How To Win The Information War

David Isaac and Shmuel Katz z”l
OP-ED

Monday’s botched operation against the six-ship “aid” flotilla sent under Turkish auspices has become a public relations nightmare for Israel with the usual suspects coming together to condemn her for what one Associated Press headline terms a “bloody Israeli raid.” The soldiers weren’t prepared for the violent greeting they received as they boarded one of the ships. Armed with paintball guns, they rappelled from the helicopter above to be greeted by “peace activists” on the deck, who beat them with metal bars, threw their commander to the deck below and fired on them. The Israeli commandos, slow on the uptake that these “peace activists” were nothing of the kind, yelled at one another not to shoot their sidearms – the only real weapons they had.

The Israeli commander, who was thrown down to the lower deck said from his hospital bed, “We thought we’d encounter passive resistance, perhaps verbal resistance – we didn’t expect this. Everyone wanted to kill us. We encountered terrorists who wanted to kill us and we did everything we could to prevent unnecessary injury.”

Israeli commandos sitting dazed on a deck spitting blood, not knowing what hit them, is a terrible image, but one that captures all too acutely the cluelessness of Israel’s leadership, and what Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick calls “a cognitive failure of our leaders to understand the nature of the war being waged against us.”

That war, as Shmuel Katz repeatedly pointed out, is an “incessant propaganda campaign being waged throughout the world against Israel… This propaganda is a powerful auxiliary to the aim of the physical elimination of Israel. It provides the infrastructure of justification in the mind of a brain-washed public for the launching of a future war to achieve that unchanging annihilatory purpose.”

The flotilla episode is further evidence, if such was needed, that Israel’s enemies have had the informational field of battle to themselves. Former Azure editor, David Hazony notes that the office of PA spokesman Saab Erekat had sent out a press release prepared well in advance, that activists on the boat were live streaming the event and even Tweeting on Twitter. The Israeli government was, Hazony observes, “wildly outmaneuvered by the Palestinian media commandos.”

How can we win the information war? Shmuel would urge nothing less than the creation of a Ministry of Information, one formidable enough – second only to the Department of Defense in size – to provide Israel the wherewithal to “cope with the gigantic challenge posed by the Arab and pro-Arab anti-Israel and anti-Semitic worldwide propaganda onslaught.”

Menachem Begin promised Shmuel that he would lead such a ministry. Though Begin reneged on that promise, Shmuel never stopped beating the drums for its necessity. “I had prepared a detailed plan for the structures and operation of such a ministry,” Shmuel wrote. “One of them predicated a high measure of cooperation, at predicated levels, with the Jewish organizations in the U.S. and elsewhere. Another element of the plan was its low cost despite its projected wide field of activity.”

Bloggers and columnists, like Caroline Glick, David Hazony and others, have focused on Israel’s informational failures in this latest debacle. Yuli Edelstein, Minister of Information and Diaspora Affairs – a ministry without a meaningful budget and hardly the kind Shmuel envisioned – has called for an improvement of “hasbara” communications between Israel and Jewish communities in the Diaspora.

That the problem is being discussed is promising. Unfortunately, such calls for action have been going on for a long time. Yet, there has been no change in the situation. What Shmuel wrote in his article, “Countering Propaganda” (Sept. 26, 1984) proves that this is a decades-long failure.

SOON THEREAFTER came the war in Lebanon – accompanied by the horrendous campaign of lies and incitement waged against Israel by large sections of the Western media – most effectively on television. That campaign engendered a voluminous literature of refutation and protest against the media in the U.S.

The articles and pamphlets – and a video film demonstrating visually the distortion and mendacities in the coverage of the war by one of the television networks – undoubtedly did much to reassure those friends of Israel who had been shaken and confused during the war.

Most of this counteraction, however, was the fruit of independent initiative by concerned Americans, writers like Norman Podhoretz, Martin Peretz or Joshua Muravchik or (as in the case of the film) of a pro-Israel organization – Americans for a Safe Israel; and almost all of it naturally came only after the war was over.

Never were the inadequacies of Israel’s organs of response more rudely exposed then during the war in Lebanon. Never were the friends of Israel, confronted daily by the vicious fabrications of journalists “on the spot,” rendered so helpless by the absence of ammunition for instant rebuttal.

Last year, at the annual “Dialogue” in Jerusalem, organized by the American Jewish Congress, a heartrending vision of that helplessness emerged from the description given by A.J.C. president, Howard Squadron, who was willy-nilly compelled to point to the glaring shortcomings of Israel’s information services. His colleague, Carl Spielvogel (a leading public relations expert in the U.S.) propounded the inescapable conclusion:

“I would urge the creation of a cabinet post dedicated exclusively to the communication and interpretation of Israeli policy. The appropriate minister would have to be supported by a staff of Israeli professionals, trained in the contemporary skills of communication. It is no longer enough to be right. You must explain why you are right.

