Published by The Freeman Center

The Maccabean Online

Political Analysis and Commentary
on Israeli and Jewish Affairs

"For Zion's sake I shall not hold my peace, And for Jerusalem's sake I shall not rest."

LET FREEMAN CENTER TAKE OVER ISRAEL FOREIGN MINISTRY-War crimes charges grow-

JERUSALEM SILENT

by Bernard J. Shapiro

FOR THE SAKE OF ISRAEL WE MUST DRAFT THE FREEMAN CENTER TO HANDLE PUBLIC RELATION FOR THE JEWISH STATE. THE FOREIGN MINISTRY HAS CAUSED GREAT DAMAGE TO THE GOOD NAME OF ISRAEL. I WOULD AGREE TO LET THE OFFICE WORKERS THERE CONTINUE TO TAKE CARE OF VISAS AND TOURISM (LIVNI LOVED TO SHOW ISRAEL, NOT AS LAND OF THE BIBLE, BUT AS SEXY BIKINI CLAD ISRAELI GIRLS).

THE FREEMAN CENTER CAN DO THE FOLLOWING:

1. Put up a vigorous Zionist defense of Israel at one tenth of one percent (0.01) the cost of the entire Israeli Foreign Ministry.

2. And they can do it with NO guilt feelings

3. They can do this with NO apologies to the World, USA, EU, Arabs, Muslims, UN for breathing the oxygen of Planet Earth. And, of course, being the only indigenous people living in its natural HOME, With the deed signed by the Almighty as a perpetual trust.

4. How do I know the Freeman Center can do all of above??? It is simple, we have been doing it since 1992. The RECORD is there. Go to www.freeman.org and see over 70,000 pages of the best news and commentary on Israel in THE MACCABEAN ONLINE www.freeman.org/online.htm

During this same period, the Israel Foreign Ministry devoted all of its resources to:

a. Promoting the "tooth fairy" of Peace with Barbarians who want to destroy us.

b. Undermining organization like the Freeman Center and myself personally who defended Israel's undiminished right to self-defense, security and survival in the dangerous world we find ourselves.

c. Helping to tie the hands of the IDF and endangering the lives of our most precious commodity (our sons and daughters) to save the lives of Arabs, who wish us dead. They have accepted and defended the concept of restraint (havlagah) or "purity of arms." There is nothing pure or sacred about sacrificing Jewish blood on the ALTER of Left-wing pseudo-morality. Our enemies worship death -so help them achieve it. We believe in life - so let us save our own.

Please see articles below

Still a frustrated Zionist, after all these years-

Who still loves Israel and prays to HaShem that REALITY begin to be a guiding principle of Israeli policy.

Bernard

War crimes charges grow, Jerusalem silent

Feb. 27, 2009
Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST

As various individuals and organizations file petitions abroad against Israel for alleged war crimes, including at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, there is growing criticism in Jerusalem that Israel is taking too laid-back an approach to the matter, and not going on the offensive.

"[Attorney-General Menahem] Mazuz is involved, and a committee has been set up to deal with any lawsuits filed, but these are all defensive measures," one government source said. "We are not taking the offensive."

The best example of this, the official said, was Jerusalem's silence when the Palestinian Authority urged the ICC to investigate Israel's alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

Some 210 groups, including the PA, have urged the ICC to deal with the matter and the ICC's prosecutor has said a "preliminary analysis" is underway.

Israel could have come out and said this was not the way the country's peace partner should act, but instead remained quiet, the government source said.

Another example of the low key approach was Israel's complete silence when an Arab League delegation entered Gaza this week to investigate alleged war crimes and report back to the League's secretary-general, Amr Moussa.

One Israeli Foreign Ministry official said that it would have been possible to sharply reply to the PA's actions, but because of Israel's pre-election, and now post-election, transition period, there was "no one to take the initiative."

The official further said that neither Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who spent much of his tenure developing a relationship with the PA, nor Foreign Ministry Tzipi Livni, who led negotiations with it, had a political interest in publicly attacking it.

