By Adam Dalgliesh
In previous columns, here, here, here and here, I have outlined what I think are the main reasons for Israel’s security and to some extent demographic crisis. In one of these columns, I also outlined what I hope a practical, long-term political action plan to remedy them.
The plan aims first of all to deal with what I see as the primary cause of these woes, which is the domination of Israel’s government by self-appointed, unelected, semi-secret and unaccountable committees, not appointed by or subject to the authority of elected officials. But there is also a second reason for Israel’s security and demographic woes, which is Israel’s terrible image abroad. I promised to show how my “multi-pronged” political action plan can be used to address this disaster as well. This column is my attempt to fulfill that promise.
To enable readers (and the author) to make sense of these additional suggestions, I am forced to recapitulate some of what I wrote about Israel’s crisis of governance in my earlier columns. Like Shakespeare’s Polonius, I will try to be brief!
Isreal’s ruling committees and the officials whom they appoint are overwhelmingly “leftist” in outlook, sympathetic to Israel’s enemies, and convinced that the way to achieve peace is a combination of humanitarian aid to these enemies and territorial concessions to them. As a result, they have failed to take the decisive military measures needed to defeat the hundred years’ war of attrition waged against Israel by its terrorist and terror-sponsoring enemies. This hundred-year-war has left nearly every Israeli family with killed or injured loved ones, and is slowly but surely destroying the Israeli people,s will to resist the aggressors, since they can see “no light at the end of the tunnel.”
My proposed remedy for this terrible state of Israel’s governance is to restore power to Israel’s elected officials. One the unelected, semi-secret committee system is abolished, these officials will become accountable to the Israeli people, and will hopefully take the measures that the Israeli Jewish public has for years demanded that they take to deal with the terrorists and their state sponsors
But Israel’s government’s failure to take decisive military measures to defeat the terrorist aggressors who have been waging a devasting, demoralizing war of attrition against Israelis for a hundred years is not solely the result of its own ideological bias in favor of appeasement. Even the most patriotic Israeli officials have a rational fear of a hostile reaction by foreign governments and private corporations, banks, etc., including “BDS” measures (boycott, divestment, sanctions) is likely to result if Israel were ever to take the necessary vigorous measures need to eliminate the terrorist threat. This danger, in turn, results from Israel’s terrible image abroad.
On the other hand, Israel’s government is largely responsible itself for this terrible state of affairs, because of its inexcusable failure to respond to the seventy years of hate propaganda that have destroyed Israel’s image, and persuaded the world’s people that it is a monstrous, racist aggressor with no legitimacy, without even a moral right to exist.
With the exception (at least for the present) of the United States, the public outside Israel has been brainwashed by a hostile international media, which in turn is “inspired” and financed by numerous United Nations-affiliated organization, the European Union, the League of Arab States, 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation to the tune of about $1 billion a year. Over the past 70 years, Israel has said almost nothing and spent almost nothing on counter-propaganda to counter this propaganda war. And most of what little it has spent on public relations has been worse than useless. For example, in funds anti-Israel plays and movies by anti-Israel Israeli “artists.” It even enters these anti-Israel films (for example, one denouncing Israel’s 1982-85 Lebanon War, which the government selected as an entry to the Cannes Film Festival) in international film festivals! Occasionally, these anti-Israel Israeli films even win prizes at these festivals—prompting our “sons of Chelm” public officials to crow in triumph!
Worse still, many of Israel’s most prominent, well-known intellectuals and journalists are active propagandists for Israel’s enemies. They write books and articles, published both abroad and within Israel, that defame their own country and represent it as the aggressor in the Israel-“Palestine” conflict. Some of their books have become best sellers abroad. Israel’s oldest newspaper, Haaretz, has become a mouthpiece for the terrorists and their foreign backers. Maariv, Yediot Ahronot and Yediot’s English language edition, ynetnews, are little better. Isreal’s government, far from denouncing these moral and intellectual traitors, has repeatedly awarded them coveted prizes, such as the Israel Prize.
To lay the groundwork for an eventual Israeli victory in the propaganda war, which is a prerequisite for victory in the military struggle, a well-funded and intelligently conducted counter-propaganda campaign must be undertaken. Demanding that Israel’s carry out this task must therefore become a central plank of the patriotic opposition. It must be brought up in every opposition speech, in every street demonstration, in all communications on the internet, in every pamphlet and flier sent through the mail, in every speech in the Knesset by an opposition MK. It must be repeated whenever a patriotic opposition politician speaks on any topic whatsoever, even a seemingly unrelated one—like ancient Rome’s famous senator Cato the Elder, who recited the phrase “Carthage must be destroyed” (Carthago Darlanda est) , whenever he spoke on any topic, however unrelated, in a speech to the senate.
Opposition politicians should refuse to support any government whatsoever, give it a vote of confidence, or vote to approve its budget, unless it agrees to appropriate a bare minimum of 4 billion shekels, and probabably much more, to an all-out counter-propaganda effort. It must insist on a government ministry devoted exclusively to counter-propaganda, with full authority and means to direct all public communications by other ministries that are relevant to this effort. It must have the means to fund organizations abroad that are willing and able to participate in this campaign, and to offer them guidance and direction. It must have the means to start a training academy to train pro-Israel advocates, both those employed by the ministry and those working for other ministries and private organization in Israel and abroad. Of course the most experienced and competent professionals in the field of public relations, both in Israel and abroad, must be hired to staff all departments of the ministry, including its training academy.
However, the incredibly long, difficult and complex process that will be required to enable the patriotic Israeli opposition to take control of the Israeli government and employ it to fund and implement these measures implement these measures raises an obvious and extremely pressing question: what can Israeli patriots and their true supporters in the Diaspora do to improve Israel’s reputation abroad in the here and now, and during the many years before it succeeds in taking power within Israel?
