PR?

Oh, I have an idea, perhaps in America, Netanyahu could appear on "Dancing with the Stars."

Perhaps in Germany, a music video from the location of the Old Berlin Wall. A new rap song maybe? "You Took it Down and we Build it Up."

Perhaps the university could offer a PHD in Spin Doctor?

PR, Israel, is what people and nations resort to when the TRUTH is too uncomfortable.

Here is some history of 'hasbara' from Yonatan Mendel:

--

Hasbara is the noun form of the Hebrew verb 'to explain', in the sense of advocating a position. 'Propaganda' might seem the obvious translation but that might not do justice to the intensity of feeling that lies behind it. A Ministry of Hasbara was first created in 1974, with Shimon Peres in charge; in 1975 it was disbanded and hasbara became a multi-ministerial task. Since then, the importance of hasbara has come to the fore every time Israel has been involved in a major conflict—the 1982 war, the 1987 intifada, the 2000 intifada. In March 2009, two months after the invasion of Gaza, Israel re-established the Ministry of Hasbara; the current minister is Yuli Edelstein.

The hasbara aspect of the Gaza operation was put in train several months before the invasion. In May 2008 four French-speaking Israelis were selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in conjunction with the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, to visit Switzerland, France and Belgium, where, as the Jewish Agency spokesperson put it, they were to 'deliver the messages that our official diplomats cannot'. 'Stick to your personal stories,' they were told, 'do not be drawn into political discussions. There will be people who irritate you and say that you are occupiers … do not go there.' Similar, English-speaking delegations set out for Britain, Ireland, Holland, Denmark and the US. German speakers went to Germany. On arrival, they gave interviews to the local media; they met members of parliament, members of the Jewish community and local bigwigs and spoke, as instructed, of their own experience—the constant shelling, the effects on their families, their businesses, their daily lives.

...

In February this year, the government's Masbirim website (masbirim: 'those who explain') drew up a set of instructions for Israelis traveling abroad. The website, which according to the Ministry of Hasbara had 130,000 hits in its first week, aims to 'provide information to counter criticism that might be experienced abroad'. It details Israel's achievements in technology and agriculture, as well as suggesting ways to 'encourage visits to Israel', 'to dispel myths about Israel' and to deal with political criticism. Visitors to the website are advised, when arguing with 'people of other cultures', to 'maintain eye contact … if you look away it might be seen as lack of attention and your argument will lose its force,' and 'to keep generally still … rapid movements can create nervousness and confuse.' The same advice is being broadcast on Israeli television. Further afield, to ensure that the Israeli tourist is comprehensively brainwashed before landing in London or Rome, the Ministry of Hasbara distributes its brochures to passengers about to board El Al flights, and the TV campaign is beamed to aircrafts' in-flight entertainment systems. There is no running away.

When Israel sent 200 soldiers to Haiti to set up a field hospital on a football pitch in Port-au-Prince, the Israeli media crowed. 'What do you think about that, Goldstone?' was one headline. 'Israeli Delegation to Haiti Makes All Others Pale,' said another. 'Well Done Us,' said a third. But the most disturbing was: 'The Haiti Disaster: Bad for Them, Good for the Jews.'

--

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n05/yonatan-mendel/hasbara

Hasbara sounds decidedly similar to the propaganda machine of Joseph Goebbels.

You can put lipstick on a pig but it will still be a pig. You can have a brutal occupying power with a slick Public Relations machine, but it is still a brutal occupying power.

in the news just yesterday:

Israeli Government Documents Show Deliberate Policy Restricting Food To Gaza

http://www.truth-out.org/israeli-government-documents-show-deliberate-policy-restrict-food-gaza65472

The best message the Israelis could send is to allow Chomsky and other progressive Jews to speak.

Oh the smiling face of Lieberman, a fascist thug even to Israelis.

Don't they realize that in this day and age the competition may not be able to play the same game, but uses the internet to spread its message? Even if these Israelis were acting in good faith, it might smell like a big turd in fancy wrapping, even to sympathizers of Israel, and I haven't been one for quite some time! But it's good to read this on the Haaretz-site; it tells us there are still Menschen (if you don't know Yiddish, check the meaning of this word) in Israel.

Typical response of the sociopath: don't change your behavior, change your PR.

Americans believe in a mythic land called Mom and Apple Pie. It was created by the mostly Jewish moguls of Hollywood. Now Israel is going to do the same for itself in Europe. But lies begin to stink eventually.

I can recall when the regime in Zuidafrika did the same thing. They were desperate, and with good reason. Their "apologia pro peccatta nostra" campaign was greeted with the disgust it deserved, and they finally packed it in just 2-3 years later.

I have no idea what Zionists might have in Europe that is the equal of AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee) in the US, but I hope Europeans are smarter than we have been as we gave so much control of US foreign policy over to Israel (the very definition of treason, when you think about it). Note the quote below.

