[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Do the folks at the Geneva Initiative really think that the Israeli public
is going to be won over by an expensive ad campaign?

Do the folks at Peace Now really think that they money they pour into
various campaign is effective?

These are the questions of the naïve.

Because the main purpose of the exercise is not to carry out an effective
campaign.

This is a business.

The peace business.

You get money from foreign governments etc. to pay salaries for "activists"
and friends at ad agencies etc.

You get paid for going on the lecture circuit and spend time at five star
hotels and resorts around the world talking about peace [how many
conferences have been at 3 star hotels?].

============

Artificial peace messages

Op-ed: Israeli desire for peace genuine, no need for clumsy advertising
campaign funded by US

Gerald Steinberg Published: YNET 09.01.10, 00:14 / Israel Opinion
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3947082,00.html

After failing for 18 months to reverse the results of the 2009 Israeli
election that brought a coalition headed by Benjamin Netanyahu to power, the
Obama administration appeared to have stopped the clumsy efforts to
manipulate Israeli democracy. But now the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) is using a small opposition group to sell artificial
peace messages to Israelis.

This US-sponsored campaign is based on political advertisements with the
message "that there is a (Palestinian) partner, that the problem is
specifically with us." The texts are prepared by a group calling itself the
"Geneva Initiative," and include video clips of Palestinian officials
telling Israelis that there is a "window of opportunity" for reaching a
peace agreement. USAID is also funding a parallel campaign aimed at a
Palestinian audience.

In December 2003, amidst the mass terror campaign that followed the Oslo
"peace process," the Geneva Initiative began to promote its peace plan,
using funding provided by Swiss politicians with no understanding of the
Middle East. While most of the Israelis involved were opposition figures
(including Yossi Beilin), the Palestinians were all linked to the Fatah
organization, which was still controlled by Arafat.

Dubbed "Oslo 2", the substance of the proposed agreement was also
problematic, including very weak security provisions and a highly ambiguous
framework for dealing with Palestinian refugee claims. As a result of the
terms and the catastrophic experience with Oslo, this initiative had no
traction. Nevertheless, the efforts to sell the framework have continued,
but foreign government funding has not contributed to public acceptance.

Similarly, the USAID campaign is particularly ill-advised, and is likely to
lead to results which are the opposite of the intended objectives. The
Israeli desire for peace after 62 years of conflict and rejectionism is
genuine, and there is no need for a clumsy advertising campaign. After Sadat
accepted Begin's invitation to visit Israel in November 1977, the US did not
need staged video clips in order sell peace with Egypt to the Israeli
public.

Peace requires halt to demonization
Instead, Israelis need to see an end to the Palestinian media incitement
against Israel and the denial of the legitimacy of Jewish national
self-determination. In addition, peace requires a halt to demonization
through apartheid rhetoric, discriminatory boycotts, and calls for the UN
and the International Criminal Court to open "war crimes" cases against
Israeli officials. A few staged Palestinian pronouncements on peace made in
English and funded by the US will not erase this behavior.

Indeed, the impact of the USAID-funded advertising is likely to be
counterproductive, and add to Israeli doubts and concerns. Polls show that
the Israeli public is tired of the political manipulation that, until now,
has been engineered primarily by European governments, under the guise of
"civil society" and non-governmental organizations. Most of these efforts
are highly guarded secrets, with no information on the processes by which a
few marginal figures get large amounts of money to oppose the policies of
the elected Israeli government. Such direct interference by one democratic
country in the internal affairs of other democracies is also a blatant
violation of international norms - but these rules are ignored when it comes
to Israel.

Following the negative European precedent, the USAID website makes no
mention of this political campaign. The absence of full public disclosure or
Congressional oversight for this unusual venture is also exceptional. To
their credit, the leaders of the Geneva Initiative acknowledged that "The
campaign is supported with the generous support of the American people
through USAID."

But in other ways, the behavior of the Geneva Initiative highlights the
problem of secret foreign manipulation. They are funded via an organization
known as H.L. Education for Peace, which is not registered with the Israeli
government's Non-profit Registrar. In this way, the NGO evades reporting
requirements regarding the large-scale support received from the European
Union, Switzerland and other governments.

The issues of political manipulation and secret funding processes used by
foreign governments are at the core of the draft legislation recently
approved by the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee. The
"Disclosure Requirements for (Groups) Supported by Foreign Government
Funding" bill will require groups that receive such funding for a specific
advertising campaign to acknowledge that support within the framework of the
campaign. (The New Israel Fund and allied NGOs have wrongly denounced this
clause as anti-democratic, a position that protects the partisan NGO
recipients and leaves the Israeli public in the dark.)

If there is a real prospect for a workable peace agreement, Israelis do not
need to be persuaded by secret funding for false advertising - including the
absurd claim that 62 years of war, terror and rejection is "our fault."
These difficult decisions need to be based on detailed debate within the
context of Israeli democracy. If Israelis are convinced that this time,
there is a real basis for peace, and the benefits outweigh the risks, they
will act accordingly. And if the incitement and terror continue, more NGO
advertising will make no difference.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, Political Science, Bar Ilan University and
president, NGO Monitor