Obviously, they must seek private funding to carry out at least some of the functions, on a smaller scale of course, that the Israel’s government should do. Dr. Martin Sherman has asked me more than once, how can the funding be found to support such an effort without the Israel government’s support? Indeed a very good question. A partial answer may be to begin an energetic effort to improve Israel’s image, and to win over both Israeli public and the government’s support for it, by asking for the support of already existing Israeli patriotic organizations, such as Regavim, Im Tirzu, Zehut, Yachad, Otzma Yehudit, and numerous other groups , as well as pro-Israel advocacy organizations in the diaspora, such as Stand with Us, Amcha, the Louis Brandeis Center, the Zionist Organization of America, AFSI, Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, and others, to provide some initial seed money for this campaign. Once the campaign is under way, its initial activities can be publicized, along with urgent appeals to both Israeli and diaspora Jewish “givers,” including “big givers,” to provide additional funding for the campaign, together with warnings that unless additional funding can be provided, this vitally important campaign will have to be discontinued. This type of appeal has worked time and time with Jewish donors for decades, if not centuries. Why not use it to provide funding for a well-coordinated, intense and multidimensional campaign to improve Israel’s international image?
- The first step towards getting a competent pro-Israel counter-propaganda campaign under way should be to convene a meeting of representatives of existing patriotic groups –a conference or congress if you like– somewhat along the lines of the Kattewitz conference that launched the Hovevei Zion movement way back in 1884. The conferees will have to agree to set aside their differences, however important they are to them, on other issues in order to work together. At this conference, a standing executive committee-a central committee, if you will—should be established to direct the propaganda effort on a daily basis, until the nxt annual or semi-annual conference is held
- This, the first task, will be the hardest by far. If we can get past this obstacle, which has always been the main one whenever Jews have tried to work together for any objective whatsoever, the next fifty years of hard struggle will be relatively smooth sailing!
- The next step will be to move away from the fallacies that have marred the pro-Israel advocacy efforts of Israeli patriots and their diaspora supporters for years. We must recognize that some arguments and proposed actions that are dear to the hearts of many pro-Israel advocates are not viable as counter-propaganda instruments— in some cases ever, in others, at least not for now.
- There is no point in putting forward “alternative peace plans” at this time. The foreign powers are not interested in these plans. The only one they are willing to consider is the Saudi-Arab League-Quartet Plan which envisages Israel’s withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 armistice lines. This is of course utterly unacceptable to Israel. And Israel does not now have the power to implement unilaterally implement its own peace plan without facing a hostile reaction by foreign governments, and of course massive “resistance” by the Palestinians, which these governments will encourage. Israel must wait until its geopolitical situation and its public image has improved somewhat before putting forward its own peace plan.
- Israeli patriots should keep quiet for the time being about any scheme to resettle the Palestinian Arabs elsewhere. Seventy years of hate propaganda claiming that Israel was “conceived in sin,” the “original sin” of its supposed “expulsion,” dispossession,” “exile,” etc. of the Palestinian Arabs, and its supposed continued pursuit of this policy ever since then, including at present, is only reinforced by the resettlement discourse. The mass public hysteria about supposed “ethnic cleansing” by Serbia during the 1990s Balkan Wars, whipped up by the international press, the United Nations Security Council and nearly all the world’s governments—led, to my shame, by the United States government—has brainwashed the world’s peoples, including the American people, to regard any attempt to change the ethnic composition of a country to make it ethnically homogenous and benefit the dominant majority group as a “war crime” and “crime against humanity.”
I don’t believe it is true that the Serbian government, or even the government of the Bosnian Serb republic, ever pursued a deliberate policy of “ethnic cleansing.” Much the reverse, they attempted to discourage “non-Serbs” from leaving their territories, and only reluctantly allowed them to “escape” under pressure from the United Nations-run humanitarian relief organizations. Unfortunately, though, the thorough brainwashing of the world’s people into believing this pernicious myth means that the truth the truth does not matter as far as public attitudes are concerned.
Nor do I believe that the peaceful, orderly and well-financed resettlement of the Palestinian Arabs, or at least some of them, would be a bad thing. On the contrary, it would benefit most Palestinians, and certainly Israel, and would help to bring peace to both Arabs and Jews. However, I am a pragmatist when it comes to public relations strategies and nearly all other issues. It will be years, probably decades, before the ethnic cleansing hysteria dies down sufficiently for the international public and foreign governments to be willing to consider this humane and sensible proposal. In the meantime, it is completely useless for those interested in restoring Israel’s shattered reputation abroad to talk up this issue.
- Pro-Israel advocates need to steer clear of such proposals and opinions as the desirability of “discrimination;” the inherent evilness of Islam per se, as distinct from “radical Islamism;” any suggestion that Jews are a superior people with an inherent right to rule over peoples ( a view advocated by the late Meir Kahane); opposition to sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews (another Kahane idea) suggestions that “colored” or “brown-skinned” people are inferior to “white people,” ( another idea advanced by Kahane, but also by other pro-Israel chuckleheads), the desirability of a Jewish state extending “from the Nile to the Euphrates (a traditional trope of Arab anti-Israel propaganda that has been unwisely taken up by a few Jews); demands that the mosques on the Temple Mount be immediately removed and work begun immediately on rebuilding the temple on the site (another favorite Arab false accusation against the Jews that a small number of Israeli Jews later took up as a serious proposal); advocacy of Jewish terrorist attacks on Arabs or even Israeli government officials ( in reality, there have been very, very few Jews who have advocated such attacks or expressed support for them after the fact. But the “leftist” anti-Israel press both abroad and within Israel has had a field day publicizing this tiny handful of individuals, especially in the wake of the Rabin assassination); violent armed “resistance” to break up anti-Israel demonstrations. Hair-brained ideas such as these merely play into the hands of anti-Israel propagandists by allowing them to portray Israelis as racists and extreme-right-wing fanatics.
