Can we politicize Israeli model Bar Refaeli appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated's recent swimsuit edition? Of course. Today in Ha'aretz Aluf Benn asks whether Refaeli will make people forget about Gaza and sees her as part of Israel's well established "Brand Israel project." This a program of the Israeli foreign ministry to alter Israel's image internationally. Benn explains this is necessary because:
Israelis tend to see their country as part of the West, and compare it to the United States and Britain. The problem is that the West is not too thrilled by the comparison and regards Israel as an oddity, a country using excessive force in permanent conflict with its neighbors.
In theory, Refaeli will change this by showing people in the US that Israel is "just like you" (if by "like you" they mean Israel also enjoys objectifying women). John H. Brown, a senior fellow of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, calls this practice "pubic diplomacy". While Brown points out that many countries now use this strategy, he believes that Israel began the practice at May 19, 2007 at 9:00 pm when the Israeli consulate in New York hosted a party celebrating an issue of Maxim magazine that featured Israeli models as IDF soldiers. At that party David Saranga, Israel's Consul For Media And Public Affairs at its New York Consulate, was quoted as saying"the beautiful models in Israel were a 'Trojan horse' to present Israel as a modern country with nice beaches and pretty women." What this does to build international support for Israeli war crimes is still unclear.
If Refaeli appearing in SI really is part of a Israeli hasbara campaign, then they might want to pay attention to what she actually says and not just what she looks like. In 2007 Refaeli made international headlines when she celebrated the fact she avoided Israeli military service. She said:
“Israel or Uganda, what difference does it make? It makes no difference to me. Why is it good to die for our country? What, isn’t it better to live in New York? Why should 18-year-old kids have to die? It’s dumb that people have to die so that I can live in Israel...”
I'm sure most people who see Sports Illustrated will have no idea the model on the cover is Israeli. But if they do, do you think they would interested to know that she's more interested in living in Los Angeles than Tel Aviv? (Adam Horowitz)
Sometimes a photo can help a blog post.
I have a blog entry here that follows up Bar Rafaeli's Uganda comment.
BTW, there is a photo.
Well, it would be difficult to build support for Arab war crimes by using pictures of their woman. On the whole they are generally nauseating.
She better talk to Suzanne, who said on this bog a few days ago that Israel was an Eastern country, not a (wannabe) Western one. There's lots nice posters of the girls of the Bund Deutsche Maedchen still around.
They aren't nearly as cherry-picked either.
Brown obviously has not studied Israeli public diplomacy very deeply.
I guess he has never heard of Exodus.
Bt the 50s Zionist manipulation of the US movie and publishing industries is already demonstrable and even blatant.
If I have the time, I will try to post an entry on Zionist public diplomacy in Nazi Germany.
If you have the time, Joachim? You don't have a job, so what are you busy with? Please tell me it's not fucking that cow of a wife!
Figures that your a Hitler fan, citizen. Like that nazi ass don't you scumbag.
Sword says the arab women are generally pictorial nauseating. Get a load of most jewish women–especially the ones sans gentile blood. What do you think? Thought so. If this were not so, how come
when jews make it rich, they usually get a shiksa? The pattern is well known of course. Blonde shicksas
are the trophy. How many such jewish men opt for a blood jewess? And look at all the Hollywood movies–it the jewish actor doesn't go gaga over a shiksa, usually blonde, then that's because you didn't notice–you were looking at how cute the little towheads were–defies genetics, but there's Hollywood, a projection in film of every jewish nerd's dreams. Speaking of Paul Newman, exactly what is/was his ethnic heritage? Whenever you see a TV sitcom or a movie that involves kids, there's always a real ugly one, usually the sarcastic joke boy. And what is depicted in such movies as the dream girl? Hint: it's not your
typical jewess.
Enough said, I won't bore you with the role of Jewish mothers in American Literature, beginning with
the :Portnoy's Complaint author–wherein, he was agaga over the shiksa.
So, now we get rare Israeli beauties to sell massacre of Gazans–even if they could care less about Israel. Figures. Sword, Chris Berel, Suzanne et al will be thrilled.
Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend Bar Refaeli sues Israeli newspaper for libel
link to haaretz.com
Martillo:
Does anyone read your crap? Usually I enjoy the hatred and jealousy of a Weiss or a Duke, but you are just unreadable. Your writing is so dense I can't get through a paragraph.
Shiksa, are you getting wet dreams about my hebrew salami. Israeli girls are hot. Arab girls are not. Sure there are exceptions but get back to me when SI has a model named Fatima.
I am sorry, Julian, that my articles are difficult for you. You should probably concentrate on the short ones less than one computer screen in length.
I am probably the only Jewish studies expert that can work with practically all the primary sources from the "Israelite" to the modern period and that has a good working knowledge of linguistic, mathematical, economics, financial, biological, medical, and astronomical disciplines necessary to understand some of the burning issues over the vast time period.
Even after my attempts at elucidation, the subject matter consists of a lot of complex material that is probably well beyond the comprehension, of someone that has spent a lot of time in ruining his cerebral cortex by immersing it in the Zionist belief system.
Rahm Emanuel and His Shikse
And you forgot to mention that your humble Martillo. BTW, does miss Karen like it up the ass?
I was at a Trader Joe's and saw a young, attractive woman who was wearing an IDF fatigue cap. Her beauty did nothing to alter my understanding about Israel's terrorist state status, and prompted me look for a Palestinian kafiyeh to wear when I go to TJ's.
Hebrew salami
Deracinate the liver before fucking it.
John H. Brown, a senior fellow of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, calls this practice "pubic diplomacy".
While it might amount to "pubic" democracy, John H. Brown probably called this practice "public" democracy.
A typo?
Click the link embedded in Phil's underlined words. Brown did in fact call it "pubic diplomacy". No typo.
Love ya for that, Phil. You are improving on the gender front.
I did not even notice the pun.
Anyway pubic diplomacy is hardly new. See Sarkozy, Anti-Semitosis and France — especially the comments.
this was Adam, tree.
But yes, I noticed an ad hype for Holidays in Israel lately, maybe that's part of the package.
My mistake. Thanks for pointing that out, LeaNder. Kudos to Adam, then.
dose anybody know that if the isaeli models that were in maxim magagzine changed people opnion about actions of israel's goverment or not
Kaveh.
Do you know any ordinary 20-25 yr old men who read magazines in paper? Any? Anywhere? (That's assuming someone who is not a writer.)
The NYC Israeli Consulate planned that campaign, and probably with the usual disdain NYCers have for the rest of the country. Firth Avenue. Hudson. Los Angeles. So I have to assume that Mr. Smarty-Pants PR wonder from Tel Aviv wanted to get laid.
The whole travel to Israel thing is up. SkyAuction (owned by Israel) is hyping bigtime. Ditto Perelli Tours. They try to make Israel look like a big Greek wedding in the Greek Islands. Difference is that Greece understood the definition of democracy 5,000 years ago, and Israel still can't grasp it.
Not like those fun jaunts to Riyadh and Damscus I guess.
I understand the Greeks were also the first to have naked guys wrestling each other and also the first to celebrate homosexuality. But you have to give it to the Spartans at Thermopolaye. Killed disproportionately more persians than they lost. Would have been condemned by the UN today.
Nothing kills a brand's luster like pogroms.
Is Bar Rafaeli a propaganda tool for Israel? I wouldn't doubt it. Unfortunately, whenever I hear/read the word Israel in any branch of the MSM, I assume that there is an attempt to manipulate and extort, or that I am being lied to. How else should I feel?
I often heard Israelis say that they are a part of the West, but that's a dangerous game, in my opinion. If Israelis look and act like Europeans, aren't they destroying their ancient claim to being a part of the Middle Eastern neighborhood?
Todd: they don't want to be part of the Middle East. They want to dominate it.
Taking into account our good Citizen's precise theorem of israeli retaliation proportionality, "an eye for an eyelash," I wonder how many hundreds of palestinian lives are worth a single rafaelic pubic hair.
"I did not even notice the pun."