“Almost everyone accepts the need for war colleges. Would it not make sense to have a similar college in Israel dedicated to training public affairs specialists who would develop what-if strategies and scenarios for a wide range of contingencies?”

Mr. Spielvogel thus touched on the crux of the problem – the evident failure of successive Israeli governments to grasp the simple theme: that Israel is confronted in the West not just by hostile criticism but by a many-faceted propaganda-war machine with long-range objectives, operating at every level of society.

Shmuel’s words, with little change, could have been written today. The failure is one of leadership and with each passing year it becomes harder to undo the damage wrought by the Arabs’ successful propaganda war. But Shmuel, who was an optimist, would say that even at this late date the tide can be turned. We have allies, Jewish organizations, an army of volunteers who would rush to Israel’s defense if they had the guidance, and most importantly, we have the truth.

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A Road Map By Any Other Name
May 26th, 2010

By David Isaac and Shmuel Katz z”l

As discussed in our last blog entry, Israel must escape the clutches of the Quartet, which will attempt to squeeze Israel in an International Mideast Conference proposed for the fall. The Obama administration has put forth this conference as a means to push through a Mideast deal should direct talks between the Arabs and Israelis fail. The not-so-hidden message: Make a deal, or we’ll make one for you.

The nature of that deal is clear. Israel will be bullied into accepting the “two-state solution” – meaning a retreat to the ‘49 Armistice lines (with some slight modifications), the expulsion of all Jews from Judea and Samaria and the division of Israel’s ancient capital.

Essentially the deal will be the final outcome described by the “road map,” the plan concocted by the Quartet – the U.S., UN, European Union and Russia – which calls for “a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Only it’s a road map with a difference – this time the Quartet will skip the first two “phases” which demanded something of the Arabs and jump to the third, and final, phase, which gives the Arabs a state.

Obama and the Quartet, in a remake of Bush and the Quartet at Annapolis only with a different president in the starring role, are jettisoning the conditions the Palestinian Arabs were required to meet under the original plan, with only Israel required to fulfill the demands placed upon it.

The original road map was presented to the two sides on May 1, 2003 with a “final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005.” No less.

Given its stupendous failure, the road map should be a dead letter. But like the Oslo process, which in spite of its nightmarish results continues on under other names – “Hebron Protocol,” “Wye River Memorandum,” “Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David,” “disengagement” – the road map trundles on as well, if under a different name.

A dead letter in name, but not yet in deed – the road map is worth a brief look. It was divided into three phases.

Phase I

In the plan’s words, “the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence.”

Has this condition been met?

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site details the 1,000s of Israelis who have been killed and wounded by Arab terrorist attack since 2003. Those who would make excuses for the Arabs claim that they can’t be expected to succeed at stopping all terror attacks. It’s a false argument. Not only does the so-called moderate Palestinian Authority (never mind Hamas), continue to incite its population and brainwash its children, but its own Fatah forces proudly takes credit for terror attacks. To add insult to injury, they credit American training with their success.

According to the New York Sun (August 21, 2007):

“I do not think that the operations of the Palestinian resistance would have been so successful and would have killed more than one thousand Israelis since 2000 and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without these [American] trainings,” a senior officer of President Abbas’s Force 17 Presidential Guard unit, Abu Yousuf, said.”

Phase I also stated that: “Palestinians undertake comprehensive political reform in preparation for statehood, including drafting a Palestinian constitution, and free, fair and open elections upon the basis of those measures.” They did have free, fair and open elections in Gaza. The result? Hamas.

Phase II

The second phase focuses on “creating an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty.” The plan, however, goes on to note that, “this goal can be achieved when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror, willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty.” Phase II is therefore moot. The Palestinian leadership has not fulfilled their end of the bargain as described above and specified in Phase I. In any other contract, this would put an end to it.

Phase III

This calls for a “second international conference” which will “endorse agreement reached on an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and formally to launch a process with the active, sustained, and operational support of the Quartet, leading to a final, permanent status resolution in 2005, including on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements…”

Thus, by floating the idea of an International Mideast Conference, the Obama administration shows a complete disregard for Palestinian Arab failures and goes directly to the final phase; implementing the road map while conveniently ignoring the requirements the plan itself set forth as necessary for continuing it.

What would Shmuel say to all this?

The Arab side’s failure to live up to its end of the bargain gives Israel abundant reason to exit a negotiating framework that it should not have entered in the first place, as the road map ignores Jewish rights – i.e., calling for a ’settlement freeze’ in Phase I – accepts the Palestinian Arab narrative and is based on the false premise that the Arabs want peace. The road map’s phased plan only helps accomplish the PLO’s “phased plan” for Israel’s destruction.