The official said that the policy was also dictated by other considerations, foremost that Israel did not want to give these petitions any more momentum, and a widespread feeling that the best way to "ride out" the current storm was to avoid giving the petitions more publicity.

"There is a consideration that the more you fight it, the more you raise the issue in the public consciousness, and that it's better to deal with it on a back burner," the official said.

The official pointed out that despite all the petitions and reports of imminent lawsuits, nothing concrete had emerged, and that when it seemed that something was about to, the Foreign Ministry responded.

For instance, the government responded swiftly and harshly, at least in a declarative manner, to a decision by a Spanish judge in January to open a probe of seven former top security officials for alleged war crimes in the 2002 bombing in Gaza that killed top Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh and 14 other people.

The investigation has been ordered against National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who was defense minister at the time; Likud MK Moshe Ya'alon, who was chief of General Staff; Dan Halutz, then commander of the air force; Doron Almog, who was OC Southern Command; then-National Security Council head Giora Eiland; the defense minister's military secretary, Mike Herzog; and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, who was head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency).

Defense Minister Ehud Barak blasted the Spanish judge's decision, saying, "Someone who calls the assassination of a terrorist a crime against humanity lives in an upside-down world."

And Foreign Minister Livni, who immediately spoke with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos about the matter, directed the ministry's legal department to work quickly to annul the proceedings. She said that Israel "viewed gravely" the decision to open the probe. It was completely unacceptable, and Israel would give full legal backing to the seven officials, Livni said.

The cabinet has also addressed the issue, to a certain extent, both on the declarative and operative planes.

Last month, Prime Minister Olmert publicly said at a weekly cabinet meeting that Hamas was "using the international legal arena as one of the main arenas in which they are trying to hurt Israel and strike at its soldiers and commanders. With the typical moral acrobatics, these organizations and their supporters are trying to turn the attacker into the attacked and vice-versa."

At that meeting, Olmert appointed Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann to chair an interministerial team to coordinate the state's efforts to provide a legal defense for those who took part in the military operation. That committee has met and is mapping out where the potential problems are and how to deal with them.

But not everyone is pleased with the speed, or the results. Almog, who was advised by the security establishment not to go to Spain, was quoted this week as saying, "Unfortunately, this matter doesn't appear to be hurting the country too much, and so people are dealing with it with a grin. We need to develop an overall strategy and program to deal with this, otherwise the phenomenon will become more widespread and seriously hurt the country."

In 2005 Almog was advised not to disembark from an El Al jet when he landed in London because a warrant for his arrest had been issued for allegedly violating the Geneva Conventions in his capacity as head of the Southern Command.•

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410730948&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Communication and Public Policy

Implications for Israel's Public Relations

By Bernard J. Shapiro

http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jun96/shapiroc.htm

[Editor's Note: This article was originally published on February 4, 1993. I feel that its message is critical to the success of the new Netanyahu government.]

Virtually every news commentator compares Israel's temporary removal of 400 terrorists to Lebanon with the heinous crimes of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The United Nations is being asked not to have a double standard for Iraq and Israel. In fact, the Palestine Liberation Organization, having been recognized as the world's highest moral arbiter, has been asked by the United Nation's Secretary General Boutros-Ghali to draft a resolution condemning Israel and calling for sanctions. Something is obviously wrong with this picture. It is time for Israelis and their supporters to recognize that Israel has a public relations problem.

The actions Israel took to defend its security were quite moderate by Middle East standards. Its ability to explain what and why it took such action was inadequate. Along with most of the pro-Israel community, I'm a frequent critic of Israeli information policies. I had a pleasant lunch last week with an Israeli official and we discussed this very issue. As a result of our conversation, I am convinced that the Israeli government is doing everything in its power to communicate its message to the media, political leaders, and general public. Its just not working.

