What should be the focus of our response to anti-Israel sentiment and allegations?
Telephone interview with Hayim Aszes
(April 11, 2002)

This is the psychological war for which Israel does not have the resources on the same scale as the Arab and Palestinian media, but it was entirely ignored at policy planning level. Israel has no media allies to wage this war - no satellite news channels to counter the barrage of images and one-sided information , but there are good articles, good illustrations available for reference and pointers. Both Israel and the Jewish communities around the world are contending with this, but there are important and significant things we can do.

We should focus primarily on the Jewish community and their identification with Israel, there is no way we can take up the entire Hasbara campaign for the State of Israel. Obviously, our big events will attract media attention and we have a lot of small, active campaign groups in different settings, but they are not an overall media strategy.

1. The first point to make is that terrorism is at the root of the current combat, and that this was directly authorized and financed by the Arafat administration. The reason is that terror is both a strategy and an end in itself - Arafat and the PA have done taken nothing more than occasional token action to control and uproot terror since the 1993 Oslo Accords. The media chose to make Arafat their hero - expose his infringement of commitments to renounce terror and his deceitful position.
2. Indeed, we are faced with the transformation of the issues into a religious war, fanned by the media and extremist Muslim clergy. Whether or not the West chooses to acknowledge it, the voices of moderation are low and go largely unpublicized. This has led to an explosion of Antisemitism - incidents of violence, media incitement (especially on Arabic channels), articles - often, in the guise of anti-Israel sentiment, but not entirely so. There are some excellent resources to guide discussion and correspondence campaigns to protest this sick and ugly phenomenon.
3. It is important to address issues like the freedom of the press. The Australian government criticized its wounded journalist for being inside a combat zone in the Middle East. The US, British and other forces did not allow journalists into Afghanistan to report on incidents at ground level while they considered the situation fraught with risks, and until they had prepared the framework for the presentation of events. Israel does not have the same degree of control over the media - the Palestinians encourage and facilitate reports. Moreover, these reports have in no small way encouraged the curve of violence in creating a hero out of Arafat and some media personnel have also tried to help known terrorists escape. Israel is entitled to and has recently taken steps to restrict media access, where it feels that journalists would be in danger and where previous incidents have demonstrated their collaboration with terrorists.
4. Know the references and make them clear. The foreign media report the deaths of Palestinian "civilians". Most of them are armed, but this detail is omitted: many are on the “wanted” lists issued by Israel and the US, as known terrorists. Of course, they are in civilian clothes - terrorists don’t usually go around in uniforms!

Hayim Azses, The Sephardi Cultural Center, Jerusalem. Mr. Azses is a specialist in the area of the Middle East Conflict, its documents and the analysis of propaganda, including the contemporary Arab media. A multi-media educator and producer, he is also an expert on Hasbara and response to anti-Israel propaganda.