Weekly Commentary: Lessons from this week for Israel’s PR Operation

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 3 June 2010

All the PR recommendations about “re-branding Israel” notwithstanding, once
again it turns out that the answer really isn’t photos of girls in bikinis
or even news about the fantastic time gays have in Tel Aviv, but instead a
cogent and timely presentation of an explanation of what we are doing, why
we are doing it and why we can do it.

Emphasis on the “timely”.

We had an event that took place pretty much at a time and place of our
choosing.

And as a bonus, we even had some extra time to prepare for the event as the
boats were delayed for a variety of reasons.

Regardless of the anticipated outcome of the operation, we knew that we had
to provide the international media covering the operation with material that
they could readily use that explained how we justified the move – both in
terms of the context of the operation (e.g. the security dangers associated
with smuggling, etc.) and the legality of the operation. We wanted this out
both quickly and in formats that made it easy for the media to cut and paste
it into their presentations as reporters struggled with the need to provide
a constant stream of material ASAP to their employers.

And again, regardless of the anticipated outcome of the operation, we knew
that we would be engaged in a race to provide images of the story so that
the media in its desire to broadcast pictures instead of being limited to
talking heads would basically have no choice but to air our material.

With all the respect in the world that I have for the hardworking people in
the Government and IDF – this didn’t happen.

A team didn’t edit the video and audio feeds for quick distribution as it
came in.

And, as Yaakov Katz of The Jerusalem Post revealed, a dispute between the
IDF and the Foreign Ministry kept those images from the public for many
critical hours.

I am not blaming the IDF personnel who thought that it was a mistake to
release videos of commandos being beaten. They had a right to their
opinion.

The question is why they weren’t overruled quickly.

#1. How did DM Ehud Barak fit into what transpired?

#2. More to the point: when the Foreign Ministry PR team was stonewalled by
the IDF Spokesperson’s Office, why didn’t FM Liberman immediately get into
the picture and resolve the issue in a phone call to DM Barak?

Liberman knows how to run a tight ship. If the same problem happened in the
Bat Yam branch of Yisrael Beiteinu you could be certain he would have heard
about it in minutes. Of course, not every minor problem needs to be brought
to the attention of the FM himself, but something is wrong in the Foreign
Ministry that this problem apparently didn’t shortcut up the system.

At the time of the launching of this planned, repeat planned, operation, no
branch of the Government nor the military had a document prepared for
distribution explaining the legal justification for the operation.

Many hours passed before the Foreign Ministry issued a general item on the
subject and only today – days later - was the first detailed legal brief
provided thanks to the IDF Military Advocate General.

The operative question tonight is not why this happened but instead how to
avoid this in the future.

Looking from the outside it’s next to impossible to know what kind of turf
wars and other problems are behind what happened.

But that’s not our problem.

Looking from the outside we can only suggest what is needed to be delivered.
How the system figures out how to deliver the goods is the system’s problem.

In the coming day the various Israeli PR teams will once again be put to the
test when the next vessel arrives on the scene.

One hopes that this time it will be different.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il
Website: http://www.imra.org.il