"I spoke with the head military lawyer for the IDF, Joel Singer, and I said 'You know, I'm two weeks here. It's clear you people are inflicting Nuremberg crimes on the Palestinians, exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews. What's your explanation?' He said 'Military necessity'. Notice, he didn't disagree with me. I said 'That argument was rejected at Nuremberg when the lawyers for the Nazis made it.' So then he said, 'Well, we have public relations people in the United States, and they handle these matters for us.' " -- Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois

Methinks they do protest too much.

I notice that the pro Israel internet press in Canada is becoming increasingly rabid and hostile to any criticism of Israel. Pro Palestinian sentiments and calls for BDS must be working.

Israel will do anything to avoid ending the occupation. It's telling that Israel feels it needs to propagandize Europeans--must mean that Israel realizes we're not buying their claim that it's been the Palestinians who have held up the peace talks. The whole world knows now that it's been Israel all along who has broken every agreement and put obstacles in the path to peace. The whole world knows that Israel is an apartheid country practicing ethnic cleansing. They're going to need more than cheap talk.

The Europeans aren't even half as stupid as the Americans. They'll send those zionist liars packing.

A rose by any other name is but a ROSE. APHARTHEID CAN NOT BE MADE TO SMELL GOOD.

Earlier this month, Stephen R. Shalom, political science professor at William Paterson University in NJ, gave a great talk at Yale, addressing the new Israeli theme that critics of Israel are anti-Semitic because they hold Israel to a double standard.

Dr. Shalom's remarks will be very useful to anyone interested in refuting Israel's new propaganda. Here's the opening paragraph, followed by a link to the full text:

"As it becomes increasingly difficult to justify Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people, Israel’s apologists — whether based in Israel or at pseudo-academic centers such as the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism — resort to another line of defense: namely, they accuse Israel’s critics of being anti-Semitic. Not the sort of classic anti-Semitism found for example in Hamas’s Charter, but instead the anti-Semitism of an anti-Israel double standard. What I’d like to do is examine some of these claims of anti-Semitism and double standards and see what merit they may have...."

http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2010-11-19/stephen-
shalom-anti-semitism-and-the-israel-palestine-conflict/

In recent weeks, I'd noticed a refreshing lack of tedious and predictable commentary from the well-known CD comments Hasbara contingent.

Perhaps they've all been recalled to Headquarters to participate in Just In Time Training for this preposterous push.

I guess Israel's new push to promote tourism will be more entertaining than most of us had realized:

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/02/21/
canadian-jewish-tourism-ad-uses-oral-sex-to-promote-
israeli-tourism/

The video on this website speaks for itself. From the accompanying article, "Canadian Jewish Tourism Ad Uses Oral Sex to Promote Israeli Tourism":

"Sponsored by the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA) undoubtedly in close collaboration with the foreign ministry, this ad video is in indescribably bad taste, portraying an attractive couple in bed with the woman telling the man she can’t possibly “do it” because it’s “too small.....”

"This also puts into proper perspective the blandishments of Birthright Israel and its former premier trip vendor, Shlomo Momo, who hold out to trip participants the possibility of great Jewish sex and meeting potential Jewish mates on their trips..."

You really have to see this to believe it.

Sounds to me like somebody is planning a big post-Hanukka mass murder of Palistinians.

Maybe they have come up with "The Final Solution" to the "Palistinian Problem"

Didn't the South Africans tried something like this during the closing years of the pre-apartheid era. All of this shows is this new apartheid state is trying to change the fact that world opinion (even now in the US) is now increasingly moving against them. It didn't work for the South African's then (and that was the pre-internet age) and it probably wont work for the Israel's now.

In the UK it's reckoned that about 400 sitting MP's are members of the Political Lobby groups "Friends of Israel" so if they're only hoping to raise 1000 supporters they're 40% there already at the heart of Government.

This is like painting a Happy Face on Hitler's SS.

"Public relations" is "propaganda".
---------

"Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995), was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda along with Ivy Lee, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".

"As a Jew who had witnessed the critical role that propaganda and mass media had played in creating anti-German sentiment in Britain prior to WWI and again during and after the Nazis' pseudo-democratic rise to power in Europe, Bernays felt that the same unleashing of irrational animosity could happen in any democratic society."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

"Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda#America_in_World_War_II

I have a large number of relatives, friends, and acquaintances in Europe, most of whom live in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. The subject of Israel and the Israelis only comes up occasionally, and I get the impression that it's a topic that most would rather avoid. The press in most European countries seems pretty even handed in its collective coverage of events of the Middle East, and I sense that those segments of the populations (or at least the part of those mentioned earlier) that I have talked with are fairly well informed of those events and are not particularly friendly toward either cultures enveloped in conservative Muslim religious beliefs or toward Israeli Jews. One must understand that unlike the situation in the US and Canada, Jewish citizens do not possess a great deal of power in most European government or politics. Any propaganda campaign aimed at European populations will probably be met with indifference and skepticism or possibly even animosity. I don't think anything positive will come of the campaign. The only people I know that have traveled recently to Israel have been on religious pilgrimages rather than tourist jaunts, and that has not been to the Wailing Wall.

It will be interesting to follow how many protests these initiatives will be met with.