Israel’s PR problem
July 12, 2012, 10:10 am
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
Israel doesn’t just have a PR problem; it has real problems.
Juan Cole sums up the five issues that undermine Israel’s efforts to claim the high moral and political ground.
Today’s Chronicle of Higher Education (12 July) carries a story about a settlement of a lawsuit at Cal Berkeley, where some Jewish students had complained of a “pervasive hostile environment toward Jews” on the campus. They had to do with demonstrations connected to an “Apartheid Week” at Berkeley. “The activists portray themselves as Jews, with Stars of David, yarmulkes, and other traditional garb, and they man fake checkpoints intended to protest alleged rights violations by Israel in its treatment of Palestinians.”
Berkeley of course has been a wild and wooly place for a good many years now, and heaven knows who’s right and who’s wrong in this particular situation. Here’s the article:
http://chronicle.com/article/U-of-California-Settles/132827/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
I wonder (in connection with Joseph Komonchak’s thread of 9 July about threats to religious freedom) whether such hostility, real or alleged, might also be construed as a threat. He raised the difficult questions of how far one should and should not accommodate cultural differences (circumcision was one of the issues). In the Cal Berkeley case, there was a decision that no such threatening environment in fact existed; but suppose the decision had gone the other way?
My spies tell me, incidentally, that at its present General Convention the Episcopal Church is discussing the issue of Palestine, and I would imagine disinvestment is part of the question, though I don’t know.
Nicholas, thanks for the link. This case has been around for awhile and there have been various confrontations at other campuses, sometimes involving the effort to boycott investments in Israeli companies or products made by settlements on the West Bank. Dare I mention that often both sides are Jewish students, those who support the settlement policies and those that don’t? Obviously this is fraught territory for outsiders to enter. Too often charges of anti-Semitism are raised, or for Jews charges of being “self-hating Jews.” OY!
The Presbyterians recently voted down a disinvestment proposal and perhaps that’s what the Episcopalians are looking at. Perhaps you noticed that TIAA/CREF and some others delisted Catepillar Corporation as a socially responsible company for selling its construction equipment to Israeli forces for purposes of ripping down Palestinian homes on the West Bank.
Nicholas C. –
Might it be that that the protest is not simply an issue of perceived prejudice by the unhappy Jewish students, but it is also a sign of a new general malaise among Berkeley students? The Free Speech movement started there in the ’60s, so i see the place as a bell weather of coming storms. A check of the Berkeley U. newspaper shows that last September there were two serious demonstrations at Berkeley which resulted in students occupying buildings. One of them involved — of all things ! — the Republican students Increase Diversity Bake Sale. (You can’t make this stuff up,) Here’s an article from that paper about it.
http://www.dailycal.org/2011/10/03/a-tale-of-two-protests/
My point is that maybe the students’ problems are not completely motivated by perceived anti-Semitism, but they’re also motivated by the deep frustration of all the students, much of which was nspired by a proposed 81% increase in tuition, Everyone is in a black mood, it seems.
To complicate my attempts at a coherent world-view, I also read recently that Marxism is making a come-back. (I always expected it would.) Dollars to donuts there will be some neo-Marxists at Berkeley pretty soon, if they aren’t there yet. But I wonder what the re-appearance of Marx will do to the world-view of American Jews.
And will neo-Marxism take hold in Israel itself? The Occupy Movement tells me that the world is set for some sort of semi-organized reaction against too-powerful commercial interests. So what is the case in Israel? Is there a general black mood there inspired by the Israeli economy? Are there forces pulling people in opposite directions? An article in the August 3, 2011 New Republic says that there were student demonstrations in Tel Aviv about housing
“The problem spurring the protests, it soon became clear, exceeds young students and is broader than housing prices. It has to do with a structural problem in Israel’s economy. While the economy is healthy and growing, the middle class’s purchasing power keeps eroding. More and more families with two professional, university-educated bread-earners struggle to make ends meet. And what is difficult for the upper-middle class becomes acute with the lower-middle class (not to mention the poor). Police officers, nurses, teachers, civil servants, social workers—the people entrusted with the very backbone of social order—are earning insulting wages. The protests thus coalesce around the problem of a grossly unequal and unfair distribution of wealth.”
http://www.tnr.com/article/world/93039/tel-aviv-israel-protests-housing
Occupy Tel Aviv, anyone?
Yep, there is a Communist Party in Israel. Couldn’t find a student communist group at UC Berkeley
.http://maki.org.il/en/political/133-news/11385-tel-aviv-university-students-end-palestinians-administrative-detention-
The logistics here may be: Can the neo-Marxist come back in time to save us from the neo-Cons?
I shudder when I hear the word “Marx”. The neo-Cons are so frightened of Marx that they don’t seem to be able to consider his theories objectively. Sure, his solutions to economic woes don’t work, especially the Stalinists type, but his ideas are sometimes quite useful for analysing social problems with economic origins.
