Israel's War on Palestinian Terrorism, Barbarism

Are people seeking the Nick Berg video or this image
of murdered Israeli children on the Internet?

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem----May 14, 2004....Who's winning the war?
Well before we can answer that question, is it really a war?
According to the Palestinians, they are only throwing rocks at Israeli tanks.
Their public relations machine is working. And working very effectively.
And most of the world public has bought it hook, line and sinker. As Palestinian terrorists attack Israeli tanks with missiles, rockets and automatic gunfire, the world witnesses Palestinian children throwing rocks!
As Palestinian terrorists pump bullets into pregnant Jewish mothers and execute Jewish babies we only see Reuters, AP and AFP images of injured Palestinian children.

And to make matters worse, we here in Israel obsess about "body parts".
Who's winning the public relations war? The Palestinians are.

We are engaged in two wars - a bloody, sweaty battle of bullets and a real-time digital media war of words.
We are losing both fronts because Israel's governmental public relations and public affairs machine is weak and ineffective. Almost as weak as the metal in our APC's which was supposed to be protecting IDF soldiers in Gaza from land mines.
The PR war defines public opinion, public opinion decides governmental policy and that policy decides who wins. Ultimately, public relations will decide Israel's future security. It's stature as a democracy, its economic health and its very borders.

One must take a very close, objective look at Israel's present PR efforts to understand why we have and continue to lose.
That those who lead Israel's PR war are more focused on domestic Israeli public opinion than world opinion or the opinion of our enemies. Just look at who is in contact with the international media from Jerusalem.
Who are these people? How old are they? What experience do they have in crisis communications management? Who do they consult? How effective is their coordination with other ministries? How free are they to act in real-time? Do they have the backing of Israel's prime minister?
Yes, we do have a handful of professional public affairs people in Jerusalem, when what is urgently required is a well financed and professional army of media professionals.
Just ask yourself one question.
Is Israel's global image better today than it was a year ago?

These are but a few questions.
Israel is now too busy licking her wounds from the tragic loss of 11 Israel Defense Force Givati and Combat engineering soldiers in Gaza. Knee jerk responses of more Israeli military might may appease the Israeli public today but it is impotent, it aint doing anything to deter the terrorists who want Israelis drinking Mediterranean sea water.

Israel's approach with both weapons and words has never worked.
We are still in battle after 56 years.

As for the war of bullets, yes Israel is stronger, more potent and Israel knows that it must use overwhelming force to win a war. But what kind of military force?

During some of Israel's more recent conflicts, the IDF has used to a very limited degree psychological operations - PsyOps. And when the IDF has used PsyOps in combat, she has been more than successful. Israel's successful conclusion of the Palestinian terror siege of Bethlehem's Church of Nativity is one fine example.
But as I write this editorial whose PsyOps are working? Israel or the Palestinians?

Islamic Jihad destroyed an Israeli APC in Gaza with a missile just days ago.
Following their successful attack, the Islamic terrorists held a news conference where they discussed their winning operation. As they talked about how they destroyed an Israel APC, the head of an Israeli soldier was sitting in front of them, displayed for all to see. It was a disgusting and barbaric gesture, but it worked.
As if they were in Hollywood, they had selected the most effective prop, a tool which spoke more than their words. The grotesque image of a head of an Israeli soldier did not penetrate our tanks or F-16's, rather it tore through our mental defenses and exploded inside our collective psyche.

To win this war we must play by the same rules as our enemy.

Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas and Fatah are no different than their brothers who decapitated the heads of Wall Street Journalist Daniel Pearl and US businessman Nick Berg. With both Pearl and Berg, they didn't just kill them.

They posed them, filmed them, decapitated them and uploaded the footage knowing that the Western world, which plays by different rules of combat, would see it within twenty-four hours. They sawed off Nick Berg's head and held it in front of a camera. It wasn't just an execution, it was a statement. A man's severed head was used as a prop in the war of the words..

