Noah Pollak of the Middle East Quarterly:
Given past performances, I’d say that Israel and its supporters are doing a better-than-average job of quickly beating back the international lynch mob that loves nothing more than propagating lies about Israel. (…)
This kind of after-the-fact truth-telling is good as far as it goes, but it actually doesn’t go very far: it is restricted to responding to lies, exaggerations, and accusations. Israel is on the receiving end of a viciously negative political campaign, and as any campaign strategist knows, you don’t respond to a negative campaign by expending all your energy trying to explain why the lies aren’t true — you go negative and play offense in return. (…)
Fund a Turkish-language documentary on the Armenian genocide, upload it to YouTube (…)
The model of hasbara, or public diplomacy, that Israel has employed for decades is premised on the persuasiveness of reason, evidence, context, truth, fairness, and apology. Anyone who has been following events in Israel over the past few years understands how profoundly this strategy has failed. For obvious historic reasons, many Jews have internalized the dangerous belief that the best way to respond to condemnation and lies is to show how unthreatening and willing to criticize and investigate themselves they are. The problem is that not only doesn’t this work; it actually invites further attack by rewarding those who defame and incite against the Jewish state.
This kind of after-the-fact truth-telling is good as far as it goes, but it actually doesn’t go very far: it is restricted to responding to lies, exaggerations, and accusations. Israel is on the receiving end of a viciously negative political campaign, and as any campaign strategist knows, you don’t respond to a negative campaign by expending all your energy trying to explain why the lies aren’t true — you go negative and play offense in return. (…)
Fund a Turkish-language documentary on the Armenian genocide, upload it to YouTube (…)
The model of hasbara, or public diplomacy, that Israel has employed for decades is premised on the persuasiveness of reason, evidence, context, truth, fairness, and apology. Anyone who has been following events in Israel over the past few years understands how profoundly this strategy has failed. For obvious historic reasons, many Jews have internalized the dangerous belief that the best way to respond to condemnation and lies is to show how unthreatening and willing to criticize and investigate themselves they are. The problem is that not only doesn’t this work; it actually invites further attack by rewarding those who defame and incite against the Jewish state.
