Israelis have long recognized that their country has a “hasbara” problem. Unlike the Arabs, their tiny state hasn’t hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in PR. Its generals can often be laconic, and gruff. Its civilian leaders have proven insufficiently quick-witted at making their case, and only two — Benjamin Netanyahu and Golda Meir — had or have a native command of English.. It is so difficult to make the case for Israel when so much of the world’s media is so ready to find fault with the tiny state that has had to fight three times for its very survival — in 1948, 1967, and 1973 — and in a half-dozen campaigns, against the PLO in Beirut, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and most often against Hamas in Gaza. Many journalists at news agencies, such as the AP, and at such broadcasters as the BBC, CNN, and France24, and last but definitely not least, at major papers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, cannot hide their palpable want of sympathy for Israel, or their support for those, not limited to the Palestinians, who want to destroy the only Jewish state and replace it by a twenty-third Arab state. The BBC reporters are particularly unpleasant when it comes to their coverage of Israel. They include John Simpson, Jeremy Bowen, Lyse Doucet, Orla Guerin, and Yolande Knell.
But now Israeli spokesmen are giving not just as good as they get, but much better. They are refusing to accept the journalists’ tendentious framing of the questions, their hectoring tone when speaking to Israelis but not when interviewing Palestinians, their determination to avoid recognizing the genocidal intent of Hamas, as expressed in its charter. More on this new breed of eloquent and pugnacious spokesmen for Israel can be found here: “Is Israeli Hasbara Getting Better, Or Are Journalists Losing It?, by Daled Amos, Elder of Ziyon, November 26, 2023:
There is always concern about Hasbara, Israel’s ability to counter anti-Israel propaganda, especially during conflicts with Hamas terrorists in Gaza. When it comes to the reaction from the IDF, there are obvious problems where there is a need to get the facts out quickly while making sure the information is confirmed. Just as important, the spokesperson has to have a good command of the language of the audience to which he is speaking and must also speak confidently and coherently.
This has been a continuing concern.There is also the need for Israeli spokespersons to present Israel’s case when interviewed on live TV by journalists who are not necessarily sympathetic, or even objective. Some recent examples show that Israeli spokespersons can hold their own. Those same examples call the objectivity and ability of the journalist into question.Here is Mark Regev, former Israeli ambassador to the UK and currently an adviser to Netanyahu. The journalist doesn’t attack anything Regev said or Israel has done. She just makes a disturbing comparison in passing and Regev reacts immediately.He doesn’t just challenges the comparison of Israeli hostages with Palestinian Arab prisoners. When the interviewer attempts to defend herself by bringing up the example of a 14-year-old Palestinian Arab, Regev challenges her again to reveal what crime the boy had been imprisoned for. She could not….
Fortunately, the spokesmen for Israel, such as Mark Regev, are native speakers of the languages of those who interview them, are articulate and even eloquent, well prepared to discuss any conceivable line of questioning, and most important, are unwilling to let pass any misstatement or outrage. When Regev firmly corrects the interviewer who describes “women and children” being freed on both sides, and notes that while Israeli hostages that day include four children under the age of nine, only one of the Palestinian prisoners could be considered a child, and that prisoner was 14 years old and had tried to murder a policeman, his interviewer is unable to answer.
When Kay Burleigh for SkyNews makes the preposterous charge that in trading 150 Palestinian prisoners for 50 Israeli hostages, Israel is showing that it values Israeli lives over Palestinian ones, the Israeli spokesman Eylon Levy, momentarily stunned, rebukes her for the sheer idiocy of her remark, and says that “we would be glad to have a one-for-one exchange.” He calls her remark “disgusting.” Burleigh is reduced to silence. In the presentation of Israel’s case by such articulate spokesmen as Regev and Levy, Israel now has a hasbara operation equal to its task.
Ray Jarman says
Much of the press (non-sensical gibberish noise) is so anti-Semitic that it has lost any value for me. Imagine if the reporters during the Second World War was so completely anti-Semitic and NATZI apologetic. They would have been fired even from the NYT. This is exactly what is happening today and this article as well as so many others here at Jihad Watch demonstrates so correctly.
carpediadem says
The NYT would have promoted them.