What is needed is a whole new approach to Israeli public relations. Let's call it: THE MARKETING OF ISRAEL, and look at the problem from an advertizing perspective. About nine months ago, I discussed with an executive of a major advertising company the possibility of producing television spots supporting Israel's positions on various political issues. I became discouraged upon learning that the major stations do not permit "advocacy" commercials. And then Yitzhak Rabin was elected in Israel's national elections and there was a major turn for the better in Israel's image.

I think it is time to take a second look at my concept but expand it to include radio, magazines, cable television (cable will accept this type of commercial) and newspapers. The ads should range from the very soft evocative travel type to some hard hitting but subtle political messages. Pretend that Israel is a corporation with a vast market in the United States. Receipts from that market top $6 Billion Dollars ( including US economic and military aid, UJA, Israel Bonds, JNF, plus all the other campaigns from Yeshivas to the Technion). What would you spend to protect a market of that magnitude? One half of one percent would equal $30 million. You can run for president with thirty million dollars. In a wild fantasy, lets say we have that much money. And let's say we hire a talented creative ad man to develop a multi-faceted, multi-media, and multi-year campaign to win the hearts and minds of the American people.

This should not be an impossible task. Israel is a good product, lots of virtues, few vices. (Can you imagine convincing the American people to love Saddam?) We could do nothing, but the consequences are not so good. Public opinion polls are beginning to show the Arabs winning more and more sympathy. Yes, Arabs who keep their women in bondage; Palestinians who disembowel pregnant teachers in front of their classes; Syrians who peddle narcotics to American inner city youth and commit mass murder if provoked; Saudis who threaten to behead a man for practicing Christianity; all of these and more are almost as popular as Israel. The Arabs are good at smearing the good name of Israel. Just listen to Hanan Ashrawi some time. No matter what the question, she manages to fit in a lie about Israel in her answer. Israel has already lost the college campus, half of the Afro-Americans, a good portion of the Protestants except for the Baptists and the Evangelicals and some in the Jewish community.

The Israel government needs to realize that we are living in a new world where telecommunications brings us closer that ever before to each other. In the fifties when Israel was criticized, Ben Gurion used to say, "Its not what the world thinks, but what the Jews do that is important." It is a different world now and for every Israeli policy, the public relations aspect must be examined. I am definitely not calling on Israel to submit to public opinion but instead to organize and mold it for their benefit. I don't want Israel immobilized by fear of bad public relations. I want Israel to plan, with the help of experts, a strategy to counteract the negative effects of any public policy move. Would Rabin send his soldiers into battle without a detailed plan and strategy to win. The time has come for Israel to develop a strategy the win the public relations battle. The Jewish community in this country is more than willing to lend its money and advertizing talent to aid in this task. Let's do it! (Are you listening Bibi?)

==================

WILL ISRAEL BE LOST BECAUSE OF
DECEPTION AND DELUSION?

By Bernard J. Shapiro (MAY 1996)

The Israeli national elections scheduled for May 29th may have already been decided. Not, of course, in the technical sense, but in the all important information battle. The extreme leftist Labor government has succeeded in manipulating the minds of Israelis and Jews worldwide. The age old longing of the Jewish people for peace has been used to perpetuate a policy of appeasement and surrender. Those opposed to this insane suicide policy have been labeled "enemies of peace" by Israel's Orwellian public opinion molders.

Words are distorted and their meaning obfuscated. Concessions to terrorism equals "peace." Resistance to terrorism means you are an "enemy of peace." Terrorists, whose hands drip with Jewish blood, are freed from prison or welcomed to enter Israel from abroad. Rabbis, Zionist patriots, and housewives with a love of Israel are placed in jail for "sedition." The world cheers the "peace loving" Israeli Stalinists while condemning similar behavior in other countries like China. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres agrees to place Syria on the committee to monitor Hizbullah in Lebanon. Allowing the fox to guard the henhouse certainly comes to mind.

Has the world gone mad? Are Israelis that stupid as to allow such delusions to masquerade as policy. Is Peres evil: a curse sent to Israel as punishment for some unknown sin? Or is he just an old, leftist lost in his fantasy world of the "New Middle East," who thinks he is doing good?