Somebody just sent me this article about a book of Karol Woytila written in Poland under the Communists. It’s about social ethics. Unsurprisingly, the work has never been published. (Why would George Weigel want it known?) One can see why. JP II actually talks the Communist talk in some spots including talk about class warfare being appropriate at times. Read it and weep, conservatives, but it should force you to look more carefully at Marx.
/Users/annolivier/Downloads/kwitny_col_Neither_capitalist_nor_Marxist__Karol_Wojtyla_s_social_ethics-1.doc
H/T gene palumbo.
Ann: neo-Marxists @ Berkeley? The wannabes are already there:
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/11/10/elite-berkeley-students-upset-theyre-in-the-1-throw-occupy-tantrum/?singlepage=true
Sort of.
Maybe.
“The problem spurring the protests, it soon became clear, exceeds young students and is broader than housing prices. It has to do with a structural problem in Israel’s economy. While the economy is healthy and growing, the middle class’s purchasing power keeps eroding. More and more families with two professional, university-educated bread-earners struggle to make ends meet. And what is difficult for the upper-middle class becomes acute with the lower-middle class (not to mention the poor). The protests thus coalesce around the problem of a grossly unequal and unfair distribution of wealth.”
With exception of “police officers, nurses, teachers, civil servants, social workers—the people entrusted with the very backbone of social order—are earning insulting wages” (excluding teachers in most districts), and a healthy, growing economy, this pretty much describes the US in 2012.
Stories like the one linked below from NPR earlier in the week also can’t be a help to Israel’s PR problem:
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/10/155361221/walls-of-palestinian-homes-come-tumbling-down
Jim MacK –
In teresting that none of the demonstrators say anything about Marx. There is one sign saying “Solidarity”, which, no doubt, would make JP II smile. The writer seems to have interviewed none of the students, yet projects all sorts of political stories on to them. Bad reporting. I wonder just what is really going on ss to ideologies and organizations, if any. It being Berkeley, one would expect something rather more definite than the ‘support education’ signs.
Oope, sorry, == Jim McCrea not Jim MacK.
I cannot believe that otherwise bright people insist on distorting the most salient facts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
The 1948 UN mandate created a Jewish state called Israel and a Palestinian state called Jordan.
The Arabs regard this event as “the catastrophe” and resisted it tooth and nail.
Arab states attacked Israel militarily again and again and were defeated each time.
Finally the Israelis in an act of self defense “occupied” the territories that were once part of Jordan, Syria, or Egypt.
After unrelenting pressure, Israel agreed to yield territories to a Palestinian entity in exchange for recognition. We all know what Arafat did in response to that.
Israel returned territory seized for Egypt after the peace agreement with Sadat.
How can there be any peace agreement with Palestinians who vow to wipe Israel off the map?
Mr. Foley: We are all otherwise bright people; you simply have a different conclusion about events since 1948.
Setting those differences aside, for the moment, a question: You seem to hold to the view that there is a single state of Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River and that there is no separate Palestinian entity on the West Bank; that Israeli “settlers” are legitimately occupying land that the Palestinian’s currently hope to have for their own state as well as occupying some land that is privately owned by Palestinians; and…. Here is the question: If Israel is a single state are the Palestinian occupants of the West Banks to be considered citizens of Israel? Or must they be ethnically cleansed in order for Israel to remain a Jewish state?
AND…really the post was about the increasingly difficult time the Netanyahu government is having in convincing the rest of the world (to say nothing of some of its own citizens) that its policies in the West Bank are legal. Juan Cole is right in suggesting that the campaign to establish the legitimacy of these policies is meeting critical questions and resistance, among Americans, Jewish and not.
I read somewhere that Israeli petro-engineers recently discovered that Israel has rather vast off-shore oil reserves that are now economically viable to exploit.
An Israel rich with oil and natural gas will change the picture quite a bit it seems.
Here is the link about Israeli oil:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/309151/world-changing-minute-minute-victor-davis-hanson
Ms. Steinfels, I have enormous respect for you. But you speak of constructs that don’t conform to realities on the ground. The Palestinians of whom you speak have been betrayed by their leaders who refuse to tell them that their only hope for peace and prosperity is to forge an alliance with the Israelis who have miraculously transformed a meager strip of desert into an economic engine for its people. The Jordanians didn’t want to absorb these people and become the Palestinian state envisioned by the UN. The Arab nations, by and large, regard them as little more than social misfits. So American and European liberals have cast a new narrative that encourages them to remain victims whose lives will somehow change when the “pigs” get off their land. There is literally no room for two completely independent nations on that sparse real estate. There may be room for interdependent peoples working alongside each other to build a nation for Jews, Muslims, Christians, and believers and unbelievers of every stripe. The Israelis know how to build such a nation and know they can’t do so without finding a way to include the neighbors. If the neighbors want to destroy you what can be done?
Mr. Foley: Some constructs are mythical and some are historical. I’m sure you recognize that.
So…Do you agree that the Arab inhabitants of the West Bank should become citizens of Israel? That their clams to land ownership should be recognized? That they should have full rights and responsibilities as citizens of Israel? Yea? or Nay?
