It is disgraceful how incompetent
the Israeli government is when it comes to public diplomacy. It’s not only
shockingly bad, it’s actually dangerously damaging to us.
They are so bad that, if I were
Donald Trump, I would tell all of them, “You’re fired!”
What a bunch of losers! They
can’t even hold back a bunch of degenerates in the BDS movement.
Actually, they don’t deal with
this problem at all. They complain about it. They scratch their heads and throw
money around various ministries to make it look as if they’re doing something,
but they do nothing effective at all, just wasting valuable funds that should
go to those who are fighting against our demonization.
They concentrate on international
diplomacy, government to government, government to international institutions,
and what a mess they are making of that when it comes to protecting Israel from
delegitimization, anti-Israel resolutions, labeling and host of other slanders.
They really don’t know how to
deal with this problem, even when we are getting hit by so-called friendly
countries. They’re clueless.
When it comes to Israeli advocacy
they’re incompetent in the Knesset, they’re incompetent in the government
ministries and they’re incompetent in the global embassies.
Ever tried getting embassy help
to hold a pro-Israel rally in overseas capitals or major cities? Forget it!
Just ask grassroots support groups who have held pro-Israel rallies despite the
embassies, without their help. Maximum you may get an ambassador or some
incompetent to come and make a speech to show how important he is. It probably
goes on his record at the Foreign Ministry as an achievement in his diplomatic
career.
Ever tried getting embassy help
in organizing a speaking tour on behalf of Israel in some overseas country and
I’m talking about logistical assistance, not funding. Forget it! Maximum you
may get some embassy official sitting anonymously in the audience who will come
up and congratulate you on an impressive presentation after your talk. This has
happened to me on more than one occasion after I had made my own arrangements
to travel abroad at my own expense to speak up for Israel, and because I felt
it was important to inform and motivate our overseas supporters with whom I am
connected.
You can’t begin to guess how many
people at such events thank me for making the effort while complaining that
they get no information of help from the staff at our embassies I know this is
true because I have given up on them when it came to helping me establish
specific support groups in certain countries. I don’t know what they are doing
there, but they are useless when it comes to establishing grassroots support
for Israel.
They are only now beginning to
wake up to the fact that the tsunami that is hitting our shores is a bottom-up
phenomenon. We have been pleading with the government, trying to make them
aware that what we are feeling is the effect of a person-to-person,
group-to-group campaign where the anti-Israel message has been coordinated and
echoed by hundreds, if not thousands of groups. The government, for years,
turned their backs on us, closed their ears to what we were telling them, sent
us away, even telling us they were the professionals and knew how to handle
things. They were wrong, damagingly wrong.
Now they are throwing a hundred
million shekels at an inter-ministerial think tank. The money should go to the
exemplary non-government groups that have taken the private initiatives and are
making an impact in various fields. This money should go to StandWithUs, Honest
Reporting, CAMERA, NGO-Monitor, Palestine Media Watch, Regavim, even Christian
Friends of Israel and UK Lawyers for Israel who are in the battlefield daily
against Israel’s detractors. The money should also go to the NGOs like Over The
Rainbow who are promoting Israel’s advocacy interests in a unique manner in
problematical countries, mainly in Europe.
It takes a network to defeat a
network. We need an independent advocacy platform to coordinate the work of
these NGOs who took up Israel’s cause because the Israeli government failed the
country so badly. But this won’t happen because the Israeli government will
make sure it won’t happen. They have a vested interest to retain control of a
people-to-people advocacy agenda that they aren’t even dealing with themselves.
Their attitude is better to stifle this initiative than to see it grow and be
successful.
This then is the double battle
that many of us have to wage. We will continue to take on our propaganda
enemies where ever we find them and recruit and help our overseas supporters
where ever they may be. But we must continue to move to create a non-government
body to help the privately-created NGOs who are fighting Israel’s battles even
as our government officials fail to support us on these battlefields.
Barry Shaw,
Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy,
Israel Institution for Strategic Studies.
Author of the new book ‘BDS for IDIOTS.’
http://www.amazon.com/BDS-IDIOTS-BOYCOTT-ISRAEL-honestly/dp/152372157X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1455039488&sr=1-1&keywords=bds+for+idiots
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