Israel and Zionist Jews Rely on PR Tricks

Israel's struggle for hearts and minds

By Nathan Guttman




WASHINGTON - The conventional
wisdom among policy-makers in
Israel and the United States is that
if there is one front on which Israel
enjoys a clear advantage in the
international arena, it is hasbara -
information and public relations - in
the United States. Israel's views
are accepted by the administration
and win support in Congress and
American public opinion clearly
prefers the Israeli cause to the
Palestinian one. However, closer
scrutiny of the elements that make
up American public opinion will
show that Israel has cause for
concern.

In the duel with the Palestinians
over the hearts of average Americans, Israel wins hands down. But when
Israel puts itself up for judgment, things look different: Israel is seen as a
country that is not pursuing peace, is largely responsible for the violence in
the territories and is not morally in the right in the conflict. These positions
largely reflect the approach taken by the public at large and to an even
greater extent, the views of the most influential groups within American
society.

An inside look at American public opinion about Israel has been provided by
a survey conducted in late October by pollster Stanley Greenberg, and
including a variety of questions related to Americans' approach to Israel, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jews in America. The survey, which
according to experts in the field faithfully reflects the current mood in
America toward Israel, was privately commissioned by a group of Jewish
activists who are conducting a broad-based television campaign for Israel.
The results were kept confidential. The purpose of the survey was to find
out how effective messages aimed at the public are, but the answers it
supplies show what Americans really think about Israel.

This can be seen, for example, in a general question about the extent of
support for Israel in its struggle against the Palestinians. Although the
Palestinian cause is at a very low point in the United States, and the
American public, according to other surveys, for the most part, identifies
Palestinian violence with terrorism in general, Israel enjoys a support rate of
only 50 percent among "influential" Americans (high-income, educated
people who take a considerable interest in the news). The figure drops to 48
percent when this group of Americans is reduced to those living in the
Washington, D.C. area, in other words, those with access to government
circles.

The good news is that this figure represents a halt in a trend seen in the
last year, involving a neutral stand toward the Israel-Palestinian conflict,
with people stating that "both sides are to blame." In any case, support
from half of the population on any issue is always an encouraging figure.
However, the empty half of the glass is more troubling to those involved in
the subject, because it means that among those with social and political
clout in America, for every individual that supports Israel, there is another
who opposes it. This is happening at time when the Palestinians are at a
disadvantage in public relations, when the president has openly declared
his support for Israel and Israel's political lobby is at its height.

Pressuring Israel

This problematic situation is apparent throughout the survey in a variety of
questions. It turns out, for example, that on most issues, the American
public sees moral equivalency between Israel and the Palestinians, an
approach that Israel has been trying to combat since the outbreak of the
intifada. About 54 percent of the "influential" group believes that there is
moral equivalency between the two sides (46 percent among the general
population). More than half believe that both sides are equal in their
aspirations for peace and almost half believe that both sides are equally
responsible for the violence. The Israeli attempt to establish a moral
distinction between Israel's actions in the territories and Palestinian attacks
on Israeli civilians has not been successful: Only 39 percent believe that
Israel is morally justified, while 38 percent believe that Israel is behaving
like the terrorists it is trying to combat.

The American public is apparently troubled not only by the question of what
Israel is doing in the territories, but also by the possible repercussions of
these actions for the United States itself. While the conventional wisdom
has it that terror attacks against the United States should create an
American-Israeli solidarity against terrorists and in favor of attacks against
them, Greenberg's survey shows that three-quarters of those polled among
the general public believe that "Israeli's actions in the territories are raising
a new generation of potential terrorists, who could attack the United States
in the future."

In a previous survey, conducted in July using a similar format, there was a
majority of 58 percent among the "influential" population that supported
active military support for Israel in case it is attacked. However, in the last
survey, the rate of support for American military intervention for Israel
dropped to only 48 percent.