As a child my grandfather used to entertain me with delightful tales about the foolish Jews of Chelm. Chelm was said to be a tiny shtetal (Jewish village) in the Russian Pale of Settlement during czarist times. Its inhabitants were known primarily for their foolishness. In most of these tales one finds that a resident of Chelm becomes fixed upon an idea which is totally a variance to objective reality.

Chelm has been on my mind lately as I view the current move to give Israel's sacred patrimony to the Arabs. I raised this issue through one of my computer networks saying, "I wish someone would explain to me why ANY INTELLIGENT Israeli could believe the nonsense (PLO/Israel deal) its leaders are expounding." A wonderful response came from Professor Mark Steinberger (Department of Math and Statistics, State University of New York in Albany, New York). He writes: "This has also been bothering me lately. I would say that leftists must inhabit an alternate universe, except that WE wind up having to pay the consequences for their detachment from reality.

But while we do live in the same objective world, their vision of it seems to have nothing in common with ours. They do not comprehend reality as we see it, and when challenged with evidence that would seem to buttress our view, they seem either to dismiss it for theoretical reason or ignore it completely.

One can list various dangers in the agreement, and give objective evidence that Palestinians have no desire for peace, but still want to drive our people into the sea. What is the reaction? They will tell you that self-determination and prosperity will change the Palestinians' outlook and behavior. On what do they base this? Not on evidence from Arab societies. Rather it is based on theory.

Indeed, one can point to the fact that warfare, macho-one upmanship, racist hegemonism and Islamic fanaticism are endemic to Arab cultures, including the more prosperous ones such as Egypt and Lebanon. The leftist response is either to ignore the point or to counter with accusations of insensitivity and Eurocentrism.

To me, this looks like an unwillingness to deal with reality, and it echoes the unwillingness of the Jewish community of the thirties to recognize the threat posed by the Nazis.

Indeed, it seems we have learned nothing at all from our experience with Nazism. The Holocaust has become little more than a tale to frighten children: demons in a morality play. They have turned the Holocaust into an image divorced from real world happenings. Millions more Jews could die in Israel, but they refuse to even imagine the possibility.

THEY WILL NOT ALLOW REALITY TO INTERFERE WITH THEIR MYTHS.

Unfortunately, Jews throughout history have deluded themselves about their position in society. They pursue utopian solutions to complex political problems and disputes. Jews rejoiced as the enlightenment spread across Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many were eager to give up their Jewishness and become German, French, Italian, and English. In the final analysis those societies viewed them as Jews. Self-delusion came into collision with reality and left us with the stench of burning flesh in the ovens of Auschwitz. Many Russian Jews eagerly supported the communist idea of a worker's utopia with no nationalities and no religion. Reality taught them that their neighbors still considered them Jews.

The left-wing in Israel believes in a common humanity of shared values with the Arabs. In the face of all empirical evidence to the contrary they believe peace is possible. In the book Self Portrait Of A Hero: The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu (1963-1976), Jonathan Netanyahu, the fallen hero of Entebbe and brother of Benjamin, said it best: "I see with sorrow and great anger how a part of the people still clings to hopes of reaching a peaceful settlement with the Arabs. Common sense tells them, too, that the Arabs haven't abandoned their basic aim of destroying the State; but the self-delusion and self-deception that have always plagued the Jews are at work again. It's our great misfortune. They want to believe, so they believe. They want not to see, so they shut their eyes. They want not to learn from thousands of years of history, so they distort it. They want to bring about a sacrifice, and they do indeed. It would be comic, if it wasn't so tragic. What a saddening and irritating lot this Jewish people is!"

The stories from Chelm have amused Jews for many generations. Many of us, however, are not amused that the peacemakers of Israel seem to be operating in the best tradition of the colorful inhabitants of Chelm. Israel is in great danger. We must pray that Israeli voters will choose Netanyahu and send the Chelmites into retirement. Need I say more?

DONT LET HERZL'S DREAM DIE

Bernard J. Shapiro is editor of THE MACCABEAN and Executive Director of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies.

