I work in hasbara a couple of hours a day on my own and have often wondered why the official PR is so bad or almost non existent. It seems to me that basically Israel feels that it shouldn't have to explain anything because it is a tiny country surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs and is constantly under the vilest of attacks. It probably shouldn't have to have to continually explain it's actions but the bottom line is that it does need to !! - Mike

Visual media is the only thing people are interested today. Proof - Al Jazeera English. We have Channel 33. Why not use it? We really watches it now? We must allow people to hear amd see our point of view. At the moment SkyNews, the BBC, CNN, Fox\News and Al Jazeera only give the Arab point of view. They have Arab masters. We need Jewish businessmen to help in the communications media. Leviov, Bronfman, Milchin, Spielberg, Bronfman and so on, please let them help us!

Dan Gillerman to head the PR Team!

Were you in South Africa during the apartheid regime. If not, stop! You have no idea what you are talking about!

The problem is that the Government is frequently clueless as to the message it wishes to broadcast. What is Israel's message about Egypt? That they are fantastic allies or that they are seriously failing to honor their obligation to stop the smuggling and that this is not acceptable ? What is the message about Mahmoud Abbas? That he is a wonderful "moderate" doing everything he can or that we expect him to "put up or shut up" and use his already huge armed force to clear out the terror infrastructure? What does Israel want now regarding Gaza? Sometimes the soundbite is that if the Qassams would stop that would suffice while other times the position is that a ceasefire that enables the Palestinians to build up their illegal forces without interference would be a terrible mistake. And it goes on. PR capability is a vehicle - not a message. You can have the best PR team possible but if you aren't sure what you want to say you are, as the Israeli idiom puts it , "going full gas in neutral".

Shame on the Israeli government if they don't know what is being done on behalf of Israel by hundreds,- even thousands,- of volunteers in Israel and in the Diaspora. Without budgets, committees or professional PR gurus who expect full payments, we all do the work of the Israeli government, for the Israeli people,- on the internet. It is time they woke up a little and studied what's already being done, without reinventing the wheel; don't be 'johnnies-come-lately."!

here in israil there is a good free speech .. many times it is against israil pr // and it is from the israili themselves //// but in the arab world it is not such as in israil ... do you think that amr mosa would say its note to peres to any other arab leader as to mubarak or the king of suodi arabia .. i thin he would not // but it is the truth about israil and the israil pr also //it is the differance between saying and doing

Despite their brutality, corrupt culture, violence, discrimination, etc the Arabs manage to sell their anti-Israel goods because they have mastered the skills to sell their continuous lies to the world. Israel needs to counter the Arab lies.

I am a director of communications and marketing in the US, a dual citizen of Israel and the US and I have been waiting for Israel to get its PR act together. Please contact me so I can volunteer to do what I can. You guys need some serious help!

The Federal and Provincial Governments of Canada have been using private PR firms for ages. It's seen as a perfectly legitimate tool to counteract bad press or to convey a message more effectively. It's routine now and widely accepted.

Israel has done a preposterous job of making its case to the world. It's the lost media war that perpetuates the image of Israel as a pariah state and the source of all the world's problems. This, in the long run, seems more dangerous than IDF failures in Lebanon.

Its very simple, inexpensive and powerful. For $5 a CD--MEMRI's founder hands out to journalists and politicians around the world the palis speaking in Arabic, translated into English, their true words and murderous agendas. The reaction is usually disgust and their logical question is why then do they see Israeli politicians shaking the palis' hands, calling them moderates and entering into peace deals with them when Israel knows their true intentions. Why indeed should the world align themselves with Israel when her own leaders sell her people out with the BIGGEST LIE ever told---the moderate arabs. I dare the Israeli gov't to use this CD and try the tactic of telling the truth instead of perpetuating the BIG LIE!! G-d Bless srael--with new ,honest ,loyal and selfless leaders and the courage to bring them to power NOW!

please rais your hands.

and Propaganda to get its story out to a skeptical world.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) show 'As It Happens' just interviewed Ephraim Sneh. From the PR point of view, this could have been an excellent opportunity for him to explain how Israeli communities are under relentless rocket attacks, how they have been terrorized, traumatized, forced out of their homes, how they have suffered casualties and damage. That opportunity was lost. Instead he kept giving straight answers to the interviewer, who was badgering him about the capture of the Hamas officials. He spoke in a calm but defensive manner, and at the end the interviewer sighed, as if she had wasted her time with someone too thick and stubborn to engage in talks with poor Hamas instead of attacking them. So that was the message conveyed by the interview. Not one giving a clear presentation of why Israel is defending itself, but one showing an apparently intractable aggressor unwilling to engage in talks with Hamas. A shrewd politician would have taken control of the interview and used the questions to give his own message to the listeners instead of being led by the biased interviewer. For those interested in listening to the interview, click here: http://www.cbc.ca/aih/latestshow.html

The link is for the current show. If you click on it tomorrow, you'll have to find that interview on that program's archives.

Any wonder why everyone is supporting the terrorits around the world? So many Europeans are against Israel becuase there are millions of Arabs living in Europe and most of them use their base countries sources of propaganda to use against Israel amongst Europeans. Also in many other countries Arabs have propaganda power because of oil and becuase they are rich. They can sell any lies to the world and buy support for their terrorism.

with its master, the US. The Israeli government knows about the reality in the PA, but they are so much under the control of the American government, that they have to repeat those pathetic lies that nobody believes anyway. A Palestinian state is part of the US and Saudi plan for the Middle East, whether the Palestinians are ready or not. So they keep calling Abbas a "moderate" and Israel says yes, he is a moderate.

MAIMON, Better Late Then Never...& LETS PRAY THIS DUDE YISROEL REALLY CARRYS THE BALL & RUNS TO MAKE SOME HEADLINE SCORES...THIS TIME..ATLEAST SOME ONE IS WILLING TO MAKE THE INITITIVE...BUT AS USAUL MOST LOCALS HAVE & ARE, & MOST PROBABLY WILL FAIL THIS PRESENTLY-UNHOLY, MENTALLY BANKRUPT, PSEUDO JEWISH STATE...I REALLY HOPE THIS MAIMON DUDE, ANOTHER TYPICAL LOOKING LIKE POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS WRITTEN ALL OVER HIS PRETTY BOY FACE...CAN REALLY RISE TO THIS, ANOTHER OPORTUNITY IN MODERN TIMES OCCASION, & & MAKE SOME WWW.NOISE...WISHINGYOU MUCH SUCCESSFUL EVERYTHING & THEN WE WILL HAVE SOME GOOD REASON TO ELECT YOU ONE DAY TO PM...BECAUSE I KNOW, THIS IS WHERE YOUR HEADING ONE ADMINISTRATION SOON...

I think some people mistake PR for telling lies or even as a direct attempt at deceiving people. Public relations are: "Building sustainable relations with all publics in order to create a positive brand image. There are many goals to be achieved by the practice of public relations, including education, correcting a mistruth, or building or improving an image." Israel feel that they are misrepresented in the global media and in the general public, and because of this, they wish to correct the image of which Israel is portrayed. Nothing to do with lying or propagandizing, those accusations are with out any basis.

Public relations work can be compared with branding. Recently Denmark held a conference with a leading country brander, whom also did some comprehensive branding work promoting the UK. This is no different.