Opinion leaders offer their solutions to Israeli PR

When Israeli naval commandos intercepted the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” in May 2010, worldwide condemnation was swift. Reacting to the news, 5WPR executive Ronn Torossian called his contacts at the Israeli Ministry of foreign affairs. “Public relations shakes minds and builds brands. It took two days for the IDF to release a video of the raid in a world of blogging and tweeting,” Torossian said. “Israel has to do more to help itself.”

Torossian spoke on the failings of Israeli public relations at a Dec. 15 forum coordinated by Algemeiner weekly newspaper and its parent, the Gershon Jacobson Jewish Continuity Foundation, at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Wall Street and prominent Lawrence-based attorney Benjamin Brafman joined Torossian at the dais. “You have a naval blockade of Gaza,” Brafman said. “But how many people knew about the blockade before the flotilla?” As a solution, Brafman compared Israel’s handling of the affair to the Cuban missile Crisis of 1962, where President John F. Kennedy provided advance warning to Soviet ships that they would be intercepted if they attempted to reach Cuba. The ships turned back.

Taranto was equally brash in his account of Israeli reactions to attacks, recounting the 2003 death of pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer when she attempted to prevent a demolition of a terrorist hideout in Gaza. “Corrie was this dopey 23-year-old and I wrote ‘terror advocate dies in accident,’” Taranto said. “I described her in condescending terms as foolish.” Taranto wondered out loud whether it would be possible for Israeli spokespeople to be as blunt in their accounts of the country’s enemies. Brafman agreed with Taranto that Israel’s handling of military topics is poor, in light of its stellar reputation worldwide on technology and medicine. “Most anti-Semites are comfortable having a Jewish doctor, but Israel needs help condemning the bad guys.”

Like Torossian, Brafman took Israel advocacy into his own hands. “When Sderot was under rocket attack, I spoke up publicly on YouTube because I did not feel that the consul’s office was doing a good job.”

On presidential candidates, Torossian said that while New Gingrich’s now-famous statement on the Palestinian people was “wonderful” for Israel, he could not be more Zionist that the Israeli leadership, which declared its support for an eventual Palestinian state. “You can’t be more catholic than the pope, but there’s no question that on any serious republican candidate, for Israel, is better than Obama,” Torossian said.

Countering established views of Israel in the mainstream press requires events to happen, educating reporters, and financial muscle, the panelists said. When Roger Cohen of New York Times praised the loyalty of Iranian Jews to their government, it took anti-regime protests in Iran to change Cohen’s views, but Taranto noted that for the most part, opinion columnists such as Nicholas Kristof and Tom Friedman as “pretty set in their opinions.” Torossian said that the reporter’s desire for objectivity means that for Reuters, the Hamas fighter will always be a militant and never a terrorist. Brafman said that where libel lawsuits are ineffective, withholding advertising could make the difference.

Algemeiner Director Dovid Efune concluded the discussion, noting that today’s news in online and instant, with Huffington Post as its biggest example of success. “We need a multitude of voices online and then we will have a powerful impact on the Google News search engine track,” bumping stories supportive of Israel to the top of the list.