction! Soon millions of Palestinian refugees will trounce Jerusalem, their never before mentioned capital.
Wake up Israel’s guards and generals entrusted with public diplomacy. Where are your leaders Israel, as international public demonization mounts against the Jewish State?
### In the series “Postcards from Israel—Postcards from America,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers to view and experience an Israel and her politics through their eyes, an Israel visitors rarely discover.
This point—and often—counter-point presentation is sprinkled with humor and sadness and attempts to tackle serious and relevant issues of the day. The series began in 2008, appears both in print in the USA and on numerous websites and is followed regularly by readership from around the world.
© “Postcards from Israel—Postcards from America,” July, 2010 Contact: aribussel@gmail.com
Great Article! Very insightful and forward looking.
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