Monday, January 10, 2005
Engelhard: PR for Israel
From Arutz Sheva
Hasbara means public relations in Hebrew, and that's a loose translation; it's especially loose as it's practiced from Israel. Lovers of Zion have no spokesman. We once had Abba Eban. Maybe he was to the Left, but he was good, and now he's gone. We once had Benjamin Netanyahu, a weak prime minister but a terrific speaker for Israel. But he's busy doing something else these days.
That leaves us to fend for ourselves, and that's weak. Centuries ago, as Elie Wiesel reminds us, the great Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev cried out to the Almighty, "Zol Ivan blozen shofar." Let our enemies praise your glory, since you favor our slanderers and oppressors over us. That was a cry of anguish and helplessness that we feel even today. But we have no Berditchever Rebbe or anything close.
Israelis seem blissfully unaware that their war is being fought on the "front pages". Our newsprint runs with Jewish blood. The Mohammad Al-Dura incident singularly provoked the Palestinian Arab tempter tantrum that has taken more than one thousand Jewish lives, in addition to thousands more injured and maimed.
Turns out that the whole business was a fraud, that it was staged, but the image of a boy huddled up in his father's arms against "Israeli gunfire" justified the uprising for the Arab world and for the entire world. Who spoke up for Israel? Nobody. Or if someone did, he or she did a rotten job.
Hasbara means public relations in Hebrew, and that's a loose translation; it's especially loose as it's practiced from Israel. Lovers of Zion have no spokesman. We once had Abba Eban. Maybe he was to the Left, but he was good, and now he's gone. We once had Benjamin Netanyahu, a weak prime minister but a terrific speaker for Israel. But he's busy doing something else these days.
That leaves us to fend for ourselves, and that's weak. Centuries ago, as Elie Wiesel reminds us, the great Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev cried out to the Almighty, "Zol Ivan blozen shofar." Let our enemies praise your glory, since you favor our slanderers and oppressors over us. That was a cry of anguish and helplessness that we feel even today. But we have no Berditchever Rebbe or anything close.
Israelis seem blissfully unaware that their war is being fought on the "front pages". Our newsprint runs with Jewish blood. The Mohammad Al-Dura incident singularly provoked the Palestinian Arab tempter tantrum that has taken more than one thousand Jewish lives, in addition to thousands more injured and maimed.
Turns out that the whole business was a fraud, that it was staged, but the image of a boy huddled up in his father's arms against "Israeli gunfire" justified the uprising for the Arab world and for the entire world. Who spoke up for Israel? Nobody. Or if someone did, he or she did a rotten job.
papijoe 6:44 AM
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