Overemphasis on PR

Editorial

The so-called “flytilla” – yet another publicity stunt by the anti-Israel crowd – was largely thwarted last weekend when Israeli officials prevented the arrival of most participants.

Having assembled a list of about 1,200 personae non grata, Israeli government officials distributed the list and shared it with international airlines, warning that airlines transporting activists to Tel Aviv would be forced to return the passengers at the airlines’ expense. Most activists were denied boarding at their point of origin. About 100 reportedly did make it to Israel, of which 78 were detained for deportation. While original reports predicted a throng of 1,500 flytilla protesters descending on Tel Aviv en route to Bethlehem, just three actually made it to the West Bank, according to news reports.

Adding insult, the Israeli government issued a public “welcome letter” to the protesters, with a wit uncharacteristic of bureaucracies generally and Israeli officials particularly.

“Dear activist,” the letter read, “we appreciate your choosing to make Israel the object of your humanitarian concerns. We know there were many other worthy choices. You could have chosen to protest the Syrian regime’s daily savagery against its own people, which has claimed thousands of lives.... You could have chosen to protest the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on dissent and support of terrorism throughout the world. You could have chosen to protest Hamas rule in Gaza, where terror organizations commit a double war crime by firing rockets at civilians and hiding behind civilians.

“But instead you chose to protest against Israel, the Middle East’s sole democracy, where women are equal, the press criticizes the government, human rights organizations can operate freely, religious freedom is protected for all and minorities do not live in fear. Therefore, we suggest to let you solve first the real problems of the region, and then come back and share with us your experience. Have a nice flight.”

Of course, a sovereign country has the right to allow or deny entry to any foreign individual it chooses. Yet there was something incongruous about Israeli officials, on the one hand, lauding the country as “the Middle East’s sole democracy” while, on the other, preventing the entry of people with contrarian political opinions.

Also awkward was the apparent randomness of the no-fly list, with one senior Israeli official anonymously telling Ha’aretz that about 40 percent of those on the list had no affiliation with the planned protests. To Israel’s credit, some of the mix-ups were quickly and apparently satisfactorily resolved and the individuals allowed entry.

Even so, predictable recriminations began immediately, with commentators and some government officials wondering aloud if Israel’s actions in the matter had served its PR purposes. A publicity stunt like the flytilla – and the flotillas before it – does not need to succeed as planned to succeed as propaganda.

One of the propaganda wins, certainly, was the repeated use of the term “pro-Palestinian” to describe the activists. As we have repeatedly decried here, the vast majority of these self-described “pro-Palestinian” activists have demonstrated no evidence whatsoever of having at heart the long-term best interests of Palestinian people. Promoting an intolerant, rejectionist ideology intended to eliminate Israel, rather than live side by side in peace, will never succeed and will perpetuate conflict and permanent instability. And yet, in almost every news source, including Israeli ones, the term was tossed off without reflection or irony.

On the flip side, the fretting over whether or not Israel suffered a PR defeat even as it prevented the flytilla is itself a symptom of something amiss. Israel routinely loses PR wars. The widely accepted narrative of Israeli villainy and Palestinian victimology is a symptom of one of the contemporary world’s most spectacular propaganda victories and a failure of Israel to successfully counter a deeply distorted narrative. It is not for lack of trying, of course. The problem is largely on the other side: a proportion of the world prepared to accept the most obscene characterizations of Israel, made possible, to unknown extents, by a willingness among some to believe even the most extraordinary allegations leveled at Jews.

Under the circumstances, there may be far too much emphasis in Israel and among overseas Zionists about the PR impacts of Israeli actions. Israel’s enemies would remain Israel’s enemies whether Israel acts saintly or satanically. That is beyond our control. Israel should be driven foremost to ensure the security of its people and the integrity of its borders. This may mean doing things that are unpopular and bad for PR, but necessary nonetheless. In the case of the flytilla, though, Israel may have failed on both counts. It may have lost the PR battle by preventing a publicity stunt that really contained little in the way of genuine threats to internal security.

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