It isn′t enough to defend your position in the U.S.

NEW YORK - Many Jews in America have a dream: to seize the reins of the PR for Israel there. If they were just given the opportunity, they would have much greater success dealing with the PR of the Arabs and Israel′s other enemies. There is something to be said for this.

Many of the most brilliant minds in the American advertising industry are Jews. But in this matter, very few Jewish professionals are really doing anything. Some say they are too busy - and it is easier to talk than to do - and sometimes the Israeli hasbara (literally: "explanation" - somewhere between PR and propaganda) mechanism is not interested in their help. The Israelis, say some professionals, always think that they know better. And this is also how Israeli hasbara looks.

Nevertheless, in recent years behind the scenes a group of senior professionals in the field has been active in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ido Aharoni, a former consular spokesman, got together several professionals to think about a solution. The group included Elias Buchwald, one of the founders of Burson-Marsteller, the second-largest PR firm in the United States; Fran Oppenheim, the owner of a consulting company and formerly brand director at the food giant Kraft General Foods; Helen Marlow, formerly Phillip Morris spokeswoman and vice president in the giant tobacco firm, who dealt with the "anti-tobacco" wave; Boaz Mourad, an Israeli who lives in the U.S. and is the founder of the Insight Research Group; Susan Bondy, who writes a syndicated financial column; and Lee Dranikoff, strategic director in the area of marketing at a consulting company and formerly a member of the giant Mackenzie Consulting. Without a doubt, people who know their stuff.

You have to sell the product

The group came to the conclusion that it is necessary to "sell" Israel by the same means used to market soap, diapers or cigarettes. The group′s members, who are working on a volunteer basis, say that nowadays a growing number of countries have realized that this is the way to improve their image. Australia, for example, contending to host the Olympics, made a great effort to change its image from a far-off, forgotten and unsophisticated place to a lively, fun and sophisticated island-continent. Finland, tired of its image as cold and beautiful, successfully changed its image, with the help of the great success of the Nokia company, to that of a cold and beautiful country that is technologically sophisticated. This brought in investments. Jordan, too, is now in the midst of a branding process. In short, branding of countries has become quite common.

At first the idea did not seem to be going anywhere in terms of Israel, but now the Foreign Ministry had decided to go with it. And team work advanced. The number of Israeli participants who entered the picture increased. David Saranga, the new consul for media and public affairs in New York, has become the liaison man with Israel. Amir Gissin, the director of the public affairs division at the Foreign Ministry, says that the directors general committee (of the Foreign and Finance ministries and of the Prime Minister′s Office) has given the green light to a branding process, which is to be jointly done by the Foreign Ministry′s public affairs division and senior people in Israel′s advertising industry. This is not going to be all that simple. But in the meantime the good Jews in New York are not waiting around for an Israeli team to write the brand book. They commissioned a study from team member Boaz Mourad′s firm. The aim was to understand what the average American thinks about Israel. Altogether, 10 research groups were formed, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, St. Louis, Missouri and Paramus, New Jersey. In each of them were 10 men and women who were divided by age groups, 18 to 24; 25 to 49;and 50 to 74. The participants did not know that the aim of the focus group was to examine their attitude toward Israel. Therefore the moderators, who were not Jewish, also asked them many questions about other countries.

Militaristic and male-domination

The research findings that have come in contradict prevailing assumptions among Israel′s hasbara people at the Foreign Ministry, who felt that Israel′s situation in Europe and Asia is perhaps not good but in the U.S. - the most important country, the feeling toward Israel is very positive. Israel, says Mourad, is perceived through two lenses - as a militaristic place and as a very religious, male-controlled society. "Very tough, very rigid, dangerous, anxiety-provoking. There is no `fun′ there. This is a place that Americans don′t connect to. A kind of space-alien country," says Mourad.

What is surprising in the findings," adds Mourad, "is not only the incorrect impression of Israel but also the perception of what is lacking in Israel. In Israel there are no women, no children, no softness, no normal social life, no life that resembles what Americans know. Only war and religion."

The researchers tried to understand the attitude toward Israel from another angle as well. Among other things the moderators were asked to get from the participants descriptions of what homes look like in a number of countries. The Italian home, for example, was described as a welcoming place. It is a lot of fun for people at home. The mother cooks meals. The yard is green. The house is well-decorated. People sit at a round table. It′s very noisy. An exciting place. Like a party. The guests feel that they are being greeted warmly. The smell of cooking is in the air. People tell stories. They want to stay in the house for a long time.

The Israeli home, however, is fortified, surrounded by a wall. There is a lot of concrete. People shut themselves in. The husband rules the home. Women were not mentioned at all. A guest will not be invited to enter. There is a back part, where there are Palestinians. There is no grass or green at all.

In another exercise 20 magazines were placed on the table. The focus group members were asked to make collages of various countries, among them Israel, from the magazines. At this stage they already knew that the aim of the survey was understand their feelings toward Israel. They made collages in which Israel looked like a place with a depressing landscape - very isolated.

The view of Israel as a religious-militaristic state was common to all groups of the population. Among older people, more openness toward Israel was evident. They too had an image of a bleak country, but admire its struggle to exist and identify it as an ally.

People under the age of 50 do not feel sympathy toward Israel, seeing it as an element that gets America embroiled in troubles.

