[doctorzlo]

Originally posted by KSO
I'm glad it took so little to change your mind on this newspapper, now convince 95% of the newspapper readers in Israel, to change their choise from the Idiotic Yediot and the nationalistic Maariv to the more reasonable and readable HAARETZ... Following KSO recommandations, here is the link for: Ma'ariv international


Also worth looking into:
Makor Rishon
News first class - The news site of private lence, maverik excelent jurnalist: Yoav Yitzhak - serial curroption buster of Israel - Jurnalism as it ought to be! - Only hebrew, sorry... He has a page long fixed column in Ma'ariv (where else??? ).
Debka - by Gyora Shamis scopes, best jurnalist for intenational military, political and inteligiance. the news that are behind the news. Read with care, as he often mixes news and analisis... he is usually right. Sometimes writes for Makor Rishon.
Columns - in Hebrew

American special, I like a lot: Ayn Rand - Objectivism

[Lillie_Steins]

Israel is losing the war for the hearts and minds of the world. Face it, they are. Hasbara is failing. The goal of Hasbara is and has always been to enlighten, to educate and for whatever reason Hasbara has been pushed into a purely reactive mode to counter every PA inspired lie, spin and twist. And we have no one to blame but ourselves. Every response to a terror attack is called ’retaliation’ and every act of a sovereign nation is labeled 'apartheid' and 'occupation.'

We trip up in the minutiae of patently trivial things and feel compelled to react while losing the big picture. But the big picture is very simple and the Palestinians have mastered the big simple picture. They have one message: "occupation". Everything flows from that. Everything is justified, rationalized, excused or ignored with that one big simple picture in mind. All of the tiny darts, insipid facts and dubious history are simply a deflection of our attention, not theirs. So here is a quick summary of the high level bullet points for a new Hasbara. A big simple picture that can be repeated endlessly, is easy to communicate, easy to understand and doesn't trip in the details few people know of or care about. We aren't in this to prove how smart we are, our goals are broader and the way we can meet those goals is to simplify our approach. It's not about dumbing it down; it's about making a coherently focused message.

There is no retaliation
News reports, even IDF briefings are described as 'retaliation'. They are not. They are the singular expression of a plan to combat terrorism. Every act be it military, political, legal or in the media must be seen as another exercise of a plan to combat terrorism. Nothing more nothing less. There is no piecemeal approach - all actions are part of the battle against terrorism. Plans can be complex but their goals are not.

Israel is a country Now
Israel is a nation with all of the rights and privileges of any sovereign nation. Rights that include prosperity, security that people have died to preserve. There is no limbo state no 'almost a state'. It is meaningless to worry about how that state came to be as it is meaningless to worry about how France came to be. All issues must proceed from this single stance. There is no debate about the legitimacy of Israel on any basis. It is and that very fact alone is sufficient justification for its future existence.

There's no there, there
Religion and history are not sufficient rationales to either defend or debate the legitimacy of Israel because Israel is. There is no ultimate truth to be unearthed in history whether that history starts in 1929, 1880, 1674, 1189, 699, 240, 70, 168BCE, 500BCE, 1000BCE, the time of Joseph, the time of Abraham or any other.

Terrorism and Israeli relations are two different things
These two vitally important issues are in fact distinct. The battle against terrorism, from the PA or Hamas and all of the other terrorist organizations is an ongoing fight against criminals, terrorists and murderers. Their motives are unimportant - the only issue is how Israel combats that terrorism to keep its citizenry secure. Israeli relations, since that is what all of the other issues fall under is different from the problem of combating terrorism. They cannot be confused with one another. They have different goals and different tools. Israeli relations, good or bad are an aspect of foreign relations generally. Every country on earth from the most powerful to the most obscure has to deal with these relationships. We cannot let Arab countries and their supporters cloud the issue by pretending that only Israel has poor relations with its neighbors or that its neighbors have powerful friends. Again, this is true for every country, good or bad. Foreign relations and the war on terrorism are different.

The Devil's in the Details
Someone way smarter than me (my wife) says: "once you're arguing about what city Arafat was born in, you've lost." Minute details are a trap. A trap that forces Hasbarot into purely reactive tail chasing. It is absolutely irrelevant the number of refuseniks, the city of Arafat's birth or the number of people delayed per hour per checkpoint. Those are not issues. Those are dimensionless facts that are at best vaguely interesting, rarely meaningful, subject to great dispute. The big picture is lost when we descend into minutiae where those minutiae don't connect with the plan of Hasbara or any useful goal. It's confusing and diffuse. Stick with the simple message. Confront 'occupation' with these simple messages.

Well that's what I have for now. At the least, Hasbara needs a simple plan that touches on these points and only these points and hammers those touch points over and over and over and over and over and over. It may take two years; certainly the Palestinians have had two years to bang on the 'occupation' drum. We will need at least that.

They are better organized, better connected, and probably better funded. They are very good at this and what makes them good at it is they don't have to reinvent themselves or their message as a reaction. They have a simple tune.

We can make progress against this if we're willing to take a fresh look at our goals and we take steps to shape our tactics accordingly. We can take the fight to them if we're willing to sublimate our own egos and stop attempting to prove how smart we are. Show how smart we are by winning!

[Ifroham4]

post deletd (by real author)

[radikal]

Originally posted by Olivier
Ever wonder why Israel won the title of "most dangerous state in the world" ? Please tell us why.

[Lillie_Steins]

[i]

Incidently, Schiff has a point, not one that many here aren't aware of, but i just thought id bring to attention his obsevations printed in Haaretz. It isnt a treacherous and biased newspaper at all, and probably the best news source for those outside of Israel. [/B] I'm glad it took so little to change your mind on this newspapper, now convince 95% of the newspapper readers in Israel, to change their choise from the Idiotic Yediot and the nationalistic Maariv to the more reasonable and readable HAARETZ...