I receive much material for use in public diplomacy efforts on behalf of Israel. Most of it good and basic; some of it very good. Some of it, well, it could use improvement. Of course, you need to have people use the material in a spirited, creative and smart way. In today’s social media world, driven by immediacy, shallowness and sensationalized effect, it is difficult, alright, near impossible, to engage those who oppose Israel and its policies.
We need people who can command a more-than-minimal knowledge of a very complex historical development over decades, yea, centuries, and even millennia. People who can adequately explain legal issues and international law, demography (with more than a 10th grade education in arithmetic), military strategy, economic matters, water and sanitation concerns, comparative political systems, theology and the list goes on.
Here, for example, are some very basic fundamentals without which no dialogue can be conducted on behalf of Israel:
1. The Jewish people is a nation and its national homeland is the Land of Israel and it became one about two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Since almost 1300 B.C.E., the Jews ruled over the Land of Israel with a continuous Jewish presence in the land for the past 3,300 years except when invaded and conquered by foreign armies.
3. The Arab people invaded, conquered and occupied this country in about 638 C.E.
4. As for Jerusalem, the city was held to be not only the central administrative location by the Jewish people but as a sacred capital for over 3000 years and, incidentally. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem and its name does not appear in the Quran. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray facing Mecca (often with their backs toward Jerusalem).
Arguments get bogged down in Mandate history, for sure, (like the dozens of comments at my previous post) but the worst part is the role fellow Jews play is subverting the truth for reasons of assimilation, psychological imbalance, ideological allegiance to universalism, cosmopolitism, or other radical quirky concepts.
We can be assured that our goals are correct and our case truthful. And so much more moral than that of the Arabs who make false claims and the nations that support them.
But we lack, for the most part, the three Cs. They are Cooperation, Collaboration and Collateralism or, working together. There are just too many groups and moreover, no unity and certainly no real willingness to find a common denominator and work together in a fluid manner. Networking is usually based on a personal basis. Official bodies and institutions are too too careful to work together with the commando groups of volunteers, who have actually been the most successful in undermining Arab propaganda propped up by progressive forces and aided by anti-Semites.
We need to do better.
^