- More generally, Israel advocates need to “talk the talk” of liberal discourse, with dominates public conversations about international issues throughout the world. This discourse focuses on support for such concepts as “human rights,” “civil rights,” civil society,” “democracy,” and “the self-determination of peoples,” and humanitarian assistance. Pro-Israel advocates should have no trouble demonstrating that Israel, more than any country in the Mideast, and in relation to some of these issues, in the world. After all, Israel is a country in which the rule of law prevails; prisoners, even terrorist prisoners, are well treated; there is freedom of speech and the press, including the right to criticize the government and government officials; free and fair elections; an extremely vibrant and diverse society that includes a wide array of humanitarian organizations, human rights organizations and every conceivable kind of advocacy group. While Israel is not a perfect society, any more than any human society is, it is certainly a more humane and compassionate one than any country that has faced serious existential threats in time of war. It should also be pointed out that Israel has been forced to wage a war of self-defense since the day that it was officially born, and for twenty-eight years even before that during its “pre-state” period. No other country in history, except perhaps for France during its 14-15th century ‘hundred years war” resisting an English occupation, and china during its “Warring States” period (c.400-200 B.C.E.) But even these countries never faced enemies bent on genociding them, as Israel has, and still does. All this should be explained to the ignorant foreign public, and when necessary even the many ignorant diaspora Jews, in full detail.
- Soldiers in Vietnam coined the saying, “You talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?” We pro-Israel advocates need to learn the reverse lesson. We already know how to walk the walk. Now we need to learn to talk the talk as well.
- Some pro-Israel people suggest that Israel just go ahead with the necessary military actions to defeat and destroy its enemies, without worrying about the public reaction abroad. My emotions incline me in the same direction. But for all of the reasons tht I have given here and in earlier, that is an unrealistic approach.
- Shimon Peres and his acolytes, who remain very powerful in Israel, opposed pro-Israel advocacy altogether, on the grounds that the best way to improve Israel’s image abroad was for Israel to provide humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians, avoid military operations that cause civilian casualties, and apologize for them when they do inevitably occur during counter-terror operations, and assist the Palestinians to establish their own state “alongside” Israel ( “two states for two peoples.”). Then Peres claimed, peace would break out in the Middle East, and there would be a “New Middle East,” in which both peoples would prosper together and be the very best of friends. While this is hardly a pro-Israel advocacy theory, but rather a rationale for opposing pro-Israel advocacy, the enormous influence that this kind of fallacious thinking means that pro-Israel advocates must make every effort to expose and discredit it.
- Those Israeli and diaspora pro-Israel advocates who incline to the left of center have clung stubbornly to the notion that the best way to respond to the blood libels against Israel is to change the subject, instead discussing such topics as all Israel has done to help the people of the world through medical research, the Israeli crisis teams that are always sent to provide victims of eathquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc., wherever they occur, how much Israeli “start-ups” have contributed to technological advances throughout the world, and stimulated world trade and commerce, etc. While all of these achievements of Israel are very real, and in other contexts Israel advocates are right to bring them to public attention, they are no substitute for replying to and disproving the blood libels of Israel’s enemies. Talking about how much Israeli doctors do for humanity won’t help at all to change the perception, with which most of the world’s peoples have been indoctrinated, that, Israel cruelly oppresses the Palestinians, has stolen their land, and exists at their expense. And as long as people have this fundamental perception of Israel as an immoral, illegitimate entity, all the talk about Israel’s legitimate accomplishments will have absolutely no impact on their hostile view of Israel. In much the same way, talk of the wonderful cures developed by Jewish doctors will not improve anyone’s view of Jews who has been indoctrinated, as millions of Arabs, including little children, have been, that Jews eat the blood of non-Jewish children in their matzah.
- Some pro-Israel advocates say that they disdain to speak of the suffering of the Israeli dead and wounded in the hundred-year terror war. They claim that the Gentile public in Europe does not care about Jewish suffering and pain. They’ve already heard more about Jewish suffering than they want to hear from narratives about the Nazi Holocaust. They are convinced that Jews are cry-babies. So these advocates say they lecture European audiences about Israel’s great military power, and how badly the beleaguered Europen nations ,, under attack from Islamic terrorists, need Israel as an ally and instructor in the war on terror.
- This, too, is a stupid approach. The Palestinians have had enormous success with their “Pallywood” fake photos and videos of how much they have suffered at Israeli hands, and the specious narratives of Palestinians who claim that Israelis have tortured them, murdered their relatives, wantonly destroyed their homes for no reason, etc. Rightly or wrongly, this kind of appeal to people’s emotions, rather than their reason, works.
- But Israelis can also could also wring the heart-strings of Europeans, Americans and many other people with no personal stake in the Mideast conflict, not by Pallywood-style fakery, but by telling the truth about the murder of thousands of Jews, and the wounding of tens of thousands in the long terror war. The Israeli government and Israeli news agencies have refused to show graphic photographs of the bodies of dead and wounded Israelis. A big mistake. The Palestinians have scored a major propaganda success by showing these kinds of graphic photos on the internet. We can no longer afford to shrink from the truth about our own suffering and losses, however distasteful it is to our Jewish sensibilities.
- As for the Europeans’ supposedly tender sensibilities that makes it too painful for them to learn that the oppression of Jews, and a genocidal terror campaign against them, has continued for more than seventy years after the German-Nazi Holocaust ended, let us just stick their tender noses in the truth. They can, and will, face the facts if we do this.
