Israel's Unique Public Diplomacy Dilemma

 

Amb. Alan Baker

 

Despite an internationally recognized right to defend itself against terror attacks, Israel's public diplomacy fails to convince the international and Western media and political elements, which, for many and varied reasons, demonstrate an ingrained propensity to prejudge Israel negatively. The initial few days of international sympathy and understanding for Israel's right to defend its population inevitably and rapidly metamorphosed into a wave of condemnation and accusations. The change came with the deliberate propagation of a false and distorted equivalence between a terror organization blatantly violating humanitarian norms and a democratic state legitimately defending itself against terror. In so doing, the media chooses to ignore the Palestinian use of its civilian population as human shields and the blatant abuse of hospitals, schools, mosques, private homes, public buildings as rocket emplacements and weapons storage facilities, and the hundreds of kilometers of offensive, strategic tunnels under Gaza that endanger civilian life above. Israel's public diplomacy could better rely on credible international military expertise, on vocal support by local and foreign Arab experts, as well as the real-time provision of accurate information to diplomatic missions and Jewish communities. Public diplomacy should bring to the attention of the international community the extensive and illegal use and abuse of children by Hamas for military and propaganda purposes, as well as the illegal use of incendiary balloons and other anti-environment and anti-ecology weapons to destroy Israel's agriculture and to pollute its environment. Public diplomacy must seek to annul the artificial linkage that Hamas is attempting to generate, into which the international media is buying, between events in the Gaza Strip and the daily civil governance of Jerusalem. Pursuant to the PLO-Israel Oslo Accords, Hamas has no standing regarding Jerusalem and cannot artificially manipulate the international community into accepting any such false linkage. Click here to read the full article.