Also: in reference to your first post. The UN did not create Jordan by the 1948 mandate; Jordan already existed. The UN mandate foresaw two states, one Jewish, one Arab. The Jewish community became a state while incorporating (through violence) part of the territory intended for the Arab one. Then in 1967, Israel occupied the rest of the land intended for an Arab state, i.e., the West Bank and Gaza. Israel remains an occupying power: as such, its policies of allowing Jewish settlements; its use of water and other natural resrouces; and its treatment of the people are generally seen to violate international law.
Margaret: you are summarizing a Middle East narrative supported by successive US Administrations. But the Israeli political establishment no longer recognizes that narrative. Last week the “Levy Commission,” which ws created by Netanyahu to study the legality of West Bank “outposts,” concluded that the international law of occupation “as set out in the relevant conventions cannot be considered applicable to the unique and sui generis historic and legal circumstances of Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria spanning over decades.”
Therefore settlements can’t be illegal because they are built on land that belongs to Israel. Only a few Israeli “left” politicians dared disagree with this legal/historical assertion. In the US, the AJC agreed that Israel is not an “occupying power”,” while disagreeing with the Levy Report recommendations to expand settlements.
Contrary to Juan Cole’s analysis, Israel does not have a “P.R.” problem. Israel is not distracted by divestiture movements nor demands to stop settlements. These demands distract others while the Israelis continue to establish settlements that will make it impossible to create a contiguous Palestinian state. I think that will be a disaster–but it seems an inevitable disaster.
As to Jack Foley”s description of a “one state” solution–a benevolent Jewish State governing the land between the Jordan and the sea. In less than two decades there will be more Palestinians than Jews living in what has called “greater Israel.” A single political entity could remain Jewish only to the extent that it was formally an apartheid state. The quest for a “Jewish state” that would be democratic with a majority non-Jewish population is an oxymoron. Indeed more Palestinians than Jews support a democratic “one-state” solution based on “one person, one vote.”
The facts on the ground continue to change in the Middle East–and we all remain concerned –but distracted– spectators.
I enjoyed very much the Cole’s post and especially the great comment about the Neo-Marxists perhaps saving us from the Neo-Cons.
But isn’t there something odd about the fact we are still arguing about the obvious–that the Likudites and their cousins in the USA are plainly crooks of the most baleful types and pious Mr Foley and others are pushing reverent explanations for why Israel has a right to murder whomever it wants.
Consider the case of Bernie Madoff. Suppose for a moment he had bilked only Goys and had slipped a million now and again to the propaganda tanks to deceive us all that we Americans have a duty to history to spill our blood and empty our treasury for the sake of the hysterical Zionists who wake up each day lamenting the fact that most of the world abhor their Little and Big Murders.
Can you image, then, Cole writing a piece on the five reasons why Madoff has not a PR program but a real one because wholesale deceiving and stealing is a crime.
For almost 11 years now, we get up in the morning and every day our peace of mind is ruined by the silly neocons telling us that we should lament for Israelis who are so afraid of being pushed into the sea OR if we don’t they will terrify our families (our Dad’s job in the USA, our children killed in Gaza) followed immediatly with extortion of Obama to send our air force against Iran —just so that the Israelis would not have to worry about their families drowning in the Mediterranean.
It’s a riot and the PR control is easy to remember. It is the LIE program: first lament, second, intimidate families and thirdly, extort, extort and extort.
What the hell is going on? You would think that we were living in Palermo where the Mafia at least skip the L phase and push SILENCE OR ELSE with the I and then extort all cops, judges and reporters with the E,
Come to think about it, it took the Mafia a long time to begin to attack family members of a target–but for the Lobby and the Likudites it is automatic–count them, their small frames and their grieving parents. The number was 410 in Gaza and then the PR neos tell us that the kids were killed by their perverted fathers who used them as shields and this proposition is passed by 90% of the American congress.
We have become a nation of silent collaborators to a barbarian ideology.
Where did I get the idea that Israelis have been the victims of murderous rocket attacks from Garza, Lebanon, and Iraq? What is pious about believing that any future prosperity for the people of that region must involve Israel and Israelis? The alternative narrative requires us to propose a solution by which Israel hands its land over to those who claim a right of return. Is this any less fanciful than proposing that the US return all it’s land to the descendants of the indigenous peoples? I am a native American myself having been born in Boston.
Dear Jack Foley,
You have a fine name so for your many sins of being taken in, please say only three Our Fathers each morning and in the evening find Stephen Walt in Google and also the organization IF AMERICANS KNEW and read anything and everything that Alison Weir has written.
Good Night from Heidelberg
” … Israel hands its land over to those who claim a right of return …”
Doesn’t Israel claim the same right of return for Jews throughout the world? Isn’t “their land” something that was handed over to them by those who really didn’t want to relocate Jews from Europe anywhere else? NIMBY. And isn’t that the same for Palestinians who are not wanted elsewhere in the Middle East? NIMBY redux.
The Balfour Declaration and subsequent UN actions were a fine bit of hand-washing by the Western children of Pilate.
(Nicholas C: I like your letter in the current issue of The Tablet.)