- We should also document for foreign audiences, through interviews and other means, the horrible psychological trauma inflicted on Israelis, especially children, by the terror attacks, even when they ecape physical injury when a bomb or rocket explodes in or just outside their homes, cars, etc.
- The most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the anti-Israel propagandists has been their falsification of Israeli-Palestinian history. Through a mixture of outright lies, and a systematically expurgated and spliced together narrative constructed out of half-truths, out-of-context quotations, etc., the anti-Israel propagandists have managed to undermine Israel’s legitimacy as a state. Setting the historical record straight and informing the international public of the actual history of the conflict, in which the Arabs have been the aggressors and oppressors throughout, is by far the most important task of pro-Israel advocacy. But because this is such a vast and complex subject, it will have to await several later columns by this author and contributions by many others in order to work out a practical strategy for telling the historical truth to a mass audience around the world.
I have already gone on for far longer than is appropriate for a single column and must stop now. I have been under some justified pressure from some of my readers to move on to the subject of the ongoing abuses by the present Israeli power structure of hundreds of thousands of “ordinary “ Israeli Jews. These abuses must be addressed right away and corrected very soon, even before a new Israeli political system can be established, and a massive government subsidized international counter-propaganda campaign can be set in motion. Heading this list is the betrayal and oppression of Israel’s so-called “settlers—the 700,000 thousand or so Israeli Jews who live outside the June 4, 1967 armistice lines—the so-called “green-line.” Stay tuned.
Edgar, perhaps I should not have included criticism of Kahanist views in my column about ways to improve pro-Israel counter-propaganda. It was never my intention to try to supress Jews’, including pro-Kahane Jews’, right to free speech. I agree also that leftism, the Reform and Conservative movements, at least given the current trends in these movements, the Tikkun Olam crowd, etc . form a threat to Israel, Jewish solidarity, Jewish peoplehood, Jewish collective existence, etc., while Kahanism certainly does not threaten any of these things. Still, I think that from the Israeli public relations point of view, his views and similar ones by other Torah scholars are best discussed in forums directed exclusively to Torah scholars, who can understand them in their proper context, rather than to the general public, and preferably in Hebrew rather than English.
The only point I was trying to make was that Kahane-style opinions don’t make for effective pro-Israel counter-propaganda aimed at those who have been indoctrinated by the media to hold anti-Israel views. I am sort of a Chabadnik, at any rate I attend a Chabad shul on a regular basis. I know that the Chabad movement rarely allows Kahane-type opinions to appear in their publications directed to the general public. Some Chabad rabbis agree with Kahane’s political and religious opinions, some disagree with them. Most Chabadniks are pro-Israel, but I know one Chabad rabbi whose views are more or less the same as those of Natura Carta, or even Tikkun Olam. But the Chabad leadership is concerned about Chabad’s public image, and also about the unity of their movement, so they generally discourage discussion of these sensitive issues in their mass-circulation publications. They do discuss and debate them on websites intended for Chabad insiders, restricted to password holders. I think this is the most prudent course, even though it makes me look like a coward or a sea-shtil person when I say this.
@ adamdalgliesh:
Whether the Goyim approve or not, there are reasons for the opinions of the Rabbis of yesteryear. However, without knowing the intricacies of the religious Jewish mind, those reasons cannot be understood. The Orthodox Jews you mention, are not Orthodox in the same sense that these Rabonim are, and really don’t understand the massively deep exegesis needed.
I believe that you saw those references by Kahane, although I never did, but then, to preserve the Jewish Nation alive and flourishing opinions like those are in many cases needed, to inculcate against assimilation and eventual disappearance as a People and a Nation. The present curse, Tikkun Olam, does the exact opposite. And this deadly attack on Judaism, through Reform, many Conservative, and Liberal Globalist Jews has resulted in the draining away from Judaism, of roughly half of the Jewish People of today. Many Israel Jews are atheists or agnostics, and Lefties to the core; also, more than 50% of the American Jewish Community is on the verge of being lost to Judaism, with many already gone; Jews in name only plus many who hide it.
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I can confidently assume that Kahane was certainly feeling that his (our) back was to the wall, for survival. And he was still relatively close to the Holocaust period. The only one I can’t understand it that Goyim are to be slaves to Jews, and I’m certain that this was misinderstood, mistranslated or taken out of context. “Inferior” I can understand because he was pitting the hugely deep well of millennia of Jewish thought against the relatively recent Gentile Enlightenment.
If by “what will the Gentiles say” we mean that Jews should not do what we have to do protect ourselves, for fear of offending Gentiles, then I am 1,000 per cent against this yardstick. If, on the other hand, we say that we should fail to respond to propaganda attacks by Gentiles, or for that matter by Jews, on the Jewish people, Judaism and Israel, on the grounds that it is co mpletely harmless what the Gentiles think of us, I think that we are making a mistake. We must defend ourselves and counterattack bothon the military battlefield and on the propaganda battlefield, because both fronts are vital to our survival as a people. The idea that we should ignore propaganda attacks on us because “what the Gentiles say,” is unimportant, we are committing suicide, because we don’t have the necessary population or land area to defeat the entire world in a war. So we should immediately respond, even a massive response, to any attack on the honor and reputation of the Jews, without neglecting the military aspect of the struggle. In both the “physical” battlefield, and the propaganda-information-ideological battlefield, we need to adopt effective strategies and tactics. Just expressing our sincerely held views doesn’t always work as propaganda, just as making a frontal assault on the battlefield with bands playing, drums beating and flags waving, wearing bright red uniforms, doesn’t always work as a tactic on the military battlefield. In both kinds of battlefields, a bit of stealth, concealment and indirection, holding back some of one’s forces in reserve, etc., is necessary. I will keep trying to explain these concepts to my fe llow Jews, who have great difficulty understanding them. So many of us are under the delusion that if we just get it off our chest what we feel to be right, everything will be fine. Smarter, more streetwise people, like the Chinese, Vietnamese and even the Arabs, have always known that complete honesty and transparency are not the best policy in a war. We must learn from them if we are to defeat them.