Published by The Freeman Center The Maccabean Online Political Analysis and Commentary on Israeli and Jewish Affairs "For Zion's sake I shall not hold my peace, And for Jerusalem's sake I shall not rest."
LET FREEMAN CENTER TAKE OVER ISRAEL FOREIGN MINISTRY-War crimes charges grow- JERUSALEM SILENT by Bernard J. Shapiro FOR THE SAKE OF ISRAEL WE MUST DRAFT THE FREEMAN CENTER TO HANDLE PUBLIC RELATION FOR THE JEWISH STATE. THE FOREIGN MINISTRY HAS CAUSED GREAT DAMAGE TO THE GOOD NAME OF ISRAEL. I WOULD AGREE TO LET THE OFFICE WORKERS THERE CONTINUE TO TAKE CARE OF VISAS AND TOURISM (LIVNI LOVED TO SHOW ISRAEL, NOT AS LAND OF THE BIBLE, BUT AS SEXY BIKINI CLAD ISRAELI GIRLS). THE FREEMAN CENTER CAN DO THE FOLLOWING: 1. Put up a vigorous Zionist defense of Israel at one tenth of one percent (0.01) the cost of the entire Israeli Foreign Ministry. 2. And they can do it with NO guilt feelings 3. They can do this with NO apologies to the World, USA, EU, Arabs, Muslims, UN for breathing the oxygen of Planet Earth. And, of course, being the only indigenous people living in its natural HOME, With the deed signed by the Almighty as a perpetual trust. 4. How do I know the Freeman Center can do all of above??? It is simple, we have been doing it since 1992. The RECORD is there. Go to www.freeman.org and see over 70,000 pages of the best news and commentary on Israel in THE MACCABEAN ONLINE www.freeman.org/online.htm During this same period, the Israel Foreign Ministry devoted all of its resources to: a. Promoting the "tooth fairy" of Peace with Barbarians who want to destroy us. b. Undermining organization like the Freeman Center and myself personally who defended Israel's undiminished right to self-defense, security and survival in the dangerous world we find ourselves. c. Helping to tie the hands of the IDF and endangering the lives of our most precious commodity (our sons and daughters) to save the lives of Arabs, who wish us dead. They have accepted and defended the concept of restraint (havlagah) or "purity of arms." There is nothing pure or sacred about sacrificing Jewish blood on the ALTER of Left-wing pseudo-morality. Our enemies worship death -so help them achieve it. We believe in life - so let us save our own. Please see articles below Still a frustrated Zionist, after all these years- Who still loves Israel and prays to HaShem that REALITY begin to be a guiding principle of Israeli policy. Bernard War crimes charges grow, Jerusalem silent Feb. 27, 2009 Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST As various individuals and organizations file petitions abroad against Israel for alleged war crimes, including at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, there is growing criticism in Jerusalem that Israel is taking too laid-back an approach to the matter, and not going on the offensive. "[Attorney-General Menahem] Mazuz is involved, and a committee has been set up to deal with any lawsuits filed, but these are all defensive measures," one government source said. "We are not taking the offensive." The best example of this, the official said, was Jerusalem's silence when the Palestinian Authority urged the ICC to investigate Israel's alleged war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. Some 210 groups, including the PA, have urged the ICC to deal with the matter and the ICC's prosecutor has said a "preliminary analysis" is underway. Israel could have come out and said this was not the way the country's peace partner should act, but instead remained quiet, the government source said. Another example of the low key approach was Israel's complete silence when an Arab League delegation entered Gaza this week to investigate alleged war crimes and report back to the League's secretary-general, Amr Moussa. One Israeli Foreign Ministry official said that it would have been possible to sharply reply to the PA's actions, but because of Israel's pre-election, and now post-election, transition period, there was "no one to take the initiative." The official further said that neither Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who spent much of his tenure developing a relationship with the PA, nor Foreign Ministry Tzipi Livni, who led negotiations with it, had a political interest in publicly attacking it. The official said that the policy was also dictated by other considerations, foremost that Israel did not want to give these petitions any more momentum, and a widespread feeling that the best way to "ride out" the current storm was to avoid giving the petitions more publicity. "There is a consideration that the more you fight it, the more you raise the issue in the public consciousness, and that it's better to deal with it on a back burner," the official said. The official pointed out that despite all the petitions and reports of imminent lawsuits, nothing concrete had emerged, and that when