I didn't notice anything else! I was already writting a comment directed at the count employing his "only in Mondoweiss" when I noticed the frigging "l" was there. Never mind, as brilliant as he is, Martillo is no MM. But at least I got my daily thrill.
Ok, only to make things clear I thought Martillo's pun was here:
"Brown obviously has not studied Israeli public diplomacy very deeply."
I'm doing a LeaNder's snagglepussic "Exit, stage left!" now.
LeaNder, you’re now speaking Yiddish? It never occurred to me, but are you Jewish? I’m not being flip, I'm really curious to know.
As you know, I view Jewish Leftists as one small step away from Jewish Bolsheviks, and I view ethnic Jewish neo-Bolsheviks as the moral equivalent of ethnic German neo-Nazis, hence I view Jewish neo-Bolsheviks not unlike many Jews view German neo-Nazis. For example, every time I see Bill Maher being interviewed on TV, I have this instinctive, all encompassing hatred and loathing. I would imagine it must be how a Jew feels when he encounters an ethnic German neo-Nazi grooving on Nazi talking points.
If you are of the Jewish leftist genus (even though I know you’re no Bolshevik ideologue) it would explain why you place Zionism above Christianity on the moral scale.
I’m not trying to judge you, but I’m just trying to get a further understanding of where you’re coming from.
"She better talk to Suzanne, who said on this bog a few days ago that Israel was an Eastern country, not a (wannabe) Western one."
Ummm, no I never said that. Not even close, bog man. The lying is getting more and more brazen around here.
Ed, you have to cut back on the crystal meth
whoops, my last post was intended as a response to LeaNder on a different thread: 'Israeli election update: Livni and Netanyahu support Israeli loyalty oath to woo Lieberman'
The hypocrisy of Phil's no-censorship policy is utterly nauseating. How dare you expect us to take racist jokes about the shape of penises as healthy debate, Phil? You should be ashamed of yourself for permitting this blog to sink into such a filthy state. And I warned you, several times, once with a whole paragraph of warnings in bold type. Do not expect any more of them – I shall have you closed down.
ok…I need some popcorn for this howling comedy. What's it called again– Meltdown in Gestapo Town? hahahahhhahaha!
Yes, the nazi flame wars are certainly heating up. I understand that Roawn and Martin are complaining that Phil isn't nazi enough for him or his Palestinian buddies.
======================================================
Question: "Rowan, Didn't you suggest that Phil include your blog on his blog list? If so, why is there nothing on it?"
My answer: Because the only thing that was said here on Mondoweiss as many times as Phil's "this is the Elian Gonzalez moment for the Israel lobby!" is Rowan's "I'm taking this site off my bookmarks!"
Rowan Enters: "what on earth are you talking about?"
======================================================
Meltdown in Gestapo Town!
Is Rowan in or is Rowan out?
the sayanim rout is coming loud:
Meltdown in Gestapo Town!
Hey hey hey.
Meltdown in Gestapo Town!…
"Brown obviously has not studied Israeli public diplomacy very deeply."
Yes, Joachim missed an opportunity for a pun of bulging proportions there.
However to his credit he did recently teach us how to tell a girl she has nice tits in Polish. I immediately took note.
Do not expect any more of them – I shall have you closed down.
Posted by: Rowan | February 18, 2009 at 11:27 PM >>>>>
That would be a bad idea. Let their comments stand so everyone can see what the zio nazis are. They are worth millions in anti zionism advertising.
In fact you should save their remarks for future use. If you compare them to the racist Aryan crowd rantings the racist zios look even worse.
On AMC's Mad Men, Season 1, one episode (Babylon) deals with the 1960's Sterling Cooper advertising agency attempting to win a contract to promote Israeli tourism. The lead character, Don Draper, asks his mistress, Rachel Mencken, into some possible insight that might help him design a better pitch to the Israelis. She reminds him that she is American, not Israeli, and warns him, "Don't screw with them." A number of the characters make statements that were probably common in American boardrooms at the time – some admiring Israeli tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds, others viewing with suspicion their socialist economy.
