Dear Editor,
I write this as a rebuttal to last week’s article by Irwin J. Mansdorf, that Israeli public relations will not solve the world’s moral bankruptcy.
Despite Mansdorf’s credentials, he is just so wrong on so many levels. Israel clearly has a deficit in the department of public relations, and world Jewry is correct in its calling for some action in this department.
While he focuses mainly on the most recent case at the International Court of Justice, he doesn’t realize or recognize that Israel’s lack of public relations predates his article by more than 60 years.
I can recall standing at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park London shortly after the Six Day War. While world Jewry was still basking in the glory of its amazing victory, the Arab public relations machine was in full throttle on the speakers diases propagating hatred and lies about the ‘poisonous state of Israel.’
Its hard to understand why Israel is so deficient in this area, when clearly we lost the PR war many years ago. I would hate to think that it is arrogance on behalf of the Israeli government, or that they live in the Walter Mitty world of believing that truth and justice will prevail on its own. But this deficit can not only be blamed on the current Israeli administration, it transcends all Israeli governments.
An easy solution would be to hire the services of some Madison Avenue PR firms to promote what we believe to be the truth and put forth all the arguments that we know to be true.
The truth be told is that the Arab population of Gaza who lived under the Arafat administration have zero idea how they have been robbed by their own government. The billions and billions of dollars that were sent to the USA and the European Union to help them build a nation, were stolen by the Arafat regime. They need to be told that. That Arafat died as one of the worlds richest men is something they need to be told. That Mrs. Arafat, now one of the richest women in the world, lives on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on their stolen money. They need to be told this. That all the senior officials of Hamas live in great luxury in foreign countries and send the poor people of Gaza to die for their cause. They need to be told this.
Professional public relation firms can do this with great alacrity. Israel should hire them.
Another method of getting the message across is to drop millions of pamphlets into Gaza, telling the people in their own language who their real enemy is.
Telling the people of Gaza the positive aspects of Israels’ relationship with them.
Telling the people of Gaza how Hamas has robbed them of their inheritance so graciously given by the USA and The European Union.
Telling the people of Gaza how Hamas destroyed the infrastructure that Israel left behind in 2005.
Telling the people of Gaza all the things that would have their own people executed for if they spoke up.
All this can be done by dropping pamphlets that they can read without fear.
Clearly public relations firms cannot solve the wave of anti Semitism worldwide, but they can achieve a lot to start the ball rolling in the right direction.
Julius Kassar
Cincinnati, OH