In the last few decades, instantaneous communications make Israel and the Middle East conflict appear as close as next door.
My passion to support Israel makes me want to turn this into something positive. Also, my awareness of the importance of careful scrutiny of newsprint detail and of how to critique the news media came, in part, from a few years on the Israel Task Force and the Israel Media Response Team, both of our Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations.
I’ve been monitoring 18 sources, including newspapers, think-tank reports and speeches. I believe I’ve selected some of the more reliable sources. So far, the common thread through everything is that Israel advocacy is reactive rather than proactive, and there’s a sore lack of market research.
It took Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, president and founder of The Israel Project, to bring advocacy to a new level. In effect, she applied market research to advocating for Israel.
The Israel Project held a seminar in Washington, D.C: The “Ultimate Training Seminar for Pro-Israel Advocates,” June 27-29. Co-sponsors included the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the national plenum for all the Jewish community relations councils in the country; United Jewish Communities, national head of our Jewish Federation; and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
This subject was so important for Israel and for Jewish people that I thought it inconceivable that we Milwaukeeans should miss it. So I went at my own expense.
Keep it simple
“Ultimate training” it was. More than 250 people attended, mostly from the United States, but several from South America and Europe as well; mostly Jewish, but not all. It was non-partisan, non-ideological, non-theoretical; just pragmatic, empirical, pro-Israel.
There are several reasons why this seminar, to me, was so powerful, separating it from the amateurs and wannabe sages. First and foremost is that most of the guidance and tips and opinions presented to us were tested. We learned what really works; what actually persuades — and, equally important, what does not persuade.
To report on all that we learned would take three similar days. Suffice to say, that I garnered 15 pages of notes from the 20-some lectures. Also, each attendee received a text-notebook containing poll results on dozens of issues, other statistical data, comparison graphs, and samples of position statements all kinds. In my experience, no other seminar nor academic study program was as intensive as this.
Ed Lazarus taught how to “Develop a Strategic Message.” He used a triangle to describe the structure of public opinion. At the top were 1 percent of the people — the decision makers: politicians, primarily the realm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The next 10 percent were opinion leaders, journalists — this group is our top priority. The next 15 percent constitutes the informed public; and lastly the 75 percent comprising the bottom of the triangle, the “real people” — the public, the group we ultimately want to reach.
Key points of his messages were: Keep it simple; be repetitive; be credible (no distortion of facts); make our message broad and global; make it relevant to real people’s everyday lives; give it a human face; it must be demonstratively efficacious (provable that it’s persuasive); being a little provocative is good; and some of the messages must be a basis for differentiation, for example, compare how Israelis and Palestinians educate their children.
He and other speakers stated that it is essential to establish relationships with media players, to reach journalists ahead of a big event, predisposing them to write more favorably towards Israel.
Political strategist and pollster Frank Luntz, Ph.D., deftly handled 17 troublesome Palestinian statements. He emphasized that the “messenger” is as important as the message.
Lastly, and especially in the smoky, never-never land of advertising and promotion, the credibility of the sources of what we learned is important.
We learned from such experts as Hannah Rosenthal, executive director of JCPA; Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch; Gideon Meir, deputy director general for media and public affairs in Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs; journalists Eleanor Clift and Clarence Page; and many more.
It was exhilarating not just to be part of a like-minded group, but also to be under the tutorship of recognized world leaders of advocacy.
The terrorists, whether from the West Bank or Iraq, don’t need “public relations” as we do. Their gruesome scenes are eagerly picked up and readily published by the free and captive press all over the world — and at little cost or with little effort on their part.
I’m convinced that we have a ton of work with much to accomplish. But we will stay the course, if for no other reason than we must.
Bob Breslauer is a Milwaukee activist, who most recently has been organizing the local Pro-Israel Person Chavurah.
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