Israel Matzav

Why not support pro-Israel bloggers?

Professor Jacobson has a post up in which he discusses the huge sums of money that the Romney campaign dumped on political consultants in the home stretch, and wonders whether they would have been better off spending at least some of that money supporting small conservative bloggers. He has a valid point, and it's one that ought to be extended to the pro-Israel blogosphere as well.

I think we can all agree that Israel's hasbara (public relations) is not effective. Part of the reason for its ineffectiveness is the fact that it's not organized well, but part also is its dependence upon professional 'diplomats' who can't speak as bluntly as they should, and who in many cases are conflicted in whether they support Israel's actions.

Enter pro-Israel bloggers, who can say whatever we please, and who are mostly not holdovers from the Peres-Ben Ami-Livni-Levy eras at the foreign ministry, who continue to spout Leftist, post-Zionist drivel. Would the Right-leaning Netanyahu government consider supporting us? Only if the list of whom they were supporting could be kept secret (as far as I know, there is currently no such list, but if you're on one, please let me know how I can get on), and only if we would continue to have the freedom to say whatever we please, including criticizing the government.

The better question is why the likes of Sheldon Adelson and Irving Moskowitz haven't thought of this. Why haven't they thought of trying to finance pro-Israel bloggers? Perhaps it's because they figure we will continue to post things they like anyway, and don't realize how much more we could do if we were supported financially.

Hmmm.

By the way, the picture at the top is me speaking at the first annual pro-Israel bloggers' conference here in Jerusalem. That's the one where I had to follow a guy named Netanyahu (who was then opposition leader), and the one where a Leftist blogger made the mistake of asking 'who is this guy' in his liveblog, only to be told that - even then - I had several times his readership.

Unfortunately, the last 'annual' bloggers conference was in 2009.....

Hmmm.

Labels: blogosphere, pro-Israel

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:27 PM