Much like most Zionist
initiatives meant to establish and preserve Israel's prestige and
status, it appears that the latest initiative to establish "covert
units" within Israel's seven universities to engage in online public
diplomacy (hasbara) is making Israeli newspaper Haaretz very angry. The
paper recently ran a piercing editorial criticizing
the initiative, even going as far as giving it a derogatory name
(presumably meant to serve the opposite purpose than the program's
stated objective): a "dirty trick."
The need for a covert
hasbara unit arose as a response to the current, constantly intensifying
phenomenon: Traditional anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews that peaked
during the Holocaust, has now been replaced by anti-Israel sentiments.
These Israel-haters aim to erase Israel from the map and establish a
state that is not Jewish in its place. The delegitimization process
against Israel occurs on several levels, and revolves mainly around lies
and baseless accusations.
It doesn't matter if
Israel is the most moral country in the world, and it doesn't matter if
it handles the most immoral threats against it in the most moral
fashion, Israel's name will be sullied as a means of achieving that end.
In the past, the battlefield that determined international events was
in the killing fields of war, but now it is underway in full force on
the Internet. From blogs run by extremist opinion makers to overt hate
sites, the Web is teeming. The momentous need to confront this enormous
virtual challenge has been pounding on Israel's door for a long time,
and the war is well underway.
Therefore, the Prime
Minister's Office initiative is welcome and even desirable. Haaretz's
editorial, as always, links things that have nothing to do with one
another, and entirely misses the point along the way. It says, for
example: "At a time when clouds of disbelief frequently hover over Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it [the Prime Minister's Office] has no
choice but to recruit new spokesmen, people whose credibility is
presently intact."
But this begs the
question: What is the connection between the prime minister and
intensive online hasbara? After all, even when Ehud Olmert, Yitzhak
Rabin and Shimon Peres were prime ministers, and presented an extremely
conciliatory attitude toward the Palestinians, Israel's name was still
consistently tarnished.
The editorial goes on
to say: "This is a cynical plan that reflects not only the depth of
international suspicion of Israel’s government, but also the fact that
Netanyahu and his staff favor public diplomacy tricks above all else."
Is that so? History proves that it doesn't matter how far Israel goes in
its quest for peace, it will always be seen as the "Little Satan" (to
the U.S.'s "Great Satan"). It is time to fight exactly in accordance
with the ethos by which a democracy must defend itself.
Haaretz is apparently
bothered that students will be disseminating information about Israel,
but that is precisely where the paper misses the mark. Israeli academia
is filled with students who speak a plethora of languages, and most of
them, if not all of them, speak another language, the language of social
media. It is only they -- the ones who are directly hooked up to the
massive information channels of the Internet -- who can oversee the
battle in this day and age.
In light of all this,
Haaretz should be praising this initiative rather than criticizing it.
It will allow Israel to paint an accurate picture of itself online: a
miracle founded by a group of immigrants who created a democratic,
flourishing, free state, despite all its overpowering security
challenges.
Eli Hazan is a lecturer at the Israeli Center for Political Training.
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