Ironically your yardstick of judging any action by “what the the gentiles say?” is exactly the kind of approach that Rabbi Kahane railed against.
@ adamdalgliesh:
Shlomo, obviously I meant “poskim,” not “possum.” My goofy Mac Air “Lemon” often writes in words that iI never wrote, by “filling in” the first two or three letters that I type with what it thinks I should have written. Don’t know how such an insidious program was ever installed by my computer. The Apple company should be driven out of business–no idea how they ever acquired such a good reputation.
@ Shlomo2000: I will stand by my previous recollections of some of the things that Rabbi Kahane wrote. Please check his collected works more carefully. I will try to find his collected works either in a library or online, but that may be difficult for me to do for several practical reasons. I have limited funds, I have difficulty downloading long books on my poorly functioning computer, I got saddled with a Mac “Lemon” that I still haven’t figured out how to use, and that works badly, I have no room in my small apartment for more “hard copy,” it is already crowded with tp the limited with books, etc. etc. However, I believe that if you, or perhaps some other reader of Israpundit will go through his collected works carefully and with an open mind, you will find that he did indeed express the views that I attributed to him. I have a good memory for everything I read, even if I am forgetful of other matters.
See my latest post to Edgar as to why I objected to these kinds of positions by Rabbi Kahane and some other Jews. My concern is purely with their public relations impact. There are many positions that rabbinical authorities and possum have taken over the centuries that make a bad impression on Gentiles, non-Orthodox Jews, and even some Orthodox Jews who disagree with these positions. There is also some difference between supporting these positions in the context of a discussion of halakhah (where compliance is voluntary, at least until the Moshiach comes) and proposing them in parliament or in a newspaper as Israeli civil law. There was never any realistic posibility that a secular, enforceable law against sexual relations would ever be adopted by the Israeli Knesset. Even just raising this proposal reminded people of th enazi Nuremberg laws, which made sexual relations between Jews and Gentiles punishable as a criminal offense. But again, my primary concern was not whether these proposals of Rabbi Kahane were morally or spiritually justified. Rather I am concerned with what I think are there negative public relations impact, and because I think these kinds of impractical proposals divert some Jewish patriots away from more practical, useful proposals. I favor saying anything, other than outright lies, that will improve Israel’s image abroad, and refraining from saying anything, even it is true or morally justified, that will harm Israel’s image. You may object that this is a cynical view. Maybe, but it is also the only practical approach.
@ adamdalgliesh:
I am still waiting for the source of Rabbi Kahane deprecating “colored” or “brown-skinned ” people. After 25 years of going through the writings and speeches still have not come across it.
@ Edgar G.: Edgar, I agree with everything you say here. The purpose of my comments about certain Kahanist positions in my article was not to reject Kahane as a human being or as a Jew. In fact, I published an article in the Jerusalem Post in 1993 (you cn look it up in their back index–They published a series of four of my articles in 1993), I defended him against some of the unfair personal accusations made against him that besmirched his reputation after his tragic death.
As a Jew and as a human being, I think that Kahane had a mixed record, as nearly all of us do, myself included. I have no doubt that he was absolutely committed to a strong , secure Israel. He put his own life on the line for that purpose. He also was a genuine, legitimate Torah scholar, and his writings and commentaries on the Torah parshas were a legitimate contribution to Torah scholarship. And his criticisms of the overly “comfortable” Jewish leadership in the United States were spot on, and needed to be said. I respect his memory.
The purpose of my article on Israel’s public relations disaster was not to impugn Kahane as a human being or as a Jew. I only wanted to point out that some of his opinions that have been restated from time to time by his followers,have made a bad impression on both the Jewish and non-Jewish public, and have damaged Israel’s public image, at least to some small extent. The anti-Israel propaganda machine has seized on these dubious statements, as well as on the occasional violent acts of a small number of his followers (such as the Cave of Machpeleh incident in 1994), to score propaganda points against Israel. My only intention in bringing up Kahane’s more extreme views was to caution pro-Israel advocates to avoid making this kind of talk, because of my belief that it does Israel’s image more harm than good.
I have no concern whatsoever that Kahane’s more extreme, ultra-activist ideas will ever become Israeli government policy. On the contrary, the problem with Israel’s “Arab policy” is that it is appeasement oriented and collaborationist in character. My sole concern was with the damage to Israel’s image that comes with stupid remarks like deprecating “colored” or “brown-skinned ” people. I have heard a few people on the Israeli right make these kinds of remarks on the internet radio and print media many years after Rabbi Kahane passed away. I also believe that lavishing praise on Rabbi Kahane in public statements is ill-advised, because he has a bad reputation with most Jews, whether he deserves it or not.
Frankly, I support saying anything that would improve Israel’s image, other than outright lies. And I am opposed to saying anything that would damage Israel’s image and reputation, even when it is true. You may call me a cynical Machievellian for taking this position, but I don’t mind if you do. Machievelli had some very useful ideas about how governments need to conduct their propaganda.
Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to someone during the Civil War in which he said he would say or do absolutely anything, even things that were contrary to his principles, if he thought it would save the Union. And he would not say or do anything, even if it was in accord with his principles, if he thought it would damage prospects for a Union victory. Lincoln was right.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Nationalists Youth being tortured into confessions I, agree that is a problem and Administrative Detention can be abused.. Hopefully that this now has seen the light of day it will be remedied quickly.