The tension as the five hooded terrorists stood behind the Cornell graduate turned telecommunications entrepreneur was difficult to bear, knowing how horribly the vignette would end. Seeing the Jewish American Berg thrown down and brutalized was even more difficult. The plaintive screams, the pool of blood, the sawing across his neck and the ongoing religious chanting in the background repulsed us in a way that we cannot articulate. The one thing that we remember was seeing his lifeless head held in front of the camera and then to see it placed, on his corpse as the camera continued to roll. There was something unspeakably grotesque and unfathomable sad about his head being used to make a political argument.

Was this event any different from when the English decapitated Oliver Cromwell in 1658 and placed his head on exhibit for several years for all in London to see? Yes, today we have the Internet and the power of electronic communications which easily finds its way to the masses, into our homes, offices and finally the voting booth.

What have Israelis learned from the barbaric lynching of two Israel Defense Force reservists in Rahmallah? What have we learned from the Passover Massacre in Netanya and the countless buses and restaurants which have been torn apart?

At this very moment Israel is pouring more troops into Gaza.
We are focusing on the physical dimensions of war with Israel intending to widen its security corridor in southern Gaza along the Egyptian border. "It's a measure that we are taking to provide better protection for armored personnel carriers and the soldiers, and to reshape that theater of war so we will enjoy an advantage and not the Palestinians," one Israeli official said about the Philadelphia corridor where five troops were killed on Wednesday.

Yes, we need to widen the Philadelphia security corridor so that Palestinians will think twice before digging more weapons smuggling tunnels, but we also need to concentrate on the mental, emotional side of war.

Almost a year ago, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his cabinet that Israel needed to confront the war of words in a more effective manner. The task for creating a special governmental public relations committee integrated with private international PR professionals was given to Cabinet Secretary Israel Maimon. Maimon was given 45 days to create a plan. That plan was never delivered nor implemented.

Our enemies are smart. They don't need tanks and F-16s. All they need is a computer to upload images which will shock you. Images and soundbytes that will make you fear them more than they fear us. To create a consensus to retreat from Gaza for all of the wrong reasons.
Israel needs to withdraw from Gaza and let the Palestinians destroy and eat themselves there.
No more Israeli electricity, no more Israeli water, no more industrial zones, no more convoys of humanitarian aid flowing in from Israel. Let Egypt and the Arab nation take care of their brothers there. But we cannot and will not leave Gaza because of "body parts."

The US was very much on point when they opened the Iraqi war with an expensive and well thought out hi-tech "shock and awe" show of smart bombs hitting their targets in Baghdad. As a military strategy, it is discussed at length in a 1996 book published by the Command and Control Research Program (CCRP) within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States. Titled Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance, the book describes shock and awe as a strategy "aimed at influencing the will, perception, and understanding of an adversary rather than simply destroying military capability." In this respect, shock and awe bears a striking similarity to terrorism as propaganda, in which psychological rather than material dominance is viewed as a primary war objective. (The terrorist attacks of September 11 also induced "shock and awe" in the U.S. population.)

We don't need to display the heads of Palestinians to win this war.
What we do need is the immediate, urgent action of Ariel Sharon to deliver his promise of creating a professional, effective governmental PR apparatus which would be directly under his control with private, professional, crisis media logistical consultancy support.

The film "Apocalypse Now" embraced and disclosed the horrors of contemporary warfare and the realities to end it. It illustrated distinctions in combat culture. Actor Marlon Brando who played a fictitious and genius Colonel Kurtz, was portrayed as a "madman" who used the heads of the enemy as a determent. Kurtz was playing the same game as the Viet Cong, using barbarism to strike fear into the hearts and minds of the Viet Cong and win. The US was too politically correct with its clean Amnesty International and Peace Now movements to accept these tactics. So in the movie, Kurtz was assassinated by another US soldier and in real life America lost the war.