Ray Jarman says
I must disagree as Whitaker Chambers, a one time communist, became one who believed in democracy, worked for Time Magazine. Time Magazine is far from a conservative news outlet but no less to the left than NYT. In his book, “Witness,” he described how he became at true believer in Christ. He recalled that while looking at his young daughter in her highchair he noticed her ear. He described a feeling that he said he had never experienced which was perfection in which only a God in Heaven could have created. I must tell you, as the saying goes, tears welled up inside my eyes as I read about this event.
Chambers fought hard to bring Alger Hiss to trial where he was convicted of treason. It is a shame that once excellent news organizations such as the NYT and Time Magazine have destroyed themselves and their products.
James Lincoln says
Ray Jarman says,
“It is a shame that once excellent news organizations such as the NYT and Time Magazine have destroyed themselves and their products.”
Yes.
Decades ago, I used to read daily the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and a local newspaper. Also watched the mainstream local news / national news / PBS MacNeil Lehrer report on TV.
And, every week, I would read Barons, Time Magazine, Newsweek, and the US News and World report.
Gave me a “fairly good” grasp concerning major news events.
If I had continued doing that today, I would be grossly misinformed.
bagsgroove says
Some of those “journalists” interviewers must have gotten their training from a cornflake box.
Wellington says
Modern journalism, for the most part, is a gigantic metaphorical sewer. It is filled with people who are ignorant, petty and often times just plainly evil. The best of the lot here in America among the MSM is Fox and even it is sub-par. All the rest of the broadcast MSM is nothing more than insouciantly ignorant people not even remotely aware of how simply awful they are and how so many times they are aligned with pure evil.
James Lincoln says
Wellington,
100% correct.
And colleges today do not produce classic journalists – as in days long gone.
They produce Marxist / anti-Semitic / islamophilic propaganda activists.
Princess says
A 14 year old girl who stabbed and seriously wounded a Jewish woman in front of her children is allegedly also about to be released to the same neighborhood in East Jerusalem as where the victim lives. I wonder how the victim feels. knowing that she might meet her attacker on the street or in a supermarket at any given day.
Paul Freeman says
The BBC hates Israel. We should understand why.
Firstly, understandably, the BBC doesn’t want any harm to come to its reporters. It doesn’t want another Alan Johnston (kidnapped), another Frank Gardner (in a wheelchair), or another Simon Cumbers (murdered). So, as an institution, the BBC toes the terrorists’ line for the sake of its reporters in the field, while those reporters toe the line for their own safety – all well aware, of course, of the appeasement.
So much is self-evident and even been admitted by senior BBC personnel:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/13/bbc-tim-davie-deborah-turness-hamas-terrorists/
But then it gets worse. Everyday, BBC reporters are forced to witness the uncomfortable reality of Israel, while refusing to sink to the depravity of the terrorists, showing it’s not afraid of them. Imagine what that does to their self-esteem. Imagine what it’s like being a veteran reporter whose entire career, despite being required professionally and morally to uphold standards of journalistic integrity, has been based on the lie that Israel is no different from, or even worse than the terrorists. Imagine what it does to a person’s soul to be reminded, day in day out, that you’re a coward hiding behind a lie. It must be excruciating.
Other factors, too, of course are in play. But this is the fundamental human reason why BBC reporters hate Israel. It makes them feel like rubbish for which they despise themselves. And the more Israel persists in its endeavour to uphold its own standards of integrity, the more they hate it as the cause of their own distress and the more desperate and ridiculous they become in their efforts to tarnish it.
James Lincoln says
Paul Freeman,
A very interesting and thought-provoking post.
My compliments.
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness says
Time for Israel to form an anti propaganda ministry. It is stunning how quickly Robert Spencer’s warnings about Islam once seemed like a voice in the wilderness and now so relevant as Islam begins to publicly display on a worldwide scale its true nature and intent. These criminals that have been released should have had to agree to a tracking device of some sort.
SJ says
We need a Jewish Civil Rights group that will respond to all the attacks happening in the US and elsewhere – that is not infiltrated by Islam.
SJ says
Hugh, a very real problem we have in the U.S. is the fact that Jewish websites that are to explain things are SO LIBERAL that I’ve even written the editor. This was before Oct 7th. In fact, we went back and forth in respectful argument, and this editor saw nothing wrong in articles she allowed. So, basically what Jews and Israel needs is a strong Israel/Jew sites – not a bunch of liberal, idiotic ones. Also, the site I’m speaking of is a very popular one. I am at the point where I want to create my own site because not all Jews are LIBERAL like the suicidal ones we see here in the U.S., run by American Jews.