it seemed that something was about to, the Foreign Ministry responded. For instance, the government responded swiftly and harshly, at least in a declarative manner, to a decision by a Spanish judge in January to open a probe of seven former top security officials for alleged war crimes in the 2002 bombing in Gaza that killed top Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh and 14 other people. The investigation has been ordered against National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who was defense minister at the time; Likud MK Moshe Ya'alon, who was chief of General Staff; Dan Halutz, then commander of the air force; Doron Almog, who was OC Southern Command; then-National Security Council head Giora Eiland; the defense minister's military secretary, Mike Herzog; and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, who was head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). Defense Minister Ehud Barak blasted the Spanish judge's decision, saying, "Someone who calls the assassination of a terrorist a crime against humanity lives in an upside-down world." And Foreign Minister Livni, who immediately spoke with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos about the matter, directed the ministry's legal department to work quickly to annul the proceedings. She said that Israel "viewed gravely" the decision to open the probe. It was completely unacceptable, and Israel would give full legal backing to the seven officials, Livni said. The cabinet has also addressed the issue, to a certain extent, both on the declarative and operative planes. Last month, Prime Minister Olmert publicly said at a weekly cabinet meeting that Hamas was "using the international legal arena as one of the main arenas in which they are trying to hurt Israel and strike at its soldiers and commanders. With the typical moral acrobatics, these organizations and their supporters are trying to turn the attacker into the attacked and vice-versa." At that meeting, Olmert appointed Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann to chair an interministerial team to coordinate the state's efforts to provide a legal defense for those who took part in the military operation. That committee has met and is mapping out where the potential problems are and how to deal with them. But not everyone is pleased with the speed, or the results. Almog, who was advised by the security establishment not to go to Spain, was quoted this week as saying, "Unfortunately, this matter doesn't appear to be hurting the country too much, and so people are dealing with it with a grin. We need to develop an overall strategy and program to deal with this, otherwise the phenomenon will become more widespread and seriously hurt the country." In 2005 Almog was advised not to disembark from an El Al jet when he landed in London because a warrant for his arrest had been issued for allegedly violating the Geneva Conventions in his capacity as head of the Southern Command.• This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410730948&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Communication and Public Policy *Implications for Israel's Public Relations* By Bernard J. Shapiro http://www.freeman.org/m_online/jun96/shapiroc.htm *[Editor's Note: This article was originally published on February 4, 1993. I feel that its message is critical to the success of the new Netanyahu government.]* Virtually every news commentator compares Israel's temporary removal of 400 terrorists to Lebanon with the heinous crimes of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The United Nations is being asked not to have a double standard for Iraq and Israel. In fact, the Palestine Liberation Organization, having been recognized as the world's highest moral arbiter, has been asked by the United Nation's Secretary General Boutros-Ghali to draft a resolution condemning Israel and calling for sanctions. Something is obviously wrong with this picture. It is time for Israelis and their supporters to recognize that Israel has a public relations problem. The actions Israel took to defend its security were quite moderate by Middle East standards. Its ability to explain what and why it took such action was inadequate. Along with most of the pro-Israel community, I'm a frequent critic of Israeli information policies. I had a pleasant lunch last week with an Israeli official and we discussed this very issue. As a result of our conversation, I am convinced that the Israeli government is doing everything in its power to communicate its message to the media, political leaders, and general public. Its just not working. What is needed is a whole new approach to Israeli public relations. Let's call it: THE MARKETING OF ISRAEL, and look at the problem from an advertizing perspective. About nine months ago, I discussed with an executive of a major advertising company