MIFTAH
Tuesday, 19 March. 2024
 
Your Key to Palestine
The Palestinian Initiatives for The Promotoion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
 
 
 
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Israel, the land of civilisation, culture and science! Don't be surprised if you are soon to come upon such words on US billboards or to see images of Israel's technology and know-how on Chinese TV screens.

The Israeli foreign and finance ministries have started an initiative to draft PR firms to “rebrand” Israel. As of the spring of 2003, the Israeli economy has been in a downwards spiral and cosmetic surgery is indicated. This initiative is not as far-fetched as one might think. These days, extreme makeovers are an everyday occurrence on US TV. With enough money, a little nip and tuck and some botox, it is now possible even for Cain himself to be rebranded.

Israel has always had a high profile in the world, albeit a troubled one. This is because of the Holocaust, the history of Israel's forcible creation as a solution to the “Jewish problem” in Europe, and the subsequent displacement and dispossession of the Palestinians.

Throughout its existence, Israel's image-making machine has been hugely successful in the West, and especially in the US. To a large extent, Israel continues to be a successful image maker. Not only is US foreign policy firmly biased in favour of Israel (even when that bias goes against US national interest), but so is its mainstream media. A new two-year study of NBC, ABC and CBS released at a Capitol Hill hearing on May 9 underscores this lopsided bias (see study at http://www.ifamericansknew.org/).

But since the second Intifada and Israel's ruthless response to it, facts, figures and images have seeped out to show Israeli unconscionable actions towards the Palestinians for what they are. People who go fact finding can easily find the facts. The US Episcopal Church announced last week (after a fact-finding mission in the West Bank) that it was considering a review of its investments in companies that do business with Israel.

So rather than do the right thing by the Palestinians (give them back what is due to them) and resolve the issue once and for all, the Israeli government is gathering together its business people and its advertising associations and embarking on a selling campaign. Israel wants to boast to the world that, with a population just two per cent of America's, its venture-backed technology start-ups amount almost to a quarter of what the US is able to attract. Naturally, it will not mention in the campaign that the US shells out $15,139,178 per day to the Israeli government and military (and only $232,290 per day to Palestinian NGOs).

This month, Israel marked the 57th year of its creation as a Jewish state in Palestine, while the Palestinians marked the 57th year of the Nakbah, the catastrophic consequences to the Palestinians of the establishment of the Jewish state. As they say, the mirror has two faces. Israel's biggest achievement in the Middle East is a skeleton too big to hide cosmetically.

As long as there are Palestinians, the memory of their Nakbah will stay with them. On the same day that Israel is celebrating its “independence” with fireworks and global marketing plans, the Palestinians are sitting in their refugee camps, in Israeli jails or in the prisons called the West Bank and Gaza Strip and remembering their dispossession and their displacement.

Israel ought to know that peace requires new thinking. Why not use some of that innovative, high-tech spirit Israel wants to boast about to the world in order to do just that? What's high-tech or innovative about an apartheid concrete wall on land that does not belong to Israel? The Chinese are not likely to be thinking of building another wall themselves.

 
 
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