'People are laughing at you': U.K. expert on Israel's PR effort

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Raphael Ahren
Tags: Israel news


Conventional marketing wisdom has it that even bad news is good news, as long as people talk about you. But Jonathan Gabay, a leading London-based marketing and branding expert, disagrees, at least when it comes to Israeli hasbara, or public diplomacy.

He is extremely critical of the new campaign recently launched by Israel's Information and Diaspora Ministry, which seeks to motivate Israelis traveling abroad to speak up on behalf of Israel. Dubbed Masbirim Israel, or Explaining Israel, the campaign advises citizens on how to discourse politely and provided a list of Israel's achievements to be highlighted in conversations.

"People are laughing at you," Gabay, 48, fumed as he was looking at some articles in British newspapers making fun of Masbirim. "Who is advising you on your brand? This is not good, this is pretty bad."

Media outlets all over the globe reported about Masbirim, many deriding the campaign. "Apparently your pamphlet says people should first listen and then talk, make eye contact, used relaxed body language - I mean, really?" said Gabay, who teaches at a major marketing school, regularly appears on British TV channels and has written 15 books about branding. "This is very serious. We live in a world of cynicism. This is producing the worst kind of diplomacy," he stressed.

"What upsets me is that when I come here I actually think that Israel is the most democratic country in the whole of the Middle East," continued Gabay, who visited Israel this week to consult several hi-tech companies. "But this doesn't come across in your PR. Because you guys put out marketing campaigns which talk about Israel being a peace-loving state that developed the cherry tomato and won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998. As fascinating as it is that you developed the cherry tomato, do you honestly think that's going to change people's perceptions?"

read on...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1155874.html

[ProgressiveMuslim]

1. Or... Israel could actually stop the violence and end the occupation and siege.

Nothing better for a brand Israel than actual justice!

[Chemisse]

2. True

Actions speak a whole lot louder than words.

[dkf]

3. That Mossad assassination was beyond the pale.

They are becoming a rogue state and i worry we will pay the price of their recklessness.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cali]

6. do, explain. What precisely is the pig?

[FarrenH]

13. The pig is Israel. An Apartheid state is the pig.

And I lived through SA Apartheid. Israel is an Apartheid state.

[cali]

5. it'll take some doing before they outdo us.

yes, the Mossad assassination was beyond the pale, but our own actions are largely what we pay a price for.

[dkf]

9. I don't agree.

The history of Israel is one unfairness after another. It doesn't seem it will ever get to a point where it stops becoming unfair to a large portion of it's residents. If it settled down at least you could say what is past is past but there is only more turmoil in sight. I don't have a solution for the israelis. I just don't want to be involved. The have the smarts and the economy to go it alone. They don't need us.

[LeftishBrit]

10. 'The history of Israel is one unfairness after another'...

You don't think this is true of the USA and the UK too?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. Not to such a great extent over the last few decades.

There is a great deal of unfairness and wrongdoing in the recent history of both countries, but not nearly as much as in either their own older history or Israel's recent history.

[proteus_lives]

15. Or all nations/cultures?

[LeftishBrit]

8. I think we are already paying the price of OUR recklessness.

'That Mossad assassination was beyond the pale'

The bombing of Gaza was worse. Nevertheless, Israel is pretty low in the 'rogue state' league. What about all the things that the USA and UK have done to Iraq?!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. One crucial difference is that they aren't going to be permanent.

Another is that the stated motivation, and I suspect that at least some part of the genuine motivation, was to benefit the Iraqi people, and the invasion at one stage enjoyed non-trivial support among the Iraqi populace.

None of those appears to apply to Israel's occupation of the Palestinians' territories.

[LeftishBrit]

14. 'aren't going to be permanent' -Well I hope not, but they've already lasted too long

The idea that such invasions 'benefit the people' is a classic colonialist one. I'm sure some Israelis think the same about the Occupation.

Also, it's part and parcel of a general tendency for America and nowadays to a somewhat lesser (perhaps just due to practicalities) extent Britain to intervene in situations where we often do much more harm than good. What about Vietnam? What about America's interventions in Latin America in the 70s and 80s? What about the British Empire and its long-lasting spin-offs? And what about the racial and class discriminations in the USA and UK themselves?

I don't justify ANY of these things, but Israel is not uniquely bad. Nor is it uniquely good; but there are few on DU who think so.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

16. Depends what you mean by "uniquely bad".

Certainly, there are a great many countries whose governments behave immeasurably worse than that of Israel.

I do not, however, think that there are any prosperous Western democracies (as Israel at least claims to be) that have behaved nearly as badly in the last 20 years - I don't think the behaviour of the US and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan is comparable to the occupation of Palestine by Israel.

And there are certainly no countries that receive nearly as much aid and support from the US that behave nearly as badly as Israel (or that don't, for that matter...)

So I would say that in some ways Israel *is* unique.

[ConsAreLiars]

17. The scale of the crimes is pretty proportionale to the power of the criminals.

Israel massacres thousands and drives millions into refugee camps, the US massacres millions, cripples 10's of millions more and drives 10's of millions of the survivors into exile or tents in refugee camps, the UK tallies up maybe 10's of thousands murdered in recent years, pretty much the weak sister when it comes to measuring evil. Adjust all these numbers on a per capita basis, and weight the percentage-driven-from-their-land-and-homes factor a bit more than zero, and Israel might get the prize. But toss raw totals in the US and SE Asia and Latin America (I don't think the Falklands adds much for GB), and I think the US wins unless you consider the total proportion of the targeted population murdered, imprisoned, starved, maimed, or driven into exile. Israel gets top prizes in all categories when those numbers are entered into the equation.

(edit to be more precise)

[LeftishBrit]

7. If a country wants good PR abroad, it might be best advised NOT to select a far-right xenophobe as

Foreign Secretary,