Where is Israel's "shock and awe". Where is the creation of Israel's governmental PR committee which would be responsible for coordinating this action and following it up with effective soundbytes, spokespeople and Internet images? Why is the Nick Berg video the number one request on the Net, when it should be images of the four Jewish girls who were shot through the head last week in execution style. Tali Hatuel, who was eight months pregnant, had been driving her car towards a Gaza settlement when Islamic Palestinian terrorists opened fire on the car with automatic weapons. In the panic, she lost control and lurched off the road. The two Palestinian terrorists from Gaza rushed towards her firing their automatic rifles, shooting through the windows at point blank range. There was no chance of escape for the 34-year-old Israeli mother or her young, crying children Hila, 11, Hadar, nine, Roni, seven, and Merav, two.

The Jewish children were still strapped to their child seats as the terrorists pumped two bullets into each of their heads to confirm their "kill." When Israeli rescue workers arrived they found the car riddled with bullets, the carpets, the children's books and toys drenched in blood.

Yasser Arafat responded to the Jewish children's murder speaking of peace and of Israeli war crimes in English as he continued to beg Palestinian children to become suicide bombers in Arabic. The proverbial wolfe in sheep's clothing. Fine PR tactics, really brilliant. In the world of commercial marketing we call this "localized messaging, demographic branding." It's a professional strategy which wins.
And given that AP, Reuters and AFP only employ Palestinian reporters in the West Bank and Gaza, we can be sure that the message coming from Arafat, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah will be heard by millions worldwide.
Arafat is also a master with props. Although he stays away from decapitated heads, he is remembered in the United Nations for holding up both a gun and an olive branch, kissing the heads of dead Palestinian children, eating at his Rahmallah compound by candle light, embracing master terrorist and Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin in a wheelchair and finally, wearing a map of "Palestine" on his military shirts' left shoulder which includes all of the State of Israel.

Where are Israel's props?
Yes, we have a few terror buses making the rounds in New York and Washington, but where are the countless Palestinian suicide vests for which we can provide to each and every lawmaker in Europe, Asia and North America? Where are Israel's spokespeople on a Friday afternoon or a Saturday morning?
As the PA, the ISM and Machsom Watch hand out anti-Israel propaganda to journalists and diplomats at Israeli security checkpoints, where are Israel's media teams to counter this racist, hate material?
Where is Israel's real-time, crisis public relations talking heads? And if we don't have the budget, then recruit professionals as volunteers.
Finally, just perform a search on Google News for the keyword "Israel" and ask yourself why is it that anti-Israeli headlines overwhelm pro-Israel stories. Is it that we don't have enough English news Webmasters in the world to create positive headlines?

Yes, we have killed Yassin and Rantisi. Yes, Israel has dropped leaflets by air in Gaza. That was a good start. But we need to impress the Palestinian mind much further, much deeper that if they wish to destroy this tiny, beautiful democratic Jewish state, they will suffer countless nightmares. We are already accused by the United Nations and our many Arab enemies of committing atrocities every hour. What do we have to lose? Do we truly believe that Amnesty International and those UN member states which are supported by Arab petrol dollars will be our friends tomorrow?

To win this war we must play by the same rules as our enemy. The Americans in 1776, who were greatly outnumbered, did not walk in open formation when they entered the battlefield. They took cover from behind trees and rocks, ambushed by night and changed the rules of warfare. They were called cowards by the Brits but in the end, the creative "cowards" won the war. The British, who out of collective pride could not adapt, lost.

We don't need to display the heads of Palestinians to win this war. What we do need is the immediate, urgent action of Ariel Sharon to deliver his promise of creating a professional, effective governmental PR apparatus which would be directly under his control with private, professional, crisis media logistical consultancy support.

It is time for Islamic terrorists and the populations which support them to fear us more than we fear them.
The time for Israel's "shock and awe" show has been long overdue.

Jerusalem-----October 2001......Since the below report was written, Israel's Ministry for Foreign Affairs has taken action to retain international PR professionals, but is still ignoring Israel's professional and creative home base of International PR pros. We applaud the FM for this limited action. The FM has also been criticized by the Israeli media for not responding quick enough to fast breaking news. They have also responded to this observation by having their own people serve as spokesmen 24/7. The MFA has a severely limited PR budget and this remains as the largest obstacle for Ministry to perform properly.

