BIKINI LAND OR HOLY LAND: From an article by Yishai Fleisher:

...I heard a story, attributed to the Lubavicher Rebbe, that illustrates this point:

After the Six-Day War, France, unhappy with Israel's grand victory over the Arabs, stopped their sales of the Mirage fighter jets to Israel. Israel, in need of fighter jets, turned to the United States with a request to buy American jets.

The US sent a delegation to Israel. The Israelis wanted to impress the American group and promptly took them to what the Israeli's thought the American's would be most interested in. They took them to Tel Aviv, the playhouses, the bars, to all the modernity that Israel could muster up at the time.

However, the delegation was nonplussed. They returned to America, gave a lukewarm report to Congress, and the sale did not go through. A few months went by and again the Israelis requested the sale of fighter jets. Again a delegation was formed and was flown to Israel. This time, however, the Israelis took the delegation to the Western Wall, and to the great yeshivas of Mea Shearim where the Americans saw the old study benches that were brought over from Europe.

When the Americans returned home and testified in front of Congress, they said: "We saw the Holy Land." The sale, of course, went through.

The point is so obvious, yet Israel's image makers cannot seem to grasp it.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Yom Haatzmaut and Lubavitcher Rebbe.