These days it seems that terrorists of all stripes are getting more and more media savvy. Michael J. Totten writes in his Middle East Journal about meeting a member of Hezbollah, and quotes a friend who writes, in part:
We know that Hezbollah is undermining Lebanon. We know Hezbollah carries out atrocious operations to kidnap and kill Israel soldiers defending an international recognized border, which even the Lebanese and Syrian governments recognize. We know that Israel has a right to exist. But that's not the issue here.
The issue is Michael's visit to Hezbollah press officers. Ask yourselves this, Why would an organization intent on killing random foreign journalists have an English language press office? To lure them in? Or to try to indocrinate them and have them write pro-Hezbollah articles in the Western press?
Hezbollah was very successful with Helena Cobban (see her article DA). Why shouldn't they try to recruit more Western cheerleaders?
If these terrorists are learning the benefits of smiling for the camera instead of kidnapping people and chopping off heads while earning recognition as the voice of Lebanon, this raises the question of how are we doing with our own cheerleaders.
In England, according to The Jerusalem Report, the answer seems to be that we are not doing too well. Their article describes the efforts of StandUp4Israel--described as a young group of media professionals--to overhaul the current pro-Israel PR efforts in England:
StandUp4Israel's thesis is that British Jewry has utterly failed to address the anti-Zionism bordering on anti-Semitism they say has become institutionalized in both British media and society throughout five years of the intifada... And all this time anti-Semitism has been soaring, with 532 incidents recorded last year, a 42-percent increase from 2003.
So StandUp4Israel has been engaged in the PR battle. But their battle has turned out to be against other Jews, led by Marc Cave, an advertising executive:
The 40-year-old Cave, whose Drugstore agency represents clients like Napster and Coca-Cola, wants to see hard-hitting ads in national newspapers, pro-Israel billboard posters and a 60-second cinema clip, all designed free of charge by the award-winning ad men he has recruited. But communal leaders remain convinced that such an in-your face approach - previously tried in the United States on cable TV, with debatable success, by Jewish advocacy groups - is entirely inappropriate in the United Kingdom.
...The real reason for such community negativity, he charges, is a generational one - a conflict between young, proud, angry Jews and an older leadership that has so successfully integrated into the British establishment they are terrified to take a stand that might upset anyone.
..."Politics has changed," he says. "We live in a focus-group culture where the people in power make decisions based on what the bloke in the street thinks."
This kind of in-your-face approach is appealing there in the UK. What about in the US? I would be curious if there is a similar tension when it comes to hasbarah in the US. And when the article says that the an in-your-face approach in the US had "debatable success," it would be helpful to know by whose measurement and how they figured that out.
While we are used to the idea that, regardless of who is president, we can count on the Congress to back Israel, the fact is that the PR battle is being fought in the trenches, namely in the universities--where future senators, congressmen, and other leaders in the US are going to come from. Also, there is the battle for the hearts and minds of people in general, who are flooded by the words, images, and their interpretation, as presented by the media.
Plus, now with the appearance of the blogosphere, there is a whole new area of opinion in which to do battle.
Are we really aware of all of our options and pulling out all the stops?
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