Israel Matzav

Why Israel is losing the information war

Rob Miller tries to explain why Israel is losing the information war.

But what happens when you're up against people who care nothing for facts and everything about impact and propaganda? What happens when you fight an information war against people who care nothing for the truth and merely want to consume your flesh?

In today's media climate, you're left foundering, trying to decipher the facts while the other side has already made its impact.

This is the sort of thing that happens when you play defense instead of offense: the other side controls the game, and you're limited to reacting.

That's why Israel has been losing the information war.

Israel would be far better off going on offense by publicizing the Palestinian Authority's inherent corruption, the status of women and homosexuals, its official endorsements of terrorism against Israel's civilians, and its refusal to make a single concession in any negotiations.

Well, yeah. So why aren't we doing that?

The reason we're not doing that is that Israel made 'peace' with the 'Palestinians' when we signed the Oslo Declaration of Principles in September 1993. In the Israeli mindset - at least among the elites - the war has been over since then. It's just a question of what the exact borders will be. Since 1993, it has been "in" to empathize with the 'Palestinians,' to say only nice things about the 'Palestinians,' and to treat them with respect and without prejudice. It is a common belief here that 'peace' is just around the corner. It has been for more than 17 years.

The result is that Israeli children are taught a narrative in which references to Israel's establishment as a 'naqba' (catastrophe) are 'understandable,' and 'Israeli Arabs' identification with the 'Palestinians' rather than with Israel are expected.

But someone forgot to tell the 'Palestinians' that the war is over. The 'Palestinians' have only taught their children to hate. They continue to produce maps that deny Israel's existence, and television programming that glorifies 'martyrs' and talks of 'Palestine' as including all of the current state of Israel. The 'Palestinians' continue to teach their children about their 'return' to Haifa and Jaffa and Jerusalem, as if they expect it to happen any day now. So while we empathize with the 'Palestinians' and play defense (at best), the 'Palestinians' play offense and attack us physically in the playing field and morally in places like the United Nations and its various bodies and in the Western media.

We need to get out of the mindset in which peace has already been made, because the terms are known to everyone. There is no peace, and the terms of any future peace are not known to anyone. The Clinton parameters, to give an example of the best known 'terms for peace,' have not been accepted by anyone. We need to accept that there is not going to be peace in the next ten years, and maybe not in our lifetimes or our children's lifetimes either. We have to rid ourselves of the attitude that we are 'tired of fighting' (in the words of our former Prime Minister), because we don't have the luxury to stop fighting.

Unfortunately, even the current government is afraid to do that, because they are afraid that the opposition will spin it as a setback. Until our own government is able to say what many of us already know, we are doomed to being sitting ducks for terror attacks and to being the victims of libelous attacks in the media and in the United Nations.

What could go wrong?

Labels: empathy, Oslo accords, Pallywood, United Nations

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:29 AM