Fighting the PR War

My column this week in The Jewish Journal on Israel's PR challenge and one idea that might help. Here is the last part:

What should that message be? One thing Wexler impressed on me is that we shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing that if we go “beyond the conflict,” as many people are advocating, that somehow the world will be distracted from the Palestinian issue. They won’t.

But still, what can you possibly say in 10 or 30 seconds that can cut through the complexities of the conflict and generate more sympathy for Israel’s position?

In a word, hate.

Specifically, we ought to focus on the hatred and glorifying of violence taught in Palestinian schools, summer camps, media and mosques that many of us believe is the real obstacle to peace.

Even Dennis Ross, a top advisor to the White House on Middle East affairs, once told me that his biggest regret in the Oslo process was the failure to enforce the clauses against incitement in Palestinian society.

In truth, how can we expect Palestinians to want to make peace with those they have been taught to hate and reject? And how can we expect Israelis to take enormous risks for peace with those who have been taught to hate and reject them?

Settlement freezes are nice, but they don’t deal with the core problem: a Palestinian society that worships total victory against the hated Zionist enemy rather than reconciliation and peaceful co-existence.

Israel advocates around the world should begin immediately a concerted campaign around this one single-minded message: “You can’t reach peace while you teach hate.” Factual and visual examples of this teaching of hatred can easily be accessed on Web sites for MEMRI or Palestinian Media Watch.

That’s some of what Wexler and I came up with after a couple of hours of brainstorming. Like I said, not very subtle or pretty, but then again, neither is war.