the possibility of producing television spots supporting Israel's positions on various political issues. I became discouraged upon learning that the major stations do not permit "advocacy" commercials. And then Yitzhak Rabin was elected in Israel's national elections and there was a major turn for the better in Israel's image. I think it is time to take a second look at my concept but expand it to include radio, magazines, cable television (cable will accept this type of commercial) and newspapers. The ads should range from the very soft evocative travel type to some hard hitting but subtle political messages. Pretend that Israel is a corporation with a vast market in the United States. Receipts from that market top $6 Billion Dollars ( including US economic and military aid, UJA, Israel Bonds, JNF, plus all the other campaigns from Yeshivas to the Technion). What would you spend to protect a market of that magnitude? One half of one percent would equal $30 million. You can run for president with thirty million dollars. In a wild fantasy, lets say we have that much money. And let's say we hire a talented creative ad man to develop a multi-faceted, multi-media, and multi-year campaign to win the hearts and minds of the American people. This should not be an impossible task. Israel is a good product, lots of virtues, few vices. (Can you imagine convincing the American people to love Saddam?) We could do nothing, but the consequences are not so good. Public opinion polls are beginning to show the Arabs winning more and more sympathy. Yes, Arabs who keep their women in bondage; Palestinians who disembowel pregnant teachers in front of their classes; Syrians who peddle narcotics to American inner city youth and commit mass murder if provoked; Saudis who threaten to behead a man for practicing Christianity; all of these and more are almost as popular as Israel. The Arabs are good at smearing the good name of Israel. Just listen to Hanan Ashrawi some time. No matter what the question, she manages to fit in a lie about Israel in her answer. Israel has already lost the college campus, half of the Afro-Americans, a good portion of the Protestants except for the Baptists and the Evangelicals and some in the Jewish community. The Israel government needs to realize that we are living in a new world where telecommunications brings us closer that ever before to each other. In the fifties when Israel was criticized, Ben Gurion used to say, "Its not what the world thinks, but what the Jews do that is important." It is a different world now and for every Israeli policy, the public relations aspect must be examined. I am definitely not calling on Israel to submit to public opinion but instead to organize and mold it for their benefit. I don't want Israel immobilized by fear of bad public relations. I want Israel to plan, with the help of experts, a strategy to counteract the negative effects of any public policy move. Would Rabin send his soldiers into battle without a detailed plan and strategy to win. The time has come for Israel to develop a strategy the win the public relations battle. The Jewish community in this country is more than willing to lend its money and advertizing talent to aid in this task. Let's do it! (Are you listening Bibi?) ================== WILL ISRAEL BE LOST BECAUSE OF DECEPTION AND DELUSION? By Bernard J. Shapiro (MAY 1996) The Israeli national elections scheduled for May 29th may have already been decided. Not, of course, in the technical sense, but in the all important information battle. The extreme leftist Labor government has succeeded in manipulating the minds of Israelis and Jews worldwide. The age old longing of the Jewish people for peace has been used to perpetuate a policy of appeasement and surrender. Those opposed to this insane suicide policy have been labeled "enemies of peace" by Israel's Orwellian public opinion molders. Words are distorted and their meaning obfuscated. Concessions to terrorism equals "peace." Resistance to terrorism means you are an "enemy of peace." Terrorists, whose hands drip with Jewish blood, are freed from prison or welcomed to enter Israel from abroad. Rabbis, Zionist patriots, and housewives with a love of Israel are placed in jail for "sedition." The world cheers the "peace loving" Israeli Stalinists while condemning similar behavior in other countries like China. