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"Tzipi Livni is the most famous Israeli woman in the world, according to the number of hits on Google, and Bar Refaeli is second. During a week in which Livni was nearly elected prime minister, Refaeli appeared on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, an Oscar for supermodels. Her photo in a bikini was put on an airliner and the Israeli media were thrilled that another of ours had made it big abroad.
Refaeli presents herself everywhere as an Israeli, and even expressed her support for Livni on the eve of the elections. The enormous international exposure she enjoys raises the question of whether she helps Israel's public-relations campaign abroad, and whether her photos on the beach soften the hard images of the war in the Gaza Strip.
At the Foreign Ministry they believe that she helps. The Brand Israel project, which was created during Livni's tenure, seeks to counter the country's aggressive and religious image abroad, using common marketing tools. If Israel is perceived as a hard, unpleasant place, resembling an armed evangelical village in Texas, then it is worthwhile to reveal softer sides to the West.
A year and a half ago, the Foreign Ministry sponsored a photo essay in the men's magazine Maxim, which presented bikini-clad Israeli models as former soldiers. A survey carried out after the publication showed that the readers caught on to the message and perceived Israel as a more liberal country, more similar to the United States than they had originally thought.
The branding project is not meant to influence Congressmen's votes on aid to Israel, or Barack Obama's stance on the settlements; it aims to alter an image in the long run. It confronts Israel's most difficult problem in the world: the difference in the way Israelis perceive themselves and the way they are perceived abroad."
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