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“Perhaps one day we will forgive our enemies for killing our boys, but we will never forgive them for forcing our soldiers to have to kill “. Golda Meir
It is imperative that we do whatever we can to minimize the damage done to our image in the eyes of the western world, now that most of it has turned against us. The Palestinians have increased their hate campaign towards Israel. Not only do they manipulate and falsify the facts on the ground, but also show themselves to be masters at fabricating complete and limitless abhorrent lies about our soldiers’ operations in the Westbank. An ongoing crusade by journalists, world leaders, UN and EU declarations accompanied by hostile media is a most serious matter which cannot be ignored. As our war with the Palestinians is first of all a media war, it is mandatory for us to do whatever we can to show the world that we are not just decent people trying to prevent, as no other army, innocent casualties, often taking enormous risks, but that we, as no other nation, greatly suffer from the fact that we have to use weapons to defend ourselves in this ugly conflict which is forced on us. True, it will not have any influence on our Arab enemies or on all those anti-Semites who now have a free ride and who once more prove how utterly ill they really are. But we should never forget that the majority of people reading the papers or watching television are not “just like that” imbued with hatred towards us. Their dislike for us and our country is a direct result of what they hear and watch on television and read in the papers. And this can be diminished if not stopped. Watching and hearing many of our spokesmen, we are not only astonished by their lack of proper English idioms, lack of patience with those who interview them, which sometimes manifest itself in a not small amount of arrogance (with detrimental consequences) but also a complete misreading of the minds of their Gentile television audiences. What seems to be lacking and is crucial for any successful pro-Israel campaign is the need to emphasize Golda Meir’ words: Perhaps one day we will forgive our enemies for killing our sons but we will never forgive them for forcing our soldiers to have to kill. This powerful statement must be repeated and properly explained: We hate having to take weapons in order to defend ourselves. It is a nightmare to have to uproot the lives of innocent people. We abhor having to shoot people even when they want to kill our babies and mothers in suicide attacks. We take no joy from all this, no satisfaction and no good feeling. And if by accident an innocent Palestinian gets killed, our pain has no limit. Our hearts cry a bitter cry when we see such young Palestinian people carrying such hatred towards other human beings. We want peace for them, which they will never achieve under the leadership of the man who could not care less about their lives and is an arch enemy of his own people. Our heart bleeds for all those (not so) innocent Palestinians. But we have no option other than to defend our people. It is our moral duty to fight the terrorists with every means at our disposal and we have to continue our operations on the ground until there is a decisive victory. The continuous repetition of these and similar statements should be a matter of policy in every interview, statement and documentary made by all governments members, ambassadors, spokesmen for the army and others speaking in the name of our country. The power of these sentiments cannot be overestimated. To deny the impact of such statements in the gentile world shows a complete misreading of the minds of millions of people who now criticize us and have begun to hate the State of Israel. The fact that these sentiments are not constantly emphasized at this moment by our spokesmen should worry all of us. For a Jewish country this is the minimum which is expected from us. It is utterly Jewish. Speaking to our spokesmen it is abundantly clear that they fully agree with this sentiment but it seems that they are reluctant to utter these words since they believe that it would be seen as a sign of weakness on our side. This is a great tragedy. Strong men can afford to be sensitive, the weak can’t. |
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