domingo, maio 29, 2005: The Palestinians are not only outgunned, but outmessaged

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BEING the dominant side in the world's most-scrutinised conflict has taught Israel a bitter lesson: that “war does not take place just in the battlefield, but also on the TV screen,” says Gideon Meir, one of the foreign ministry's top spokesmen. But that lesson seems to have eluded the Palestinian Authority (PA)—even as the two sides enter a phase in which conveying the right message will matter more than ever.

That might surprise a casual observer, for it is hard to tell which side has better public relations just by looking at the coverage itself. Packs of media watchdogs scrutinise every news item, providing daily reams of proof that the world's media are both riddled with Israel-haters and controlled by a Zionist conspiracy. For the former view, subscribe to the mailing lists of Independent Media Review Analysis or Palestinian Media Watch—just don't confuse it with Palestine Media Watch, which (along with others) dishes out similar vitriol for anything that seems too pro-Israel.

However, in informational as well as military terms, the Palestinians are far outgunned. Israel has press officers in every ministry and embassy and an annual PR-training course in Washington, DC, for selected spokespeople. The foreign ministry has a 24-hour monitoring centre which analyses coverage in several languages, counts the airtime given to Israeli and Palestinian spokespeople down to the last second, and sends out real-time electronic reports on it to officials. Even so, says Mr Meir, he is pushing to make things more systematic, to get his colleagues to weigh up how every decision will play in the media, especially the foreign media.
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Now, with a tentative ceasefire on the table and the beginnings of a new peace process visible in the distance, both sides must present a post-intifada face. The path of any peace talks will depend on how much each side convinces the world of its good intentions. Israel has already launched a new rebranding campaign, “Israel Beyond the Conflict”, promoting stories about the country's technological and agricultural prowess. Mahmoud Abbas has branded himself as the Palestinian president who will stop the intifada. But even if he achieves that goal—at a meeting last week in Cairo, the militant factions promised a ceasefire until the year's end—his success will depend on how credibly he can claim that he has done all he can, in the face of an organised Israeli campaign to prove the contrary. As things are, he stands little chance.
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Economist.com

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