So what should the United States do in the Middle East? The elites,
according to the survey, believe that the American administration should
pressure Israel to enter into negotiations with the Palestinians. On the
question of which side the United States should support, Israel still enjoys
an advantage, but it involves only one-third of the population that believes
that Israel should be supported. A large majority of 60 percent believes that
the United States should not support either of the sides. Only 4 percent of
those polled believe that the American administration should express
support for the Palestinian side.

But Israel still gets a lot of credit points in American public opinion, even
according to this survey. Beyond the obvious advantage over its Palestinian
rivals, Israel is viewed among the influential population as a strong ally of
the United States, a country that shares American values of equality and
freedom and is a partner to the democratic ideology upon which the United
States is based. From a public relations standpoint, these are very
important points that help establish Israel's unique status in American
public opinion and guarantees that it will be judged favorably by the public,
even if that public does not always agree with its actions and behavior.

However, the survey reveals the fact that in the long run, the American
public, despite its loyalty to Israel, could become open to a different
approach toward Israel by the administration. One source expressed the
view that when 75 percent of Americans view the settlers as "the principal
obstacle to peace." As the survey shows, the American demand to freeze
the settlements, for example, is not likely to encounter a great deal of
opposition among the public. The general conclusion, one that should be
troubling to PR experts working for Israel and on its behalf, is that as long
as Israel has to contend for public support against the Palestinians, its
victory is assured. But if Israel will one day need to struggle for its position
on its own merits, not as compared to another entity, it will find itself in a
far more difficult situation.

An embarrassing leak

The "influential" Americans polled for this survey are characterized,
according to preliminary examinations, by a problematic approach toward
Israel. They are people with notably stronger pro-Arab tendencies than
among the general population, who traditionally believe in the need for
intervention on the part of the administration in the form of pressure on
Israel. The results of other surveys conducted in the past year, like one that
examined the positions of conservative Christians, were more flattering to
Israel and demonstrated a higher level of support for it. In the voting booth,
all votes are equal, and the current administration has a warm place in its
heart for the Christian right and its views. But American politics have proved
that between elections, special weight is given to the influential groups
among the population, far beyond the number of ballots their members
cast.

The new obstacle facing Israeli PR at present is the question of the
possible American war against Iraq. An expose in The Washington Post
recently caused considerable embarrassment to Israeli PR experts, when
the newspaper published an internal memorandum with recommendations
for Israeli PR vis-a-vis Iraq. The recommendations, authored by Republican
strategist Frank Luntz, were commissioned by Project Israel, the same
organization that commissioned Greenberg's survey of public opinion about
Israel. The article enabled readers to have a look behind the scenes of
hasbara - including an appeal to Israeli spokesmen not to present the war
in Iraq as an "Israeli matter," a demand to minimize comments on a
possible response to missile fire on Israel from Iraq and the suggestion that
Israel not try to teach the American public about the Middle East.

Israeli officials hurried to repudiate the leaked study, saying there was no
connection between the government of Israel and the private Jewish
organizations that commissioned it. Off the record, complaints could be
heard that the paper caused substantial damage because it placed Israel
on the same plane as Saudi Arabia - a country that hires public relations
firms to promote its interests. The Israeli public relations difficulty pointed
out by the Luntz paper is significant. Israel, on the one hand, wants to
retain its deterrent capability and tell the entire world that Israel will not
restrain itself again in the face of an attack by Saddam Hussein. On the
other hand, such statements create difficulties for the United States and
make Israel look as if it is waiting for America to reward it for staying its
hand. Moreover, how will Israel explain the fact that it supports active
international intervention to solve one focus of instability in the region (Iraq)
while firmly opposing any such intervention in another (the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict)?

The public relations line taken by the Arabs in the past few months has
been that Iraq is not the problem - Palestine is, and that the Americans
should first resolve the issues in that troubled area of the region before
dealing with Saddam Hussein. Israel will have to respond to this approach
with caution - by rejecting the comparison, but without sending the
message that it is not interested in resolving the conflict.