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres agrees to place Syria on the committee to monitor Hizbullah in Lebanon. Allowing the fox to guard the henhouse certainly comes to mind. Has the world gone mad? Are Israelis that stupid as to allow such delusions to masquerade as policy. Is Peres evil: a curse sent to Israel as punishment for some unknown sin? Or is he just an old, leftist lost in his fantasy world of the "New Middle East," who thinks he is doing good? As a child my grandfather used to entertain me with delightful tales about the foolish Jews of Chelm. Chelm was said to be a tiny shtetal (Jewish village) in the Russian Pale of Settlement during czarist times. Its inhabitants were known primarily for their foolishness. In most of these tales one finds that a resident of Chelm becomes fixed upon an idea which is totally a variance to objective reality. Chelm has been on my mind lately as I view the current move to give Israel's sacred patrimony to the Arabs. I raised this issue through one of my computer networks saying, "I wish someone would explain to me why ANY INTELLIGENT Israeli could believe the nonsense (PLO/Israel deal) its leaders are expounding." A wonderful response came from Professor Mark Steinberger (Department of Math and Statistics, State University of New York in Albany, New York). He writes: "This has also been bothering me lately. I would say that leftists must inhabit an alternate universe, except that WE wind up having to pay the consequences for their detachment from reality. But while we do live in the same objective world, their vision of it seems to have nothing in common with ours. They do not comprehend reality as we see it, and when challenged with evidence that would seem to buttress our view, they seem either to dismiss it for theoretical reason or ignore it completely. One can list various dangers in the agreement, and give objective evidence that Palestinians have no desire for peace, but still want to drive our people into the sea. What is the reaction? They will tell you that self-determination and prosperity will change the Palestinians' outlook and behavior. On what do they base this? Not on evidence from Arab societies. Rather it is based on theory. Indeed, one can point to the fact that warfare, macho-one upmanship, racist hegemonism and Islamic fanaticism are endemic to Arab cultures, including the more prosperous ones such as Egypt and Lebanon. The leftist response is either to ignore the point or to counter with accusations of insensitivity and Eurocentrism. To me, this looks like an unwillingness to deal with reality, and it echoes the unwillingness of the Jewish community of the thirties to recognize the threat posed by the Nazis. Indeed, it seems we have learned nothing at all from our experience with Nazism. The Holocaust has become little more than a tale to frighten children: demons in a morality play. They have turned the Holocaust into an image divorced from real world happenings. Millions more Jews could die in Israel, but they refuse to even imagine the possibility. THEY WILL NOT ALLOW REALITY TO INTERFERE WITH THEIR MYTHS. Unfortunately, Jews throughout history have deluded themselves about their position in society. They pursue utopian solutions to complex political problems and disputes. Jews rejoiced as the enlightenment spread across Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many were eager to give up their Jewishness and become German, French, Italian, and English. In the final analysis those societies viewed them as Jews. Self-delusion came into collision with reality and left us with the stench of burning flesh in the ovens of Auschwitz. Many Russian Jews eagerly supported the communist idea of a worker's utopia with no nationalities and no religion. Reality taught them that their neighbors still considered them Jews. The left-wing in Israel believes in a common humanity of shared values with the Arabs. In the face of all empirical evidence to the contrary they believe peace is possible. In the book Self Portrait Of A Hero: The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu (1963-1976), Jonathan Netanyahu, the fallen hero of Entebbe and brother of Benjamin, said it best: "I see with sorrow and great anger how a part of the people still clings to hopes of reaching a peaceful settlement with the Arabs. Common sense tells them, too, that the Arabs haven't abandoned their basic aim of destroying the State; but the self-delusion and self-deception that have always plagued the Jews are at work again. It's our great misfortune. They want to believe, so they believe. They want not to see, so they shut their eyes. They want not to learn from thousands of years of history, so they distort it. They want to bring about a sacrifice, and they do indeed. It would be comic, if it wasn't so tragic. What a saddening and irritating lot this Jewish people is!" The stories from Chelm have amused Jews for many generations. Many of us, however, are not amused that the peacemakers of Israel seem to be operating in the best tradition of the colorful inhabitants of Chelm. Israel is in great danger. We must pray that Israeli voters will choose Netanyahu and send the Chelmites into retirement. Need I say more? DONT LET HERZL'S DREAM DIE Bernard J. Shapiro is editor of THE MACCABEAN and Executive Director of the Freeman Center For Strategic Studies.