Another anti Israeli low down leftest scum using his farthers name Yair Lapid shows his minimun knowledge. As an idiot and unable to think he says he was unable to contact a minister in Canada. Does he know of security for ministers?? Fools will utilise the leftest press for thier twisted bullshit Yair as a Journalist(only he believes that) would do better to shut up He can never reach the resoect of his farther.

It's unbelievable that Israel keeps returning on the same mistake. This isn't the firts time that we are relegated to reply to accusations and make denials that carry much less weight that the much more dramatic accusations. We all knew that Aljazeera was broadcasting live from the ship. So why could we broadcast live from our 's? Next time ( and I think there will be many next times ) we should attach cameras to the boarding party,, with the option to broadcast live should it get rough. That would be a much more significant detterrant to violence than guns against edited highlights shown 4 hours later. The Hamas & Hisbollah have been using video cams handed out to operatives in the field for years.

that the only good pr we have is on the subject of how bad our pr is

You are a normal intelligent citizen of this country. This is something quite rare, and what is even more rare is that normal intelligent people like you should enter the political arena. In the past any normal intelligent person who dared enter the arena was promptly churned up and spat out. Please do not enter the lion's den. You will not change them, they will make you run for your life.Take my advice they are a pack of wolves, no they are worse, they are hyenas, downright scavengers. Stay clear of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDQ1O7tBEV8

The cellphone frequencies are known, and easily jammed ... without impacting the operational requirements of our armed forces. Ditto the frequencies used by the Al Jazeera cameras. Why was *any* enemy video available, ever, period?

No explanations necessary. People just need to learn not to mess with Israel. Less talking, more doing. Get the job done, and the world can kiss our asses.

Well said. PR is most essential and I hope PM Netanyahu has read this article.

Would you stop whining like a little child? Grow up. Be a man.

lapid's pros will apologize even more for israel--amateurs who were more forceful with terrorists would at least give heart to israel's friends--more professional apologetics will not soften hearts of israel's enemies

why? because Israel cant win the PR war even if all were super PR people! the muslims have a majority in every forum and the west is scared stiff of islam!

Showing weapons from other boats would have been a form of deception. We are suffering now but if we tell the truth we will eventually succeed where the lying lot of Hamas supporters will trip on their own falsehoods.

Every country that curses Israel and goes against will be Cursed. The World needs to watch what will happens.

they know nothing, and we need to hire a PR company to guide the government on how to conduct hasbarah. (I have also volunteered in Los Angles back in 2000 to help with the effort and there too I got a long lecture about "no one cares about history, till I gave he a little lesson.)

It"s seems to work just fine for Hamas hezbollah terrorists and company .

So you couldn't get through to a minister poor little Yair. Did it ever occur to you there might be a good reason for the fact that you only got a voice message? Maybe it was a legitimate mistake or maybe it was done intentionally for personal reasons the ministers have decided not to share with you. The idea of laying out weapons for a staged photo session would have been the worst thing Israel could do. It would have looked like an act of desperation to justify a criminal act. First thing they organizers would have said was there were no rockets on that ship it was just humanitarians with humanitarian aid. It looks like a cover up and probably would have added ammunition to the people condemning Israel when no rockets were found. The majority of the public are not interested in previously intercepted weapons they care about what has just happened. Its also a mistake for the government to make any statements until it has the facts. What would have happened if we had said it was to stop these rockets ( of which there are non on the ship ) and it was all self defense and it turned out that it was a soldier with an itchy trigger finger and that later came out? Next time the government made a statement if it condemns the arabs nobody would believe it. Yair for the sake of the country please do not try and follow in your fathers footsteps and get involved in politics you will just screw things up trying to act like a journalist competing for ratings and the last thing we need is idiots like you in the Knesset which already has more than its fair share of idiots.

You'd get my vote, for sure.

Let's face it. Israel simply is in a an indefensible position. It's propaganda is not working and has reached the point were it seems ludicrous. Missiles on the Ashdod beach from former ships?? Really? And we are to believe that this flotilla to Gaza was also an operation of Al-Queda? Come on! And what will the zionist spinmeisters come up with with the soon to dock Rachel Corrie? Demand that their must be armaments on that ship because the Racel Corrie murdered by an Israeli tank, was a "terrorist"? Give it up. The game is over and no amount of propaganda is going to make you smell like anything other than a sunk.

It's funny the author mentions that the Israeli Minister of Information was in Canada immediatelly after the incident, because here in Canada nobody has heard from him at all. I am not sure what the Israeli ambassador in Ottawa is doing either, nobody from the Israeli side ever responds to the Middle East events or the "inaccuracies" in the local media coverage. Netaniahu who was at the moment in Canada and got about 45 sec of screen time on the National TV to respond decided to waste this opportunity on telling that he called Obama to reschedule the meeting and all kind of unnecessary stuff rather than responding to the event. Israeli PR is extremely amateurish, mostly because Isealis don't understand what makes the audiences abroad tick. The majority of Canadians seek some kind of assurances that the deaths weren't intentional, and Israel always acts as if it's obvious already and we should move on to other issues. People in the world don't know the basic facts about the situation: 1) That there are thousands of rockets shot from Gaza into Israel 2) That in the past a similar ship was caught with artillery weapons on board. 3)That in this incident the ship refused to follow security procedures and stop in Ashdod for inspection. 4) that the commandos were armed with paintball guns 5) that the blocade of Gaza is aimed to restrict smuggling weapons, not humanitarian aid and many other such simple facts that Israelis take for granted and assume that they are well known. Israeli officials just don't get it, that if they want to counterbalance the skewed biased reports in the international media they should explain and repeat these simple truths, in a simple language, with the way one would address a confused misinformed commoner, not the way one would run a corporate meeting.

