Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson Regev To Leave IDF PR



By Jonathan Schwartz
Israel News Agency

Tel Aviv---- May 11, 2007 ...... For many PR professionals who serve in the IDF reserves, the announcement a few hours ago that IDF Spokeswoman Miri Regev will be leaving the IDF after two years in that position, was sweet news.

There had been a total lack of professionalism coming from the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson's office which led both to the demoralization of that office and the Israel Defense Forces.

Regev was appointed to the post when former chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz took over the IDF, and served as spokeswoman during both the 2005 disengagement and the Second Lebanon War last summer.

General Miri Regev, who had served a short term under former Israel Army PR spokesperson Ruth Yaron, worked with the Prime Minister's Office and headed the IDF Censor's Office, was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General as she entered the IDF Spokesperson Office.

Unlike Yaron, who had come from the Foreign Ministry, Regev was promoted from within, having served the IDF spokesperson's office for many years. Yaron almost shot to fame or infamy as she prepared to address the country in a newly built Israel Defense Forces broadcasting studio as Israel braced for Iraq scuds which never took off for Israel during the last Gulf War.

The last IDF spokesperson who showed brilliance during war time was Brigadier General Nachman Shai, who calmed a very traumatized Israel as scuds landed in Ramat Gan during the first war in Iraq. Shai, a true war hero, went on to head the Israel Broadcasting Agency and today serves as the director of United Jewish Communities office in Israel.

Regev was responsible for all Israel domestic and international media as she supervised IDF spokesperson's offices in the North, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the South of Israel. From Internet and photography to research, strategy, soundbytes and confronting anti-Israel propaganda, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the UN and human rights groups, Regev was on the front line with hundreds of both career and reserve soldiers.

But Regev failed her mission. She blindly supported Halutz during Lebanon, seeking support for her own job rather than the Jewish state. She is on record for having never provided an interview to a foreign media outlet. And recently, the Jerusalem Post in an editorial demanded that she resign.

Regev's greatest challenge never came from the ISM, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Abbas or PR spokespeople from Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, but rather from within the IDF and the Israel government. Regev failed to build effective and professional bridges within the IDF so that field officers could relate and respect her office as well as create warm and effective channels with the Israel Prime Minister's Office, the Foreign Ministry, the Government Press Office and the Israel Police.
In addition, members of Knesset and professional journalists were never cultivated.

Regev's replacement at the IDF has yet to be named.

But many sources are now talking about reserve Col. Olivier Rafowicz. Rafowicz had previously shined in his IDF career role being responsible for IDF international media operations. Rafowicz, who was born in France, was responsible for all IDF spokesperson activity from Israel's northern command. In 1999, he escaped death when a convoy he had joined was attacked by the Hezbollah with two roadside bombs.

Rafowicz was promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel and was placed in charge of the international desk. During that time he directed all international media activity during Operation Defensive Shield including the siege of Bethlehem's Church of Nativity by Islamic terrorists. Most recently, he directed much of all international media operations during the Israel Lebanon Hezbollah war. He has been interviewed by almost every major global news organization. Rafowicz served as a director with the Jewish Agency in France, responsible for immigration activities. Olivier Rafowicz today's serves as the CEO of Infolive.tv, the largest on-line video news operation in Israel. He is the author of Le temps du retour and resides in Jerusalem.

But there is still 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 gathered, 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 met nearly a year ago 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.

The IDF simply is not controlling the international media,
rather they are responding to it.

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.

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!

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 in Israel. 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 global PR giant Ruder-Finn Israel.
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, who in real life life serves as an academic, 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 seasoned 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.

Only bringing back former IDF Spokesperson Nachman Shai, who serves today in an executive position for United Jewish Communities, former senior prime minister media advisor Raanan Gissin who lectures at the IDC College, respected international media consultant and former reserves officer Charley Levine or media, TV and Internet news professional Olivier Rafowicz would be one very first, potent step forward in bringing professionalism and greatness back to the image of the IDF.

 

 

ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY

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