Laura Bush′s visit

So the brand story of Israel has not yet been written, but the handwriting is already on the wall. The conclusion of the "brand Israel" group is that in the current circumstance the way to succeed in the Israeli hasbara battle is to emphasize Israel′s human face. "We aren′t trying to say that in Israel there isn′t the aspect of war, and that there aren′t religious people in the country," says Fran Oppenheim, "but it is necessary to show the Americans and the entire world that there are living people in Israel, and how they are living. Our aim is to add a human lens. It is necessary to show that in Israel there is life and the joy of life, there is entertainment, there is culture, business, technology, medicine, democracy. It is necessary to show them nightclubs in Tel Aviv, the Weizmann Institute, beaches - all those things that Israelis do every day.

"And this is not at all simple. When you′re working, you are trying to educate people toward a certain image. The problem is that in the case of Israel they have an incorrect picture in mind. The challenge here is much greater. Here you need to reeducate them. When Laura Bush went to Israel, she went to the Western Wall. They put some sort of rag on her head and all around there were protests and police barriers. A day or two later there was picture in The New York Times of Laura Bush in Egypt. She had her picture taken with the president′s wife, wearing trousers and with a character from the Egyptian `Sesame Street.′ The reader who sees the Israeli picture and the Egyptian picture immediately forms the impression that Egypt is the progressive country, and Israel is the ultra-religious and extreme place."

Helen Marlow says that on the basis of her experience at Phillip Morris, she thinks there is a chance of changing Israel′s image and, "at least in several respects to learn from what Phillip Morris has done. "The company worked very hard in order to give itself a human face. Tobacco is never going to look like something positive, but the company has succeeded in creating a sense that in contrast to other cigarette manufacturers, it is prepared to deal with its problems. So it′s true that it makes no difference to some people what you tell them, they won′t change their minds. But many other people are, in fact, prepared to listen, and are prepared to change their opinions. There are people among the shareholders, in the administration, in Congress and even in the medical community who were persuaded that Phillip Morris has done more than other companies in the area of tobacco damage. This has softened the company′s′ image.

"And to the government of Israel I′m saying, it isn′t enough to defend your positions. All that is done in Israeli hasbara is to defend the positions and to say how wrong the other side is. This is not enough. It is very important to show who you really are, and then it will be easier for the American to identify with Israel."

The big question, of course, is how to accomplish this. "We would be glad if all Americans came to visit Israel and formed their own impression of what is happening there," says Lee Dranikoff. "The thing is that 99 percent of Americans will not experience Israel personally. Therefore, there is no alternative but to instill this idea of branding Israel. And this doesn′t only mean that the Foreign Ministry will try to push the human side of Israel in its relationship with the media. This means that the other government ministries will also do this. And here, in the U.S., we have found that there are about 50 Jewish organizations that are working for Israel in one way or another. They, too, will receive our findings and conclusions. And they, too, will be able to push the new brand of Israel as a country with a human face."

Arye Mekel, Israel′s consul general in New York and a former journalist, supports the plan but is skeptical. "The Americans are, after all, wrapped up in themselves and hardly take any interest in what happens outside the United States. And nowadays there is one big foreign issue, and that′s Iraq, and everything that doesn′t have to do with Iraq is sidelined. In the Israeli context, it could be said that the media isn′t interested in us. In its day, after terror attacks, the media ran after us. Nowadays when we contact them to tell them that five people have been killed, they tell us to call when there are 20. It isn′t going to be easy to reveal the human side of Israel when in fact there isn′t much interest in foreign news."

Amir Gissin says that before they embark on a campaign for branding Israel, housecleaning is in order. According to him, "The process of rebranding a country is above all a domestic educational process: People and organizations have to internalize the values of the branding and act according to them, and this is not an easy goal. The change in the attitude toward us abroad will come afterward, as a result of this." Gissin is setting a goal for himself: "If today 97 percent of the reports from Israel, and this has been checked, are about the conflict, if within two years we manage to bring the spread of reports in the media to 80 percent about the conflict and 20 percent that will represent the human face of Israel, this will be a success." And he knows that this is a task that is not going to be easy at all.

`The Israeli home is surrounded by barbed wire′

Insight Research Group of Boaz Mourad looked into the opinion of focus groups in three American cities. A selection of responses from the study is given here. (Each reply is from a different participant.)

How does an Israeli look?

Participant: "Covered. Wearing a burqa or something like that."

How does an Israeli home look?

Participant: "Like a wall. Small. Fortified. Dark. Concrete."

Participant: "Large, fortified gates. There are guards outside."

Participant: "There are bars on the windows."

Participants: "Not very comfortable. A home of a sort that we′re not familiar with."

Participant: "We wouldn′t want to stay there for very long."

Participant: "Looks like a bunker."

Participant: "Not attractive."

Participant: "Barbed wire fences."

Is there a lawn?

Participant: "No."

Are you greeted warmly?

Participant: "No."

Participant: "Unless they know you. They aren′t open to strangers."

Participant: I don′t know whether they will accept me. Because of the color of my skin."

You′re getting closer to the home. What are you feeling?

Participant (laughing): "I′m not going there."

Participant: "The reason I don′t want to go there is that I imagine that this is an Orthodox home, and I don′t know how they′d accept me there."

Participant: "It′s dangerous there because of what is happening there. You′re afraid of them."

Would you like to get together with the people who live there?

Participant: "Apparently not."

When you leave, what are you thinking?

Participant: "Glad that I′ve left there, hoping to get out without getting hurt." (H.H.)