PR is not Israel's real problem. Many nations would have blown the hostile flotilla right out of the water without a second thought. Israel's real problem is our failure to assert our rights. Rather than truthfully claiming this land as our own, we appease our enemies and retreat. Had we stayed in Gaza, NONE of this mess would have occurred in the first place. Virtually EVERY single major Israeli problem, including the flotilla, is a direct result of Israeli retreat. When we truly assert our rights, our problems will vanish like snowflakes in the desert sun.

and can say that no effective amount of public relations or diplomacy can offset the irrational illogical ignorant arguments and the absolute hatred or the capitulation to hatred. Israel's existence is considered a crime.Israel's defense is considered a crime. Everything Israel does or says must begin from this premise, everything done must be documented, filmed, evidenced for a court of law to prove to the few sane people left of Israel righteous actions to defend itself.

BRAVO !! BRAVO !! for such well detailed and documented piece ! I would like to add that it is time for Mr. Barak and Lieberman to leave the government : one is an ex-hero who is losing touch with reality, the other is not a diplomat, just a BIG MOUTH !

Why don't you face it. Israel has always been a rogue state. Your government has until now, literally and figuratively, always gotten away with murder. Relke said that " In a dark time the eye begins to see." The people of the civilized world are beginning to see the true nature of your country and mindset. We do not like what we see. The best PR firm on Madison Ave couldn't put a positive spin on the evil Israel is doing to the Palestinian people right now. You should be ashamed to call yourselves Jews. True people of G_d wouldn't act that way.

Obviously , Israeli's still don't think in an efficient manner. How can government officials put amateurs into important positions, especially the PR director (or whatever). Time and again, it is the amateurs that are causing Israel bad reputation. Thankfully, though, we have an expert armed and defense forces. The least we could do, is give them support with also excellent PR.

I got so upset reading this. You are absolutely correct. Here we had a situation in which we were, for a change, 100% in the right and which could have been used to depict the "activists" for the murderous hypocrites they really are, and we blew it. Big time. And it's not as if there had been no time to prepare. From the moment the "aid" convoy was announced, Israel should have been making the case on the airwaves what that convoy was really all about. And still now, days later, we get better articles in defense of Israel from the Washington Post than we do from the Israeli government. Goddamnit, North Korea has a better P.R. machine than we do! This government S-U-C-K-S!!!

Our PR amateurs People in charge of Israel’s public relations are obviously clueless AND SO ARE YOU !!!. Professionals prepare in advance, while amateurs don’t understand how it happened to them. THIS IS THE PROFESSIONAL WAY - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWSATpx7uzk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW4OPRb4uTs HAVE NOT THE HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE LEARNT YOU ANYTHING ??? - IT DOES NOT MATTER TO THE WORLD, HOW RIGHTOUS YOU MAY BEHAVE, THE WORLD ONLY LOOKS FOR EXCUSES TO ACCUSE OR ATTACK THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OF JEHOVAH. IF INDEED YOUR RIGHTOUSNES WOULD HAVE COUNTED FOR ANYTHING TO THE WORLD, THE WHOLE WORLD WOULD HAVE BEEN PRO-JEWISH AND PRO-ISRAEL BY NOW. WHAT YOU ARE FACING, IS THE BEGINNING OF THE BIRTH-PANGS OF THE WORLD, WHEN ISRAEL IS GOING TO BEE BORN ANEW, AND THEREFORE ALL FORCES OF THE WOMB OF MOTHER EARTH, IS MUSTERED BY JEHOVAH FOR THAT PURPOSE, GOOD AS WELL AS EVIL FORCES, ALL OF THEM. THE EVIL FORCES, ARE THE FORCES WHO OPPOSES THE ONE WHO INDWELLS ISRAEL. LET HIM ARISE - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrCal6kE-r4 Arn.

that Israel set up a satellite television station as professional as al-Jazeera to tell Israel's story including, but not limited to, the internal and external political situations. Telling Israel's stories would be fascinating and would help familiarize the international world with who and what we really are, our history and the diverse people who reside here. An acquaintance, Chaim Goldman, media expert from Jerusalem, has been advocating this approach for years but with no success whatsoever. During a speech for Yisrael Beiteinu in Ashdod prior to our last national election, Danny Ayalon, like many MKs before him, but, as always, nothing was done. Publicity is left to Israeli sympathizers around the globe but this is a piecemeal approach and, though it may help, certainly does not fulfill the requirements of a modern nation state under a political microscope.