The MFA needs to retain local, professional crisis communications public relations consultants to assist them with media coaching so that their appearance on CNN, Sky News, BBC and other media outlets appears professional and confident.

Foreign Ministry Retains Rubenstein Associates for Public Relations
Ministry Again Fails to Secure Effective Solutions - Ignores Local, Professional Israeli International Agencies

Jerusalem----July 31.....The Israeli Foreign Ministry, which is officially responsible for Israel's image, has repeatedly failed to obtain the most professional public relations counsel and strategy for the country. In it's latest action, the MFA has retained Rubenstein Associates in New York City. Rubenstein is one of the most professional agencies in the world and is the agency of record for which this editor transferred his New York public relations practice prior to making Aliya.
BUT Rubenstein is 6,000 miles away from Jerusalem. The MFA argues that this is a positive factor as they know the US market. In reality - Rubenstein is intimate with the New York City market and has little connection to the US Mid-West, South-East and West Coast, let alone the global market!

The MFA goes on the assumption that if you work in Israel - how good can you be? They are seduced by the towering skyscrapers and financial reach of New York while ignoring some of the most professional PR consultants in their own country. Israeli public relations consultants who have proven their salt by penetrating international markets and helping to establish the Israeli Hi-Tech industry as a global force.

It was with great hesitation that the INA has come to reveal some of the flaws of the MFA, as we do not make a policy of washing our laundry in public. At the same time - the MFA has refused to even meet with PR professionals living and working in the same country! While other Ministries have approached International Israeli PR firms, in desperation, as the economy of the country deepens and thousands of employed become unemployed. The PR professionals of Israel can no longer afford the luxury or political correctness of being silent.

Take a quick look at the MFA's deeply flawed strategy. They are focusing on the colors of M-16's to tell the world media that Israel is firing rubber bullets - while missing the forest for the trees. Israeli combat commando units are highly effective because they are small, quick moving, highly flexible, knowledgeable of local and foreign intelligence and have the ability to respond immediately. So why not apply the same modus operandi to critical public relations activity?

How much does Rubenstein know about Israel and the Middle-East?
Recently, the MFA had to charter a bus and take these New Yorkers to the West Bank for a day. This is in sharp contrast to the many Israeli PR pros who know the region, Israel and the West Bank inside out from having lived here and served in military reserve service. They know the people, the terrain, the local and foreign journalists. These Israeli PR pros are bicultural - coming from New York, London and South Africa. They know both markets, but are still ignored by the MFA!

How can a New York based PR firm react to a real time crisis here in Israel? They can't - and by the time they do, the journalists and photographers have filed the story they are looking for, mostly from a Palestinian perspective.

The solution to Israel's fatal and failing public relations is as follows: retain the best and most successful bicultural PR pros in Israel and use them to coordinate a 24x7 global emergency crisis rapid response network. These professionals know the Israeli government offices, the culture, the logistics and the foreign press corps which files the stories that appear in New York, Paris and Tokyo. The MFA is still reacting rather than be being proactive in it's public relations approach. Why must we always be placed in a defensive posture handling damage control after the story has been printed?
The entire process begins here in Israel - not New York - and this is where Israeli media professionals should engage, becoming the intial source of information for the international media.
This professional 24x7 emergency crisis rapid response team should then coordinate it's actions with two or three leading global PR firms which can then localize and translate news releases and hold daily briefings in various cultures and languages.

For now we are relying upon a greatly respected but foreign PR agency which only knows the New York Yankees.
What we need are Israeli PR pros who know both Maccabi Tel Aviv and the New York Knicks.
What we critically need today are professional human resources here in Israel that are knowledgeable and equipped to respond in real-time and coordinate media global efforts.

What we presently have is the same weak and faulty system which was asleep during and after the Dolpernarium terrorist bombing in Tel Aviv.
It was a Friday night and Israel slept as the enemy attacked and the foreign media did their job here on the ground in Israel.

It's time for us to wake up, protect Israel's image and reconstruct a devastated economy with a professional PR machine consisting of both local and foreign talent.

ISRAEL NEWS AGENCY