@ adamdalgliesh:
Adam I have every single publication Rabbi Kahane ever wrote in my possession including the 7 volumes of his Jewish Press articles. The book you are referring to is called Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews. I have no clue regarding the quote you mentioned from that book. Jews being forbidden to have sexual relations with non-Jews is Jewish halacha codified from Rambam’s Mishneh Torah Halachot Issurei Biah which the Rabbi quoted in his Knesset speeches, which I also posses. That is not his chiddush. Additionally he was assassinated in November, not December. His criticisms for Israeli women having relationships with foreign men is again not his invention. A criticism about a non Jewish man specifically for being colored? You would have to bring that source. You cannot just write things with no sources.
Edgar G. Said:
Please elaborate.
@ Bear Klein:
I think the problem of Jewish nationalist kids being arrested without evidence, sometimes without charges, tortured into giving false confessions and not allowed to see their parents for years is a serious problem. Arab terrorists get better treatment.
@ adamdalgliesh:
I can understand his views which were what my absolutely genuinely benevolent and Tikkun Olom suppprting parents felt about Jews, being sliced off from the Body of the Jewish People. They spent their lives in Charitable Work almost as their recreation. My dear mother would go to the Poor Law Mendicity hospital and find destitute and sick girls maybe kicked out from their families, , bring them home, give them lodging, food, medicine, and money after they were well again and ready to go out with a new spirit.
What foolish things Kahane said are always remembered against him because he was a true Nationalist Jew, like the Jews of Old, but the most outrageous things that modern politicians say and do that actually ruined the lives of thousands, are forgotten and they are repeatedly re elected to their lucrative positions.
Kahane was honest in his beliefs and opinions. AND, Adam , although I am a fiscal conservative but socially moderate, I would feel the same about any of my own family, when the chips were down. I would have no power to control them but my feelings would be there…repressed sure, but there. And I am not a religious person, as we understand the them today. I’m just a very Jewish Jew.
And, as I have posted earlier, I heard him speak 3-4 times at least, and never heard a whisper of these opinions. They were probably like the comment that an aliyah rep I was to report to on arriving in Israel (as i did after getting aa cable from them that my apartment was available) for my apartment, said…..”weeell “available” doesn’t mean it’s built yet…” (her name was Sarah Ya’ari”.and I fact it was only on paper and I never got it. I leased a furnished apartment for 6 months at ans putrageous, “rich American” price in Tel Aviv, and then went to live in Netanya. I never got a cent from any Aliya organisation ever.
@ Edgar G.: Edgar, please see my reply to Shlomo concerning Kahane. Its true, that Kahane sometimes spoke very sensibly and made a good impression. Unfortunately, he didn’t always do that, however; sometimes he “let his hair down” in public and gave voice to stupid prejudices, which maybe he picked up growing up on Brooklyn”s “mean streets.”
@ Shlomo2000: I don’t have rabbi Kahane’s books and articles in my possession at present (was forced to donate or sell most of my private library when I had to sell my house some years ago, and move into a small apartment), but these are where I read these views of his as best I can remember: A book with a title somewhat like “Uncomfortable thoughts for Commfortable People” in which he states, near the beginning that God had chosen the Jews to rule over other peoples. His view that sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews should be banned in Israel (a sort of Israeli version of the Nurenberg laws), I read in an article in the Jewish Press of New York, shortly before Rabbi Kahane’s assassination in December 1990. I believe, in fact, that it was the last article that he published in the Jewish Press before his murder. He was a former editor of thePress. In the same artilce, he criticized an Israeli Jewish woman for having an affair with a “colored lover.” And he criticized another Israeli Jewish woman for having an affair with a Finnish member of the UN peacekeepsing force in Lebanon (obviously, thatguy wasn’t black).
In my opinion, these kinds of goofy , mishigas statements discredited Kahane in the minds of most of the public, including his fellow Jews. They also led many people to discount his more serious, reasonable views, since many people wouldn’t listen to what else he had to say once they learned he had made these kinds of stupid remarks. It also tainted the whole Israeli “national camp,” to some extent, because the New York Times, etc., could link them to Kahane and his followers (although most Israeli-Jewish nationalists in fact had nothing to do with Kahane).
@ Bear Klein:
I was not meaning that Israel was using Administrative Detention badly in tot. As far as Arabs go, it should be more used, and situations like allowing terrorist inciting imams released to house arrest only is counter-productive to the public good. I was referring to using it against helpless Jewish teens who have no solid foundational base to turn to for protection. The outrageous terroristic use of this power against innocent “Duma victoms”, is so obnoxious that even thinking about the behaviour of the Jewish authorities makes one want to hold his nose.
Sorry if I didn’t make myself clear.
@ Edgar G.:Many thanks, EdgarEdgar, many thanks for this extremely helpful review of my last column. I agree that the column was much too long. And my tendency to repeat what I say in previous columns and even in the same column is a flaw in my writing style that is long standing and needs to be overcome. One problem is that there is so much that needs to be said about the need to change the Israeli government policies, and to make the necessary changes in personnel and Israel’s system of government that would make the policy changes possible, that it will take scores of columns, certainly at least one or two books, to even scratch the surface. Even so, I wll make a real effort to shorten my future columns and condense them.
I would not put too much of the blame for this mess on Netanyahu, even though I agree he has obstructed efforts to change the system. However, I believe he has done so on orders from his true “masters,” the Supreme Court and the Attorney General, who is appointed by the court and is its agent. They have blackmailed him with their constant efforts to have him indicted on largely phony charges. He is desperate to appease them as a result.