One character utters the crude comment, that is still often whispered today, "They're Jews don't look like our Jews." while he views a picture of an Israeli fashion model. Bar Rafali is just the next generation in this. I doubt it will have much impact on America's views towards Israel. Asian women are often portrayed very attractively on American entertainment, but that does not alter the suspicion that Americans view towards China's economic policies. Sexy Latinas are prominent on Hispanic TV stations, but Americans still get up in arms about what they perceive as excessive immigration.
KXB–thanks for reminding us that the Left lives in a parallel universe very different from the rest of us.
You forgot to mention that the US and Israel have very friendly relations. Citizens here are favorable to Israel…or otherwise neutral.
Very stupid glaring omission. Yet not unexpected from people with a poor sense of reality.
Man, MM, beware employing Martillo's flirting strategies in real life. What he said in polish probably translates into: "All that lebensraum between those hills awakes the interloping desires of this potentially murderous ethnic ashkenazi genocidalist in love."
We would rather have you melted into a giant Easter egg than let such wonderful anti-zionist end his days devoured in a pogrom because of Martillo's dangerous ways of dating.
Actually, support for Israel is probably higher than I thought. I was being conservative.
This essay by Walter Mead Russell, a Henry A Kissinger Senior Fellow For U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations suggests that public opinion has driven Israeli policy (leftie goobs and Gestapo, cover your eyes…this is PAINFUL):
"In the United States, a pro-Israel foreign policy does not represent the triumph of a small lobby over the public will. It represents the power of public opinion to shape foreign policy in the face of concerns by foreign policy professionals. Like the war on drugs and the fence along the Mexican border, support for Israel is a U.S. foreign policy that makes some experts and specialists uneasy but commands broad public support. This does not mean that an "Israel lobby" does not exist or does not help shape U.S. policy in the Middle East. Nor does it mean that Americans ought to feel as they do. (It remains my view that everyone, Americans and Israelis included, would benefit if Americans developed a more sympathetic and comprehensive understanding of the wants and needs of the Palestinians.) But it does mean that the ultimate sources of the United States' Middle East policy lie outside the Beltway and outside the Jewish community. To understand why U.S. policy is pro-Israel rather than neutral or pro-Palestinian, one must study the sources of nonelite, non-Jewish support for the Jewish state."
Read the rest here.
correction: Walter Russell Mead
Suzanne,
Don't get me wrong – my point was that Americans draw a line between entertainment and the rest of their lives. A man may jump at the chance to a woman as lovely as Bar Rafaeli, but how does that translate into support for Israel's actions in Gaza? It doesn't.
Sorry, but Walter Russell Mead's essay was not persuasive. It is one thing to offer up some notion of generic American support for Israel, and quite another for Americans to lend support to specific Israeli policies. For most non-Jewish Americans that don't live in NYC, DC, Florida, or CA – Israel is just not on the radar. Israel is not a major trading partner with the U.S., it has not had much influence in the U.S. culturally, and it has never lent its troops to any American military venture. Yes, there is some cooperation in developing defense technology, but the U.S. does that with dozens of nations.
America should not abandon Israel, and most people do not seem to be arguing that. But it does appear that the era of the blank check is drawing to a close, which will benefit both the U.S. and Israel.
KXB–do you think I posted Walter Russell Mead's essay to persuade Leftie Goobs and Gestapo?
Nope. He is in a better position to tell it like it is. His reading of the American public's pulse is better than yours. Yours is made of fairy tales. That's the whole point.
Gotta give you idiots credit for trying hard for 40 years though.
KXB–not necessarily including you in the "you" addressed at the nazi thugs here…
on another note, my understanding is that money to Israel has decreased on a yearly basis. The whole plan is to phase it out…that's mutually understood. Check that out first hand instead of relying on 3rd person sources.
Suzanne,
Oddly enough, the last serious person to suggest that Israel should give up the $3 billion in U.S. aid it gets every year was Netanyahu, when he was PM back in the 1990s. But he backed off when American Jewish groups told him to drop the subject. I'm not a fan of Netanyahu, but he understood that giving that much money every year to a middle-class economy was ammunition for anti-Israel propaganda. By giving it up, it would be one less rhetorical stick with which to beat Israel. But American-based groups tend to be very short-term in their thinking.
- KXB