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| Pâ•qidꞋ Yi•rᵊmᵊyâhꞋu |
, Sayyed Khizb-Allah War Criminal 185x214.jpg "Nass?r-Allah, War Criminal") |
War Criminal |
äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä means "propaganda," not "public relations".
äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä is feckless and often even counter-productive contrasted with slick and insidious Arab propaganda and primitive contrasted with Western profession of public relations.
2006.08.21 1330 Yᵊru•shâ•laꞋyim Daylight Time – Primitive Compared to Arab (or any other) PR — Israelis who think they've finally "gotten it" on the subject of äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä are the farthest from comprehending PR. äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä can never be equivalent to PR anymore than selling is equivalent to marketing or horses are equivalent to animals. PR is proactive, preemptive and takes the initiative. äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä is reactive – and wussy and whiny. äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä is exactly what Israel does and it's a disaster. Arabs employ the most egregious and barbaric propaganda, including brazen, bald-faced lies and slander. While Israel is correct not to stoop to such despicable perverseness, we desperately need to learn and apply professional public relations (PR) standards and strategies.
PR, public relations, is NOT merely explaining (Hebrew äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä). To get down to primary level,
"Public relations practitioners are basically interpreters. On the one hand, they must interpret the philosophies, policies, programs, and practices of their management [in this case government] to the public[s]; on the other hand, they must translate the attitudes of the public[s] to their management [i.e., government]."
Each sector of a target audience is defined in PR as a distinct public; hence, there are many publics, for each of whom interpreting must be specifically tailored.
Beyond this basic definition, to be more successful than one's competition, PR must be, and stay, ahead of competing PR; proactive rather than reactive. That means that PR practitioners are failures unless they can out-think the competition and seize the initiative. In the Middle East, this means that unless the PR practitioner can read the players, intrigues and dynamics of the Middle East better than the Arabs (which is automatically infinitely better than any Westerner, any European – or any Israeli practitioner of äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä), they have no chance of success in Middle East PR.
Such deep integration of PR into the basic strategizing and policy-making further implies that PR, while it cannot (ordinarily) be permitted to dictate policy, must be an integral part of planning and strategizing from the first brainstorming and get-go.
I'm experienced in connecting dots in intelligence work. It's clear to me that Khiz'b-Allah's rebuilding by distributing Iranian-printed US $100 super-notes is no serendipitous stroke of luck. This sophisticated response required a lot of planning, long before they attacked. Khiz'b-Allah planned, long before crossing the international border to kill three Israeli soldiers and capture two others, to use Iranian-printed $100 super-notes (virtually undetectable phony US bills) in an attempt to undermine the US economy while simultaneously grabbing a PR bonanza in financing Lebanese rebuilding. That's forward planning and PR thinking to be respected; strategizing that included PR as integral from the first brainstorming session. PR didn't dictate Khiz'b-Allah's war strategy, but it certainly complemented it at every stage and kept Israeli äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä from claiming what was, by all criteria, a "gimme." Well, enemies don't grant "gimmes." Welcome to the real world. Israel quickly found herself having to defend her actions for trying to defend herself after having been the victim of an unprovoked attack across an international border. Israeli PR is PATHETIC!!! Whomever Israel may have consulted is irrelevant. If the consultant was competent then Israel hasn't been listening.
Update insert 2014: Khamas successfully replayed the same movie. Israel is not learning.
There are a couple of shining stars in the muck of Israeli PR, most notably Amb. Dan. Gillerman, who is doing a stellar job given the primitive state of Israeli PR thinking. Still, the "äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä Syndrome" prevents Israeli spokespeople from being competitive with the Arabs. Israelis still have the arrogant loser mentality that being right is enough and doesn't require explanation. It's time to wake up. Newspapers write to 8th graders. Jay Leno makes a living partly by getting hilarious – given in seriousness – answers to basic questions about history, geography and the like from random Americans on the street, some of whom are college graduates. "Assuming" such publics understand Israel's rightness compares unfavorably with the Americans whom Leno good-naturedly ribs.