We quote his article, “Flawed to the Core” (May 5, 2003) in full:

It is wrong, it is demeaning, it is pure folly for the Israeli government to discuss the so-called road map with its perpetrators. Its fancy name does not lend charm to the obnoxious fact that it is a diktat – such as is handed by a triumphant victor to his enemy defeated in war.

Israel has not been defeated in war and yet the road map contains the terms for its surrender. Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security chief, described it as ‘not subject to negotiation.’

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the most active public promoter of this essentially anti-Israel document, said loftily that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ‘evidently does not understand that there is no room for discussion.’

Already, while the war in Iraq was in progress, Blair was proclaiming passionately that implementing the road map was just as important as winning the war in Iraq. No less.

For Mr. Blair this may well be true. His support for the US going to war, and Britain’s participation on the battlefield were opposed from the outset by an evidently large majority of his fellow countrymen. He consequently may have been risking a vote of no confidence in parliament.

A move on his part, therefore, which would hamper, hurt or cripple Israel would counteract that charge, and, in the climate of anti-Semitism prevailing in Britain today, surely win much commendation.

Moreover, nobody can deny the permanence of at least a soupcon of vengefulness toward Israel in the British establishment – ever since our tiny state was born, in defiance of the repressive Attlee-Bevin government in 1948.

No wonder the Palestinian Authority, undoubtedly briefed by the Saudis – who contributed to the contents of the ‘map’ – jumped for joy at its coming, and at the prospect of a silenced Israel being ordered to submit unconditionally to a program which contains what are essentially the Arab demands.

The euphoria was enhanced by the Palestinians’ realization that all their crimes, the murder of hundreds of Jews, and the thousands maimed for life, was to be repaid by landing them a great historic victory over Israel.

The PA, in celebrating, at once issued a threat of violence to Israel if it did not accept the complete road map. Rice’s remarks in particular (speaking on behalf of the Quartet) bore an eerie sense of deja vu: It emerges that Israel has been given precisely the same treatment as Czechoslovakia at Munich on September 29, 1938.

While the deliberations were going on among the four statesmen who made the Munich Pact, which was to decide Czechoslovakia’s future, the Czech diplomats, headed by Hubert Masarik, waited in an anteroom.

Finally, they were called in and told that the four statesmen had decided on Czechoslovakia’s future. They were also told (as later reported by Masarik) that no response or declaration was required from them; and, in fact, that the four statesmen ‘regarded the agreement as accepted.’

As for the contents of the road map, far from heralding a new vision it will be found that its core is exactly the same as that of its predecessors – among them the Rogers Plan, the Kissinger strategies, the Carter campaign, the Reagan notes, James Baker’s Madrid agenda, the Clinton timetable, and the Mitchell Plan.

Indeed, from a waggish source has come the Yiddish comment on the road map: the same yenta, only with a different veil.

ALL THESE plans are flawed to the core. They are founded in a gigantic hoax, perhaps the hoax of the 20th century.

The Arabs do not want or intend to make peace with Israel. They could have had peace and a state – instantly – in 1947. That is what the UN offered them. They refused it.

At any time between 1947 and 1967, when the areas in question – Judea, Samaria and Gaza – were actually in Arab hands, cooperation among the Arab states could have brought about a state, and peace, had they wanted it.

In 1967, after Israel’s stunning victory, Israel made the no less stunning offer to hand back the captured territories in return for peace. This too was refused.

After the Arabs had waged two major wars against Israel and blazoned to the world the message that their war aim was the ‘annihilation’ of the Jewish state – what possible reason was left for the nations of the world to assume that, of all things, the Arabs were longing for peace with living Israel?

Since then, and never more fiercely than today, what is the Arab-Muslim message, coming out of every Arab radio station, every Arab television channel, booming out of every Muslim mosque, and, most significantly, every Arab school textbook?

The claim of the Arabs that the whole Land, ‘from the river to the sea’ belongs to them, and that Israel took it from them and introduced its settlers has led to the demonization of the settlers.

The Jews who have settled in Judea, Samaria and in the Gaza district are utterly and immaculately legal. They are legal in the strictest interpretation of international law, and they are legitimate by the strictest test of historical right – not to mention their civic residential rights.

Any attempt from outside to move them would be a threefold crime, first of all against the Jewish people. The end of the road map chapter should thus be: President George W. Bush breaks off the unholy liaison with his ugly bedfellows, persuades Blair to cool down the passion of British anti- Semitism, and orders Colin Powell to think afresh.

The road map itself can be left by the roadside.