Tel Aviv----August 7...... No ado about something. Media and PR are an integral part of today’s battlefield, and play a major role in determining whether a military victory will be translated into a political one.

Unfortunately the Israel Defense Forces just doesn’t get it. But perhaps it is Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who just does not get it. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will gather, for the first time, a forum of all government spokespersons to brief them on how to improve Israel’s public diplomacy efforts during the war.

Israel government spokespersons which were invited to meet this week included Government Secretary Israel Maimon, IDF Spokesperson Miri Regev, the Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Director General for Media and Public Diplomacy Gideon Meir, the PM’s media adviser Assi Sariv, the Defense Minister’s media advisor Ilan Ostfeld, manager of the government’s press office Daniel Seaman, the PM’s foreign media advisor Miri Eisen, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

Are any of these people public affairs or public relations professionals?

Maimon is an attorney who was given the mission to establish a committee which would recommend measures which would enhance the Government's international public relations efforts by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on December 12, 2003. He never did it.

Miri Regev has only on the job training at the IDF and focuses solely on the domestic media. She has never given one interview to the international press corps camped in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.
Just check Google. Regev delegated the entire international media operation to a junior reserve officer whose only experience was interning for a few international networks and worked at the Jerusalem Post for a year.

Gideon Meir is the definition of a bureaucrat who under fierce fire under took some media training and serves today as a mediocre spokesperson, he is no professional advisor. Sariv, is a PR professional with the Israel domestic market, he has no experience with Madison Avenue. Ostfeld works in Intel - not PR. Danny Seaman is a seasoned professional who speaks his mind with an articulate voice. He joins Eisen and Regev as excellent talking heads, but again this group does not have one public relations or crisis communications professional on it.

It is unclear whether the IDF will succeed in achieving its military aims. Even if it does, the defeat it is facing on the media front may make any such victory a moot point.

While criticism of the Israel Defense Forces front line combat units should properly wait until the war’s end, the shortcomings of the IDF’s Spokesperson unit need to be aired immediately, in order to expedite whatever changes and rectification are required, to ensure that what is won on the battlefields of Lebanon will not be lost on the playing fields of the international media and public opinion, by an incompetent media operation. An incompetent, immature and ailing IDF PR department inherited from former IDF Spokesperson Ruth Yaron who fired every creative mind under her - including Miri Regev!

Our enemy understands the importance of PR, the media front in today’s battlefield. Hezbullah allocates whatever funds are needed to maintain what CNN’s senior international correspondent Nic Robertson has described as “the very, very sophisticated and slick media operation Hezbullah runs”.

Just how much importance Hezbollah attaches to the media war was made clear in a recent statement made by Robertson. In it he admitted that his anti-Israel report from Beirut on July 18 about civilian casualties in Lebanon had been stage-managed from start to finish by Hezbullah.

He revealed that his story was “heavily influenced by Hezbollah’s press officer, who maintained total control of the situation. “They designated the places that we went to, and made sure the camera only filmed what they wanted the world to see”. ”We certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath." He added that Hezbullah has very, very good control over its areas in the south of Beirut. “They deny journalists access into those areas, you cannot enter them without their permission”. “We didn't have enough time to see if perhaps there was somebody there who was, you know, a taxi driver by day, and a Hezbollah fighter by night".

Robertson ended by saying that the organization runs a “"very, very sophisticated and slick media operation". This operation relies on brawn as well as brain, as revealed by Time magazine contributor Christopher Allbritton. In a posting on his personal blog he casually admitted that The Party of God has copies of every journalist's passport, and they hassle and even threaten those whose coverage displeases them.

The IDF Spokespersons Office, by comparison runs its media operations on a shoestring budget.
Even worse, it places these vital operations in the hands of second and third rate officers, whose egos outweigh their abilities and competence. Ninety-five percent of the IDF Spokesperson's reserve officers are academics, tour guides, bank managers and Jewish professionals. They do not come from professional international PR offices. The words "news release", "soundbytes", "media packages" and "Internet PR / SEO" are something alien to them!

When one IDF PR reserve officer presently serving in Tel Aviv was recently asked if he had any media training, his response was an arrogant: "yeah, on the job training."
This is the blind leading the blind.

Not only can it not make much ado about anything, it is succeeding brilliantly at making no ado about a very big something. Since they need local recognition in order to further their quests for the next promotion, these officers concentrate almost entirely on the locals media, despite the fact that it is the foreign media that is the schwerpunkt of this battlefield.

The IDF PR briefings given to senior foreign journalists covering the war are superficial at best.
And one can count the number of on camera stand-ups in the field.
The IDF simply is not controlling the international media, rather they are responding to it.

Interviews to major media organizations that play a vital role in forming public opinion are given by junior officers. They may be highly motivated, dedicated but this cannot compensate for their mediocre media skills and less than perfect command of the sound byte language in which they are being interviewed.

Even worse, our enemies for whom we will have to negotiate with one day do not care to listen to a kid. Arab, Asian and European cultures open their ears and embrace the wisdom of the elderly. For that reason former Prime Minister Shimon Peres is about to go on a speaking tour of Europe.

Where is Col. Raanan Gissin (res.) who served as senior foreign media advisor to Ariel Sharon. Why has this tough and intelligent lion not been called to reserve duty during a war? Where is former IDF Spokesperson Nachman Shai? Where is Charley Levine. Former head of Ruder-Finn Israel and today a partner with 5WPr International.
Israel needs maturity, confidence and experience on camera, not a weak Harry Potter look alike.

The results of the IDF Spokespersons Unit to date have been catastrophic. Did you witness one, just one IDF officer respond effectively to the Qana incident? Where was the video tape?

"This may be the first war that Israel does not win," an IDF spokesperson reserve Major tells CNN.
A remark such as this would be fine among friends having coffee in Jerusalem - but to express open doubt to the global media endangers lives and Israel's security. This is what the IDF PR machine gets when it pulls in academics rather than PR crisis communications professionals in times of crisis.

Even worse, the senior command of the IDF Spokesperson unit refuses to admit that they need help.
Ever since the war in Lebanon started dozens of seasoned, creative bi-cultural media professionals have contacted the unit, volunteering to be called up. We are talking about experienced and successful journalists and crisis communications professionals, who no longer serve in their former combat reserve units because of age.

These commercial public relations and editorial professionals are all either native English speakers, with accents ranging from Oxford to New York, or have another major European language, such as French, German or Spanish as their mother tongue.

The uniform response by Regev and her assistant Shlomi is: “don’t call us, we’ll call you”.

The willingness of the Israel Defense Forces Spokespersons unit’s high command to waste top notch professional talent, know how and motivations they so sorely lack, out of petty selfish self advancing motives is reprehensible and unforgivable.

They are willing to jeopardize the hard won achievements of Israel troops in the field, continuing to run what they know is a third rate show, that could end up wasting the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifices by preventing the formation of the public opinion. Global and regional opinion that could significantly improve the chances of reaping the diplomatic fruits of victory.

Related stories:
Jerusalem Post: IDF Spokeswoman Miri Regev to leave army

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