Dayan blames education system
Yesha Council launches non-aggressive campaign
While prime minister states all territories should be ceded to Arabs, settlers attempt to gain popularity by saying Israelis 'yearn for Jewish truth'
The Yesha Council has launched a counter campaign following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remarks
that all territories should be ceded to the Arabs. Using green billboard signs and internet banners, the settlers are stating that "Judea and Samaria is every Jew's story."
"Today the public yearns to connect to the Jewish and and Zionist truth, something the education system has emptied, and this is the right time," explains Yesha Council Chairman Danny Dayan.
In this new PR campaign, the Yesha Council abandons its aggressive tone in an attempt to gain the public's sympathy in a different way.
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The new ads mention biblical stories and other stories from Jewish history which took place in the West Bank. This is the first campaign launched by the Council's new PR staff, headed by Yakir Segev.
Not just billboards
The Yesha Council has thus far chosen to take a security-related PR approach, with slogans such as "it will explode in your face" and "Abu Bluff".
According to the Council, the new goal is "to hold a real political discourse and return to the basis, in other words to the reason we are in Judea and Samaria, explaining that if we are not there, this will harm the State of Israel's Jewish and Zionist character."
"I'm not saying the previous campaign failed," Dayan told Ynet. "The fact is we are still in Judea and Samaria and our population grows every year. Beyond that, I think that if the discussion will be about security versus demography, it will be shallow and not real."
The ads are not only featured on billboards, but also on buses, on the Web and on the radio. The PR campaign plans to invite the public to tour the West Bank during the holiday of Sukkot.
The campaign's next stage will include activities at universities upon the start of the new academic year.
The Yesha Council plans to turn several sites – including Tel Shilo, Susia and Gush Etzion – into tourist centers like Jerusalem's City of David.
"I believe that through this campaign hundreds of thousands of Israelis will visit thesep laces within several years," Dayan concludes.
