unicornnews: Palestine/Israel PR War

Earlier in the year we had Russia and Georgia hiring rival European communication agencies to help them fight the PR dimension of their fortunately short-lived military conflict. Now The Times reports that Palestine and Israel are employing more corporate-style communication techniques in order to fight the PR element of their never-ending dispute.

First, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is of the opinion that his government’s peace proposals have not been properly communicated to the Israeli people, took out a series of full page adverts in Israel’s biggest daily newspapers, outlining the details of an Arab peace initiative. They basically outline proposals first made in 2002 that the Arab world will formally recognise Israel if they withdraw from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and parts of Jerusalem.

The Times quotes an aide to Abbas, Saeb Erekat, confirming that the President’s advertising campaign was launched because of his belief that “Israelis were not properly educated about the deal on offer”.

Meanwhile, Israel are trying to circumvent what they see as Palestinian-biased media, especially in the Middle East, by launching their own YouTube channel in Arabic. Ophir Gendelman of Israel’s Foreign Ministry told reporters: “We have a problem reaching out to the Arab audience, and we need to take additional measures to maximise our exposure. The internet scene in Arabic is buzzing, and we wish to establish another communication channel for dialogue. We see it as complementing our current activity in the Arab media”.

Posted Wednesday November 26 2008 by Chris Cooke

Related categories: Political Communications