When Israel ignores PR we ensure negative world opinion, publics who will "buy" Arab PR because the only story in town is also the only story that makes any sense. A reactive response then sounds like a defensive and whiny afterthought. (Amazingly, despite the disadvantages of Israeli äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä, Amb. Gillerman avoided whiny, remaining dignified and persuasive.)
While the war still raged, the PR consideration was clear that Israel needed to file lawsuits with the Hague charging Nassᵊr-Allah and his cronies with war crimes or they would be busy convincing the world that Israeli leaders were the war criminals. Just yesterday, the media gave Khamas an enormous PR victory running the story of a Gaza class that held a mock trial finding Peretz guilty of war crimes and sentencing him to death. I'm livid. Not because the Arabs were clever enough to see the opportunity but because that was no mere stroke of bad luck for Israel – it was Israeli incompetence and Israel still doesn't get it.
Like Khiz'b-Allah, Khamas demonstrates proactive PR. See a pattern here anywhere? Israel coulda, shoulda woulda been there fustest with the mostest. But Israel is macho – and arrogant and a bit xenophobic. Israel has hubris. Israel is right. éÄäÀéÆä áÌÀñÅãÆø (It'll be ok).
The Gaza children's mock trial demonstrates that the Khiz'b-Allah debacle still hasn't forced Israel to wake up and take the initiative. We're still playing react and whine. If Israel's leaders can't think ahead of the Arabs read a Bobby Fisher book on forcing check-mate and discover why you should resign and leave the job to someone who can. The reason Israeli generals make lousy political leaders is because they were never as good as the hype even at being generals and, though there has been an occasional great exception, Israeli generals don't usually make a good transition to political leader even when they were an excellent general.
There are serious grounds to charge Nassᵊr-Allah and his cronies with war crimes. He is guilty of the following war crimes, all recognized under international law as crimes against humanity:
recruiting sympathizers from among the non-combatant civilian population to act as human shields,
entrenching non-uniformed guerilla fighters among the non-combatant civilian population,
forcing unwilling non-combatant civilians to involuntarily act as human shields,
preventing non-combatant civilians from fleeing danger areas, thereby forcing them into harm's way, and
targeting non-combatant civilian population indiscriminately with thousands of missiles.
We have lawyers here. But Israel is remiss, too myopic to see priorities realistically. It's still a priority and we'll pay the price repeatedly until Israel abandons äÇñÀáÌÈøÈä for serious, professional, PR. We haven't seen it yet.
Further, if targeting the enemy's non-combatants and placing one's own non-combatants – elderly, women, children, even spouses and their own babies – in harm's way is a war crime, then Israel must prosecute; if the Hague decides these are not war crimes then Israel has no alternative but to do likewise: extirpate our enemies before they "wipe Israel off the face of the earth." The Hague better do a rethink of the serious repercussions before exonerating Nassᵊr-Allah, Khamas, et al. – notwithstanding the technicalities that they are not states nor signatories to the World Court.
The 2006 war with Khiz'b-Allah began in 2000.07 with the late miso-Judaic Prof. Edward Said of Columbia University throwing rocks across the border fence at Israeli soldiers. What followed was creeping escalation that culminated in a fusillade of rockets, a small-scale invasion of south Lebanon and significant bombing of a small sector of Beirut inhabited exclusively by the Fi•da•yinꞋ of Khiz'b-Allah.
If Israeli soldiers had dispersed the rock throwers with rubber bullets, weathering any storm by pro-actively justifying any accidental injuries or deaths if they occurred, and taking a firm stance, with full preparations, then conditions would never have escalated to this 2006 war. Thus, it's critical that Israel now learn and apply this lesson. Better to weather small tempests now preventing the rearming or rebuilding of Khiz'b-Allah fortifications on our northern border than to permit conditions to escalate into what might, next time, be a nuclear confrontation involving Iran where we find ourselves setting up a defense line at Har MᵊgidꞋo – Armageddon.
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