Battling public relations woes, Israel asks citizens to help improve country’s image abroad

Battling PR woes, Israel asks citizens to help

JERUSALEM — Israel’s government has launched a campaign aiming to boost the country’s image abroad even as it finds itself in the middle of an international uproar over the suspected role of Israeli spies in the assassination of a Hamas operative.

Through a new Web site, TV commercials and pamphlets handed to passengers boarding planes, the campaign launched this week tries to get Israelis to promote their country when traveling.

But it offers a puzzling take on what foreign attitudes toward the country really are, and appears to reflect a view that poor public relations, and not policies, lie at the root of Israel’s image problem.

Rather than focusing on the passions surrounding the Israeli-Arab conflict, the campaign suggests — with a touch of humor — that people abroad believe that camels are a leading form of transportation in Israel, or that Israelis like to barbecue outside because they have no gas or electricity at home.

But foreign attitudes toward the country would seem to have little to do with any perception that Israel is primitive — the country’s high-tech sector and military are widely recognized as among the world’s most advanced — and far more to do with the intractable complexities of the Mideast conflict.

Israel is still suffering the fallout from its punishing military operation in Gaza last winter, including war crimes accusations from a United Nations commission. And the new campaign kicked off precisely as Israel’s Mossad was accused of killing a Hamas operative in Dubai, suggesting another way Israeli citizens might be serving their government abroad.

Anat Weinstein-Berkovits, a spokesman for the newly created government ministry behind the project, said the goal is to urge Israelis to “tell about the beautiful Israel you know.”

In one TV ad, a faux English-speaking reporter leads a camel through the desert, explaining that Israelis use the animals for hauling “water, merchandise and ammunition…in the desert where they live.” An announcer intones in Hebrew: “Sick of seeing how we’re portrayed in the world? You can change the picture.”

The Web site notes that Israel has suffered through seven wars but still seeks peace. “Myth: Israelis don’t really want peace. Untrue,” it reads.

Dan Caspi, a communications professor at Ben Gurion University, said Israelis genuinely love their country and defend its actions abroad, even if they criticize those same actions bitterly at home.

But Caspi said the campaign is still unlikely to be effective.

He noted that after Israel captured territories from Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War, Israel’s then prime minister, Levi Eshkol, is reputed to have summoned international experts and asked them how to improve Israel’s suddenly complicated image. They consulted for days and then gave Eshkol one recommendation: Get out of the territories.

Little, Caspi said, has changed since then.

“The government would be better advised to first put its house in order,” he said.