It was the top of the hour, so I decided to turn on the television while I was recently in New York to catch the news. With so much going on in the world, I was curious to see what the top story would be. The deployment of Western troops in Macedonia? Or perhaps China’s latest crackdown on dissent?
Much to my surprise, America was preoccupied that day with an issue apparently far more important than the lives of untold thousands in some distant land. If the agendas of the news programs are any barometer, then it seems fair to say that while international crises may be interesting, they evidently pale in comparison with former Vice President Al Gore’s facial hair.
You see, after staying out of the limelight for the past several months, Gore had suddenly re-emerged, hidden behind a rather well-tended beard and moustache. Indeed, had he been wearing a yarmulke, Gore might easily have been mistaken for a member of the National Religious Party.
Israelis tend to pay scant attention to their leaders’ whiskers, either because we have grown accustomed to them or because we simply have more important things to worry about. But Americans are just not used to seeing their leaders sporting a lot of facial fuzz. And so, various political consultants trotted before the cameras to offer all sorts of strategic analyses of Gore’s change in look. The Associated Press actually ran a story on Aug. 11 entitled, “Gore still hasn’t shaved his beard,” while the New York Times op-ed page published a piece on Aug. 18 entitled, “Sometimes a Beard Changes Everything.” Americans probably haven’t spent so much time discussing an official’s body parts since, well, Bill Clinton.
One cannot help but watch this veritable circus with a mixture of fascination and envy. Nowhere else in the world would an issue of such trivial importance receive such top billing. The absurdity of it is simply striking. With all due respect to Gore, it is hard to imagine that anyone other than his wife actually cares about his facial hair. But America’s late-night television comedians, such as Jay Leno and David Letterman, are sure to get a lot of mileage out of Gore’s beard, thereby keeping the “story” alive for weeks to come. And if Gore should dare to trim a little off the sides one day, leaving a goatee, things will almost certainly start to get hairy.
If there is a lesson in all of this for Israel, it is that perhaps we are worrying a little too much about how we look in the American media, and not enough about what we need to be doing on the ground. The attention of the world certainly shifts our way now and then, but Americans are largely consumed by their own problems, from a moribund economy to wildfires in Western states to Gore’s facial fur. Indeed, when Israel is mentioned at all on television, it is usually only in passing, part of a “world roundup” or a “global minute” of news that is typically buried midway through the broadcast. And by that point, how many viewers are still paying attention?
Of course, this is not to say that Israel doesn’t need to work harder at improving its image, seeking to cultivate further support and educate our friends and allies. But we also need to keep things in proper perspective. The Middle East may be an important story, but whereas we live and breathe it every day, there are plenty of people out there who do not, seeing it as just another foreign news item, something to be ignored while waiting for the sports scores.
In addition, polls over the years have consistently shown that Israel still enjoys broad levels of support among the American public. Thus, as bad as the media’s anti-Israel bias may be, it has largely failed to undermine the sympathetic view that many Americans have for Israel. Clearly, those people who do care about the region and follow events in the Middle East more closely nevertheless remain largely unswayed by the media’s unfriendly depiction of the Jewish state.
This is something that the government needs to keep in mind when formulating its foreign affairs and security policies, for it no doubt ties its own hands on occasion because of mistaken illusions about the seemingly unlimited power of the media. It is time to put those illusions aside, and to make security-related decisions based solely on what is good for Israel, and not on fears about how it might play on the evening news broadcast overseas.
Indeed, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon might do well to consider hanging a portrait of a bearded Al Gore in the cabinet room — for there can be no better way to remind the country’s decision-makers about where many Americans’ news priorities truly lie.
And, as silly as it may sound, it might also give Israelis something to hope for — that one day soon, Israel Radio will find nothing better to report on than a former premier’s five-o’clock shadow.