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Israel’s Public Diplomacy in Operation Cast Lead INSS Insight No.

90, January 15,


2009
Goodman, Hirsh

Evidence suggests that Israel’s public diplomacy efforts during Operation Cast Lead were planned as
professionally and precisely as the IDF's military operation. Clearly, both in terms of media relations and
information security, lessons have been learned from past experience. Israel has put in place what seems
to be a well-oiled, focused, disciplined, and well-navigated public diplomacy bureaucracy that
disseminates messages and supporting materials in a timely and organized way.
It appears that those charged with Israel’s information security and public diplomacy in this
conflict learned and internalized the lessons of the 2006 war. The Winograd Commission of Inquiry into
the Second Lebanon War was highly critical of how information security and public diplomacy were
handled, and devoted a major chapter to the subject. In 2006, leaks of the most sensitive material from
highly sensitive government and security forums that were reported in almost real time gave Hizbollah,
according to then-Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, intelligence worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Uncontrolled cell phone use by troops to parents, relatives, friends, and ultimately the media portrayed
confusion and depicted a lack of proper leadership, supplies, and medical care for the troops in action.
Undisciplined and non-regulated interchanges between officers in uniform and reporters painted a blurred
picture of where the army was headed. Commentators and even those formally charged with trying to
project Israel’s case internally and externally were not briefed and often gave contradictory assessments
on the progress of the war and its goals, leading to public bewilderment and demoralization In addition,
in the Second Lebanon War as well as in the second intifada, there was a critical lack of coordination
between the military, the Foreign Ministry, and the Prime Minister’s Office, each of which was seen to be
working at cross purposes.
In Operation Cast Lead, the situation seems to be quite different. Unlike in the Second Lebanon
War, where the Army Spokesman’s policy was one of openness, the current policy has been one of tight
control. Media access has been severely limited. Entire areas around mobilization points were declared
off-limits to the press. In the second week of the war very limited and controlled access was granted to
“trusted” journalists who had a long history of relations with the IDF and agreed to abide by strict
censorship rules. In this war no officers have spoken to the media without authorization, and those who
did were carefully briefed. Private cell phones were confiscated. The military’s message has been
conveyed in person by the Army Spokesman in nightly, live, prime-time interviews. Those who did
appear were clearly pre-briefed on what to say, as well as on information security requirements. And in a
major, highly effective, and fundamental change, the military has been providing those responsible for
defending Israel’s case with speedy intelligence to give credibility and credence to their message,
specifically when it comes to attacks on mosques and other sensitive targets like ambulances and schools.
Gideon Meir, now Israel’s ambassador to Italy, said in a January 13 interview with Army Radio
that he was “highly impressed” with the briefing materials he had received, including those provided by
the IDF. Prior to his current appointment, Meir served for eight years as the Foreign Ministry’s deputy
director general for public affairs, responsible for the country’s public diplomacy, and was at the time a
vocal critic of the army’s policy of withholding information and the general lack of cooperation from
other government and security agencies.
From the very start of the war, there has been unanimity of message from official sources about
the goals of the operation. Scenarios developed ahead of the outbreak of hostilities are tailored to meet the
need of the hour, bolstered by whatever evidence can be produced, and disseminated efficiently to
spokesmen, embassies, government ministers charged with speaking to the public, and other relevant
bodies. Coordination has been handled by the National Information Directorate in the Prime Minister’s
Office, a body set up as a result of the State Comptroller’s report into Israel’s public diplomacy failures,
particularly regarding the Jenin refugee camp incident in 2002, when many in the world were led to
believe a massacre had occurred though no such thing had happened. A lack of information sharing
between the IDF, the Foreign Ministry, and the Prime Minister’s Office was found to be at the core of the
problem. This, it seems, the Directorate has now successfully resolved.
To those planning Operation Cast Lead and its public diplomacy, it was clear that the most
problematic pictures for Israel and its international relations would be those of urban areas in Gaza
subject to intense military action. It was in this context that a decision was made to keep the foreign press
out of Gaza. The border was closed to them two months in advance of the operation and remained closed
until the second week of the war when a BBC cameraman and a Reuters pool reporter were allowed to
enter Gaza embedded with Israeli troops and under tight field security control. Though in a response to an
appeal from the Foreign Press Association in Israel the Supreme Court had ordered the border opened
some several weeks before the operation, the IDF kept it closed citing “security considerations,” much to
the ire of the foreign press. Ethan Bronner of the New York Times complained that “unlike any war in
Israel’s history, in this one the government is seeking to entirely control the message and the narrative for
reasons of both politics and military strategy.” The Foreign Press Association itself issued a statement
saying that “the unprecedented denial of access to Gaza for the world’s media amounts to a severe
violation of press freedom and puts Israel in the company of a handful of regimes around the world which
regularly keep journalists from doing their jobs.” Lorenzo Cremonesi, a journalist for Italy's Corriere
della Sera argued in an article in Haaretz that if Israel denied the international press access to Gaza to see
the picture with their own eyes, Israel could not expect objective, balanced reportage because they would
be forced to rely on reports from victims and witnesses in the Strip. “If we aren’t allowed access to the
battle scene, we’ll end up reporting someone else’s exaggerations,” he wrote. Cremonesi, who during his
career spent twenty years in Israel, reminds readers that had Israel allowed the international media into
Jenin with Israeli forces there would never have been reports of a massacre there, and the same logic now
applies to Gaza.
Those planning Israel’s media strategy for this war obviously do not agree. The protests of the
foreign press were predicted in advance and thought less harmful to Israel than the consequences of
uncontrolled reportage from the battlefield, possibly in part under Hamas dictate, with a very high chance
of some journalists being caught in the cross fire and killed.
While the full results of Israel’s public diplomacy efforts in this war will take months to assess,
it seems that lessons of the past have been learned and acted on; that a structure for efficient crafting and
dissemination of message exists; and that inter-agency cooperation has been deepened. The basic
conditions posed by a policy of massive force being deployed in densely populated areas would pose a
challenge to any public diplomacy establishment. Until now, those responsible seem to be doing a solid
job under difficult circumstance and against very heavy odds.

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