Complaining about Israel’s hasbara, or public relations efforts, has become a favorite national pastime of pro-Israel activists.
Whenever I speak to Jewish or Christian audiences in Israel and abroad, someone inevitably feels it necessary to launch into a harangue about just how terrible the Jewish state is at explaining itself.
Jews are among the most successful marketing and public-relations executives worldwide, the questioner might ask. So why can’t Jews do as good a job at selling the Jewish state?
Having been involved in hasbara in one form or another for more than two decades, I certainly share the frustration.
I remember well how, in the mid-1990s, when I served as deputy communications director in the Prime Minister’s Office during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first term, we devoted countless hours to tackling just this issue.
Is it the hostility of the media that stands in the way? A lack of appreciation on the part of various government bodies for the importance of PR? Or perhaps it is Israel’s fractious politics, and the mixed messages that often emerge, which truly complicate things.
Whatever the true cause of our troubles, there is no doubt that our standing in the eyes of international public opinion remains a matter of grave concern. Nonetheless, I am beginning to wonder if perhaps our heightened focus on what is wrong has led us to overlook a lot of what is right.
Consider the following. As President Barack Obama was preparing for his trip to our region this week, Israelis received some good news regarding our oft-maligned international public image.
According to a Gallup survey, U.S. support for Israel is at the highest level seen in nearly a quarter-century, with 64 percent of Americans saying they sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians. A mere 12 percent said they favor our foes.
The last time the Jewish state enjoyed such levels of support was back in 1991, when Saddam Hussein was firing Scud missiles at Tel Aviv and the Palestinian intifada was raging.
In the past decade alone, U.S. backing for Israel has surged by 18 points from its 2003 level of just 46 percent.
The support is also broad-based, cutting across demographic groups from young to old, men and women, and from the uneducated to those with advanced degrees.
What makes these numbers all the more impressive is the fact that the Jewish state has been on the receiving end of unprecedented media bias and partiality. Just check out the important work being done by groups such as Honest Reporting or CAMERA (the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), and you will see how twisted the coverage of our region can often be.
But this raises an important question: If the mainstream media is so profoundly against us, then why are we doing so well in the arena of American public opinion? There are a number of possible answers, ranging from the groundswell of evangelical Christian support for Israel to the penetration of the Internet and its ability to circumvent traditional media outlets. Either way, the fact remains that we must be doing something right in how we explain ourselves if our public standing in America is so strong and resilient.
Some may view this as a bit of hasbara heresy, a form of violating the nearly sacred belief that our public diplomacy is simply putrid. But I prefer to think of it as a healthy dose of reality. Telling ourselves everything stinks, even when it doesn’t, is neither helpful nor truthful.
Let’s make sure to savor and learn from our successes, rather than downplay and ignore them.
Michael Freund served as deputy communications director in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first term. He is the founder and chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org) and is a frequent blogger and correspondent.