A recent article by the leftist arch-conspirator andd arch-traitor Yossi Beilin, archetect of the appeasement policy and the Oslo accords, reveals how the conspiracy to coerce Netanyahu and every member of the cabinet works. The attorney general appoints “gatekeepers,” officially known as “legal advisors”,( but actually sort of commissars) to each of them, and installs them to their offices to prevent them from doing anything contrary to the appeasement policy of the “Supremes” and their agents, and to spy on them and collect as much dirt on them to blackmail them with as possible. As a result, Netanyahu and most other cabinet members have become puppets. The few who refuse to become puppets, meanly mainly Shaked, are unable to do very much to change the system, although Shaked is trying her very best to do so.
Hugo has a very trenchant analysis of this situation.
Thanks again, Adam
@ Sebastien Zorn:
You are on the mark in your perspective. Sort of an echo chamber!
@ Bear Klein:
That poses a challenge. Facebook is highly balkanized and people unfollow the posters whose news they don’t want to see. Everybody’s got their own club on Facebook and they talk to themselves. Kind of like Israpundit. Ha Ha. That’s why I’m back. Might as well have somebody to talk to.
Shows how people get their news and breaks it down by age brackets. PEW poll generated the data.
http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/pathways-to-news/
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Younger people get their news from Facebook in general.
I think the anti-Israel left took over the mainstream media through the Leninist tactic of “boring from within.” Radicals cleaned up their personas to look cleancut and conservative and entered and worked their way up the ladder of academia, the media and the political bureacracy in Israel and in the West. I think the national camp needs to do the same because, as long as enemies are writing and editing the news, it won’t matter much what we do or say.
I also think that China has gotten a lot of mileage with promoting cultural contributions so that people just don’t think about all the atrocities, which, in China’s case, are real. There are terrific sites like Israel21c on the web but when’s the last time you saw a billboard or a subway ad? CAMERA and Pamela Geller attack ads have been and will be challenged as “hate speech” absurdly enough, but how can you challenge ads simply touting achievements? That’s where big money is called for. Also, if pro-Israel advertisers start paying for television programs, then they can apply pressure.
Most people get their news from headlines, talk and reality shows. It’s really superficial.
As far as the need to reclaim the land and empty it of Arabs, well, it needs to be said at home, because a base needs to be developed. But, said in a nice way.
I also never read anything by Kahane making racist statements or saw or heard him say that in any recorded media. In fact, I remember one, maybe his debate with Dershowitz which I found on youtube, in which he says that it is only basing policy on the Torah that makes the law of return not racist or something like that. Sounds like fake news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ykrwmaKrLg
or maybe this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6IIQubS9ZQ&list=RDl6IIQubS9ZQ&t=12
@ Edgar G.:
By the way I believe Israel does a good job in balancing security with individual freedom. Given Israel’s security situation that it needs to arrest terrorists without giving up how the information on them was obtained Administrative Detention is necessary. Is this subject to abuse yes!
The USA has more individual freedom than is found in the Israel. What he have seen in the last few years is that some terrorists are allowed to walk the streets and then commit terror acts. The USA is lucky it does not have as many terrorists as Israel has otherwise the disasters would be worse.
So Israel weighs its scale more on the side of security than individual liberty. With no security one has no liberty. Israel has a system for fixing things when they get to out of balance.
Israel’s day to day legal system functions primarily on Israeli codified law plus English Common Law for the most part (just like the USA or Canada). It is a little less formal. The problem of legal system are bad in Judea/Samaria with military law, Turkish law and Jordanian Law. That needs to get cleaned up fast.
@ Edgar G.:
Israel democracy is far from ideal. First , it needs a constitution that defines the powers between the Knesset, Executive and Judicial. Will a constitution happen all at once probably not. Probably just continue adding Basic Laws or Modifying existing ones. That unelected bureaucrats have too much is certainly true in my view. The USA’s ~250 year old democracy has changed a lot over the years and still has room for improvement. Democracy itself is imperfect but the best form of government know to mankind, in my view.
I expect people to have different views, including views I do not like at all. They will express them.
I find that when one is able to write concisely they have a much better chance of communicating with their audience. Many times when they just go on an on plus repeat themselves in their writing they also really do not have much worthwhile to communicate.
Telling others not to communicate their ideas in a free society is not going to work!
@ Bear Klein:
That sounds like the only comments should be “yes;..”no” “maybe”. I don’t see it the way you do, .. But I do agree with your feeling that many will not listen. It is too detailed and deep for the lazy mind, and it would require a completely new political party with solid structure and base, massive “thinking outside the box”, along with a generation of dedicated planning…AND SUCCESS. But the points are nearly all valid.
Yes we need new, dedicated, energetic, focussed, completely Jewish leadership, and a proper and genuine Supreme Court.
The article, with it’s step by step agenda, DOES indicate a completely new system of government -implying new leadership -a dynamic new DEMOCRATIC one. I don’t believe that a ruling class, broken into semi-autonomous fragments, like is the Israeli “system” could match up to proper Democratic standards in a normal world. And where the PM can put a full stop at will, against properly debated and passed laws necessary for the public benefit. It’s a “system” which can’t be pinned down as being a “system”.
We have a semi-autonomous military clique which can arrest and sequester for months or years, in solitary confinement, youths and children, inflict torture to get fake confessions, like Duma,….. with no repercussions or blame.
