Branding Israel

It’s a question that we’ve been asking ourselves for 40 years: Why is it that we're so bad at PR? I might be a little biased, but even when I try really hard to be objective, I'm still convinced that Israel has a pretty good case. But when it comes to the media, foreign governments and hearts & minds in general, the Palestinians have done a far better job at making themselves heard.

Everything seems to be a PR disaster for us. So much so that we resort to getting some Israeli girls to strip down and model for lads’ mags as “sexy Israeli soldiers”. This might be a bit of harmless fun, but quite embarrassing to have come from an Israeli diplomat, as an official Israeli hasbara initiative. Why is it that no one considers even West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and that the BBC even felt the need to apologise when a sports presenter referred to it as such? Why is it that Israel has to defend its “right to exist”, a phrase never used for any other country?

I was driving through a predominantly Arab neighbourhood of Lod on the way to work when I spotted a house at the side of the road. It was a pretty large house, probably owned by one of the town’s more well to do residents, or perhaps simply home to a very large extended family. In the brickwork there was a plaque marking the year it was built (1990) and with an illustration of the Dome of the Rock. The Palestinians love imagery. Every Palestinian official sits in an office with a picture of Jerusalem fixed to the wall. And what have they talked about non-stop for the past forty years? Three things. Jerusalem, the Occupation and refugees. They go on and on about them and find a way of attaching everything that happens to one (or two or three) of them. As far as marketing is concerned, continuously reiterating your key messages is the secret to building up a brand. Ask anyone about the Palestinians and they will know that they stand for these three things.

What about Israel? What are our key messages? Hmmm. We want peace… or at least no war or perhaps separation. We love Jerusalem even though most of us don’t talk about it or even visit it very often. We’re good at science and technology. But our most important message – the one we always like to focus on – is that we want to be accepted by the world. That’s all, just accepted.

So put your feet in the shoes of a neutral and ask yourself, ‘Whose message would convince you?’

A Land of Contradictions

On Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, several hundred settlers chose to mark the day by marching to the ruins of the evacuated settlement of Homesh in the northern West Bank. This followed a series of earlier treks to Homesh on every Jewish holiday, in an attempt to show up the government and push for resettlement.

Not all settlers favour calls to resettle this area, and even fewer are willing to break the law in going there. This group is made up predominantly of young, religious settlers who believe in their God-given right to live in all the land promised to them. The Arabs have shown that they won’t live under them nicely, so they need to be forcefully pushed away. The Palestinians, on the other hand, see the settlers as unwanted colonialists, living on their land. They see the straggly haired hilltop youth as nothing less that the scum of the scum – lawless hooligans, causing havoc under the noses of their conniving leaders.

When one views things in such clear terms, there is little room for debate and no room for self questioning. Black and white, so it seems.

Not so. When the settlers marched, they waved at IDF jeeps and bought ice cream from local Palestinians who had arrived at the scene with shopping carts. What?! The friendly gesturing at Israel troops makes sense, but the trading between settler and Palestinian, occupier and occupied, enemy and enemy? If the Palestinians hate them so much, why did they go to such lengths to provide them with refreshing snacks on a hot day? What were the settlers doing giving business to the other?

Put simply, Israel needs ice cream, and the Palestinians need to sell ice cream. It’s the old Siamese twins problem rearing its ugly head again. We need them and they need us. Which is why we will never separate from each other, despite what our leaders might say. Will we come to an agreement with them once day? Maybe not. But an understanding? Certainly.

It’s exactly this land of contradictions that I live and breath.