Israel Gaza conflict- the true story

CherryBerry

Tue, Nov 20 2012, 7:50 pm

Israel has historically had a problem with their image in the eyes of the world. Israel tended to not care about world opinion and just do whatever it needed to do. Ultimately this approach backfired when certain media outlets and regular people ate up the palestinan propaganda and lies to the point that often they refuse to believe that Israel could have even some legitimacy to what they do.
Now, I am happy to see that Israel is focusing more on their image, and how to improve it in the world opinion. Israel has twitter, facebook, youtube acounts and more dedicated to spreading the truth about Israel. From what I understand, Israel created a new dept (a couple of years ago) called Hasbara -explanation- specifically for the purpose of getting the message of truth out to the world and to combat the extreme bias and anti-israel articles written on almost every news source.
Just for example I recently read an article where the bias was so obvious.
they wrote gaza wants israel to..., and israel is demanding that.....

notice the bias?
or another- x number gazans were killed and 3 Israelis lost their lives

again the emphasis is more strong that gazans were KILLED while Israelis simply "lost their lives"
and this is besides for the actual content.

it makes me crazy. anyway to get back to the point I wanted to post a link to the IDF channel on youtube where they post things that are interesting and informative and explaining the Israeli side with logic and reason so that any logical person can understand who is truly the aggressor.

http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk

and the latest video:

m in Israel

Wed, Nov 21 2012, 12:28 am

The problem is so deep and so frustrating! Look at all the coverage of Pillar of Defense. For the first few days all the media outlets were discussing the "latest round of violence" which "began with the Israeli assassination on Wed. of a Hamas leader." As if all was quite and suddenly Israel assassinated this "politician" and fighting began. No mention of the fact that the bombing of the south had been constant for years, and just last week from Sunday until Wed.(before the "beginning" of the violence) over 120 missiles had been shot into Southern Israel. I guess shooting at civilian targets doesn't count as violence -- it takes killing a terrorist to deserve that description!!!

Similarly the constant comparison of how many civilians lost their lives. Yes, many more civilians in Gaza were causalties of the fighting -- but the reason for that has nothing to do with "disproportionate force" -- the usual implication in news reporting. The al pi derech hatevah reason so few Israelis have been killed (in addition to the real reason -- Hashem's protection!) is that Israel invests millions of dollars in defending it's citizens. This includes about $200 million on the iron dome system, and tons of money building shelters, maintaining a warning system, educating citizens as to what to do in case of an attack, etc. Hamas spends almost nothing to defend it's citizens -- they don't even build bomb shelters! This is because it is in their best interest to have as many casulties as possible -- and they don't mind sacrificing their own people to achieve their PR goals. And on the flip side, the main reason any Gaza civilians are killed, despite Israel's intensive efforts to execute only targeted strikes, and give clear warning as to where they will be striking well in advance, is due to Hamas's little habit of using civilians, especially women and children, as human shields, and placing military apparatus right among civilians.

I disagree, however, with your initial statement that Israel didn't care about public opinion and just did what they needed to do. Unfortunately Israel has been overly concerned about public opinion almost from day 1 -- with very few exceptions, and almost always to the detriment of its own safety and security. I believe the reason for the poor public image is not an approach that has "backfired", but a much deeper and older problem. It is nothing new that Jews can do no right -- think of all the years in Europe where Jews were hated for being too poor and a drain on society at the very same time that they were hated for being too rich and trying to control the world!!

I am not minimizing the importance of Hasbara -- but I think we must also face the fact that to many people all the explanations in the world will not convince them to support us.