I say Israel is NOT a genuine Democracy., it uses a cobbled together legal system , a hodge-podge- of antiquated Ottoman traditions and Turkish firmans, mixed up with specially adapted sections used by Britain in some of it’s Colonies with completely different applications. Also some Jordan Occupation Law…
{{During the Mandate, even in Anti-Semitic Ireland where I grew up, the activities of these thugs the Palestine Police, (some recruited from English and Irish jails, ex “Black and Tan” gangsters, Jew-Haters all), were a byword. I actually met several of them in Ireland I know from them, that in the Force were many Arabs, with a few Jews, and they had a “great time” there, often going on unprovoked “killing sprees”. Churchill was responsible for sending them}}..
But how to get the New Israel up and running, in practice, THAT’S the Question -which the article tries to answer…. I believ that the author said there is more to come, so maybe the solution how to acheve this is aon thr way.
@ Edgar G.:
I have never heard him say that or anything like it either. And I have never encountered it in any of his writings
Sorry Adam sounds like a lots of words about a plan to have a conference to come up with an actual plan.
Only thing clear you want anyone pro Israel to stay quiet about that actually want to accomplish. Ignoring the need to first sell new a paradigm in Israel and among its friends. Sorry no one is going to listen to you.
Israel is in need of bold new leadership that will take actual actions on its behalf and yes Israel should explain itself those outside who may be sympathetic. Israel is a democracy and it will continue to have people who disagree among themselves of what the best course of action for a better future is.
@ Shlomo2000:
I heard Kahane speak at least 3-4 times many years ago, and never once did I ever hear him dwell on this subject of Jewish race being superior, and white better than brown or black. I DO remember him saying that the possession and study of the Torah with a Jewish mind gives a superior understanding to Jews more than Gentiles. Paraphrasing of course. This was the only item which approaches anything like what’s mentioned above.
“any suggestion that Jews are a superior people with an inherent right to rule over peoples ( a view advocated by the late Meir Kahane);” ” suggestions that “colored” or “brown-skinned” people are inferior to “white people,” ( another idea advanced by Kahane, but also by other pro-Israel chuckleheads),” Can the author please provide the sources from where he gets these ideas that Rabbi Kahane said Jews are a superior people with an inherent right to rule over peoples and that colored or brown skinned people are inferior to white people? I would like to see where he is taking that from please. Thank you.
I’m slowly working through this compelling compendium of facts. The more I read, the more I see that it’s like a reverse Shulchan Oruch, w/a Concordance of Utter ******* (words that I’m too well brought up to utter) I’m about 1/4 of the way so far..
It’s a set of well documented errors of Governmental commission and omission, accompanied by the instructions as to how to rectify them. Although this is only a part of a whole, it should have been further divided into at least 3-4 sections, published separately.
The facts of Israel’s self-degradation and complaisance crowded together is such a sad set of the worst kind of foolishness that ever a nation committed. Self-destruction really, and only Israel’s well-honed expertise in survival has allowed it to actually thrive.
Very true-almost every Israel family has had a terrorist death or injury, and I have wondered at their unending courage,and perseverance, which I also feel is being slrained to it’s limit.. The amount of committees, boards, appointments, etc. that Israel institutes by a knee-jerk reaction every time something goes wrong, -and it always does-, requires an executively competent population of about 25 million. The overloaded, incompetents just put the new task on top of the last one, so nothing ever really gets more than barely started and then forgotten., a kind of Pelion upon Ossa,…….
Shaked is trying hard to rein in and straighten out the Gordian Knots that Israel is tied into, at least in matters where she has “limited” authority. But even there she’s at the whim of Netanyahu who interferes wirh everything at will, as he did the other day. His Byzantine mind seemingly plays a chess game with needed govt. actions. He talks well, he survived the Obama years well, but where do his REAL interests and masters lie…? I recall that when Shaked was appointed, certain powers that a Justice Minister normally had, were reserved from her. I don’t know if they ever were restored.
Israel’s image IS terrible, and this is the fault a a series of successive governments who tippy-toe around problems or ignore them completely when, strong and decisive action with permanent results are vital. The complacency of the Israeli govt, is astounding, Procrastination, and no-action seems the greatest talent Israel governments have. Even worse than corruption….hard to believe…!!
They seem deathly afraid of an EU frown, which they should ignore, in my opinion, _-for what it’s worth- Israel overreacts to negative foreign accusations by hiding it’s head, instead of boldly facing it and saying, -in political terms of course- “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS”. Israel is far too deeply ensconced/embedded in the International Community, which needs Israel far more than they are willing to admit. And Israel’s contacts and connections are growing and strengthening world wide.
Jew-Hate will always be there, but it always was, and somehow we survived, when much weaker than we are now.
But having allowed things to go so far, Israel DOES need to deploy an army of public-speakers, emissaries, etc. armed with videos and easily understood series of facts to counter the lies and malice which have run rampant for years on the public media. The Arabs have made good use of the Goebbels System, and there’s no reason why Israel cannot use the same, repeating truth upon truth upon truth, and backing them up with self-evident videos. The author of this article is absolutely correct in his assessment.
The greatest opportunity Israel ever had to permanently solidify International Opinion behind it, was after the 1967 War, when “the fair-haired boy” could do no wrong. Israel threw it all away and settled into an “invincible” superiority, which took Sadat to send the message that “all was not well”.
Those like Michael Freund, instead of wasting time and massive cash in “discovering” lost Jews, who have Jewish Dreams”..but no genes, could turn their boundless energies and seemingly bottomless money pits, in the direction of powerful Hasbara as described by this author. But the Govt. needs a special department solely devoted to this vital task.
It is a battlefield, just as much as that faced by the IDF..
Dear Ted, please accept my apologiies for my frantic wee-hour (in New York) posts of last night. I didn’t realize that the links on my column work, because I’m color-blind! When I finally tested them, I realized that they work fine. Thanks for suffering a fool gladly. AD.