By Ted Belman
PM Netanyahu recently appointed Gilad Erdan, Hasbara Minister with a budget of $25 million in the first year exclusively for coordinating international events to counter the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
And now PM Netanyahu warned:
“We are in the midst of a great struggle being waged against the State of Israel, an international campaign to blacken its name. It is not connected to our actions; it is connected to our very existence,”
“It does not matter what we do; it matters what we symbolize and what we are. I think it is important to understand that these things do not stem from the fact that if only we were nicer or a little more generous — we are very generous, we have made many offers, we have made many concessions — that anything would change because this campaign to delegitimize Israel entails something much deeper that is being directed at us and seeks to deny our very right to live here.”
“Now, this is a phenomenon that we have known in the history of our people. What hasn’t been said about the Jewish people? They said that we are the source of all evil in the world. All of these things are being said about us today as well. It was not true then and it is not true today. There is not a shred of truth to it,”
For years many concerned Zionists have been imploring the Government to take this problem seriously, but to no avail.
All this has happened during your watch but you have refused to allocate the necessary resources to reverse the tide.
On June 5/15, Itamar Eichner, YNET, wrote
Foreign Ministry finds itself battling Israel boycott alone without resources
This is a massive problem. It requires a massive budget.
We demand that the budget be increased to $500 million and that the Ministry be tasked with winning the propaganda war rather than just “coordinating international events”.
Martin Sherman has been at the forefront of demanding a billion shekel budget.
Comprehending the incomprehensible – Part l
Comprehending the Incomprehensible – Part ll
Later in My Billion Dollar Budget he recapped his position.
Readers will recall that I have criticized the abysmal performance of Israeli public diplomacy (PD) and its failure to present its case assertively and articulately to the world.
To recap briefly
I likened the effects of this failure to those of the HIV virus that destroys the nation’s immune system, leaving it unable to resist any outside pressures no matter how outlandish or outrageous. Given the gravity of the threat, I prescribed that, as prime minister, my first order of business would be to assign adequate resources to address the dangers precipitated by this failure.
To this end I stipulated that up to $1 billion should be allotted for the war on the PD front, and demonstrated that this sum was eminently within Israel’s ability to raise, comprising less than 0.5 percent of GDP and under 1 percent of the state budget.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister on Sunday slammed the international community’s silence over recent rocket attacks from Gaza and warned that a strong reprisal could be forthcoming.
A strong reprisal – meaning the extinction of Hamas – would be more valuable than a billion dollars spent on public diplomacy. The world will never believe that Jews are right, but it can be taught that Jews are strong…too strong to be attacked without incurring agony.
I wholly agree with Bert. Such a petition is a waste of time if the Jewish people continue to leave at least 60% of J&S undeveloped as if we are waiting to give it to the Arabs when it is in fact OURS.
The BDS movement is based on the accusation that Israeli is illegally occupying Judea and Samaria. When the Israeli government still claims it supports the “two sate solution” it is admitting that it is guilty of occupation. No amount of money for PR can remedy the moral rot of Israeli leaders who refuse to tell the truth in support of Jewish rights to the land. Most U.S. Jews as well also stupidly agree that Israel is occupying Arab Land.