For years now, Israel has been appearing in world media mainly as a country that occupies the Palestinian lands. Press photos of Israelis almost always show heavily armed and armored soldiers confronting protesting Palestinians, often children. Few of these pictures have had an immediate dramatic impact, but the cumulative, incremental effect should not have been underestimated.
A truly alert diplomatic service would have alerted its government long ago. But our foreign service is thoroughly demoralized. Headed by Avigdor Lieberman, a brutal heavyweight bully considered by many of his colleagues around the world as a semi-fascist, the diplomatic corps is terrorized. They prefer to keep quiet.
This ongoing process reached a higher pitch with the recent Gaza war. It was not basically different from the two Gaza wars that preceded it not so long ago, but for some unfathomable reason it had a much stronger impact.
For a month and a half, day after day, people around the world were bombarded with pictures of killed human beings, maimed children, crying mothers, destroyed apartment buildings, damaged hospitals and schools, masses of homeless refugees. Thanks to Iron Dome, no destroyed Israeli buildings could be seen, nor hardly any dead Israeli civilians.
An ordinary decent person, whether in Stockholm or Seattle or Singapore, cannot be exposed to such a steady stream of horrible images without being affected -- first unconsciously, then consciously. The picture of "The Israeli" in the mind's eye changes slowly, almost imperceptibly. The brave pioneer standing up to the savages around him mutates into an ugly bully terrorizing a helpless population.
WHY DO Israelis not realize this? Because We Are Always Right.
It has often been said before: the main danger of propaganda, any propaganda, is that its first victim is the propagandist himself. It convinces him, rather than his audience. If you twist a fact and repeat it a hundred times, you are bound to believe it.
Take the assertion that we were compelled to bomb UN installations in the Gaza Strip because Hamas was using them to launch rockets at our towns and villages. Kindergartens, schools, hospitals and mosques were targeted by our artillery, planes, drones and warships. 99% of Israelis believe that this was necessary. They were shocked when the UN General Secretary, Ban Ki-moon, who visited Gaza this week, claimed that this was totally inadmissible.
Doesn't the General Secretary know that ours is the Most Moral Army in the World?
Another assertion is that these buildings were used by Hamas to hide their arms. A person of my age reminded us this week in Haaretz that we did exactly the same during our fight against the British government of Palestine and Arab attackers: our arms were hidden in kindergartens, schools, hospitals and synagogues. In many places there are now proud memorial plaques as a reminder.
In the eyes of the average Israeli, the extensive killing and destruction during the recent campaign was completely justified. He is quite incapable of understanding the world-wide outrage. For lack of another reason, he attributes it to anti-Semitism.
AFTER ONE of the Lebanon wars (I forget which) I received an unusual message: an army general invited me to give a lecture to his assembled officer corps about the impact of the war on the world media. (He probably wanted to impress his officers with his enlightened attitude.)
I told the officers that the modern battlefield has changed, that modern wars are fought in the full glare of the world media, that today's soldiers have to take this into account while planning and fighting. They listened respectfully and asked relevant questions, but I wondered if they were really absorbing the lesson.
Soldiering is a profession like any other. Any professional person, be he (or she) a lawyer or a street-cleaner, adopts a set of attitudes suitable to it.
A general thinks in real terms: how many troops for the job, how many cannon. What is necessary to break the enemy's resistance? How to reduce his own casualties?
He does not think about photos in the New York Times.
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