[R-G] Israel’s PR fails to impress away from home

[Anthony Fenton]

Israel’s PR fails to impress away from home

By Roula Khalaf

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/25b97072-e0ce-11dd-b0e8-000077b07658.html

Published: January 12 2009 17:51 | Last updated: January 12 2009 17:51

When a mighty military power goes to war against a much weaker enemy  
in a wretched, densely populated area, it can expect the public  
relations side of the battle to go against it.

That is why Israel took precautionary measures with its latest Gaza  
offensive. First, it made sure it had a reasonable narrative, which  
Hamas provided by lobbing rockets on to Israeli towns and declaring a  
six-month ceasefire over.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
Israel sends reserve troops into Gaza - Jan-12

Second, it kept foreign journalists out of Gaza, thinking perhaps that  
it could put a lid on the images of civilian casualties that arouse so  
much anger in the Arab world and beyond.

Third, Israel took its case to cyberspace, with its defence forces  
posting YouTube videos meant to show the extraordinary precision of  
its strikes on Hamas militants.

It all worked according to plan, for a while. But by last week, the  
propaganda war was no longer going Israel’s way. The problem, as  
Gideon Lichfield wrote in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, was one of  
numbers, since there was no way to make the “proportion” of casualties  
look “pretty”. By yesterday’s count, Operation Cast Lead had killed  
900 Palestinians, many of them civilians, while leaving 13 Israelis,  
including three civilians, dead.

Images of maimed Palestinian children could not be kept off the  
television and Arab channels and news agencies had correspondents in  
Gaza to tell devastating stories of civilians trapped in the war.

Then there was the United Nations, which had one of its schools, where  
40 Palestinians were sheltering, bombed. And there was an outcry from  
the International Committee of the Red Cross, which found four  
children starving next to their dead mother in a destroyed house, and  
then accused Israel of delaying ambulance access.

The numbers, in turn, have confused the narrative, which from the  
start told only part of the story. The Hamas-Israel ceasefire had  
begun to unravel long before the operation began, starting with an  
Israeli attack on Gaza militants in early November.

Israel’s YouTube plans have also floundered. One video, supposedly  
showing Hamas rockets being loaded on a lorry, was cast into doubt by  
a Palestinian man who said he owned the truck and had been loading  
oxygen cylinders.

The UN, too, was not happy with a video posted last week showing men  
firing rockets from a UN school in Gaza – particularly as it had no  
relation to last week’s school attack and had been filmed in 2007.

When I searched YouTube for “Israel” at the weekend, I found videos  
posted by the Israeli military and al-Jazeera footage of a hysterical  
girl next to a dead man on a Gaza beach, described as the victim of an  
Israeli sea attack. I also found an amusing CNN report, in which the  
broadcasters debated whether Israel’s narrative had been slightly  
skewed.

Does any of this matter to Israel? Yes – but only to a certain extent.  
Israel would like the world to be on its side in its fight against  
Hamas. But far more important for the authorities is to maintain the  
support of Israelis. There the government has been more successful.  
Unlike in the 2006 Lebanon war, information has been more controlled,  
with only top representatives appearing on Israeli TV, which also  
gives a sanitised account of the offensive.

When it comes to domestic opinion, the casualty numbers that matter  
most are Israeli. Indeed, Tamir Shaefer, a political science professor  
at Hebrew University, says Israel may be unique in that it is affected  
by fatalities among its soldiers more than its civilians.

European diplomats tell me their patience with this conflict is  
running out. But Israel has been torn between grabbing a diplomatic  
solution and escalating the war. Part of its dilemma is that more  
fighting in the alleys of Gaza could bring more military deaths,  
inflicting casualties on the domestic PR war and the public support  
that has been solid until now.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009