Michael Oren is ambassador of Israel to the U.S., which makes him the chief public relations employee of Israel. And he sees the writing on the wall. His piece in the Wall Street Journal is titled "What happened to Israel's reputation?" You can see that he is enraged by Sarah Schulman's pinkwashing piece in the New York Times, you can see that he knows that Israel exhibits "brutal conduct" in war and has demonstrated arrogance with the alleged peace process. He is afraid of BDS. And calls it a more "sinister" tactic than what? Than violence? Yes; he would prefer violence. We don't know how to fight Gandhi, the Israelis say.
[Today as opposed to 40 years ago, mainstream US] readers would learn about Israel's overwhelming military might, brutal conduct in warfare and eroding democratic values—plus the Palestinians' plight and Israeli intransigence. The photographs would show not cool students and cutting-edge artists but soldiers at checkpoints and religious radicals.... Why has Israel's image deteriorated? After all, Israel today is more democratic and—despite all the threats it faces—even more committed to peace.
Some claim that Israel today is a Middle Eastern power that threatens its neighbors, and that conservative immigrants and extremists have pushed Israel rightward.Given all this, why have anti-Israel libels once consigned to hate groups become media mainstays? How can we explain the assertion that an insidious "Israel Lobby" purchases votes in Congress, or that Israel oppresses Christians? Why is Israel's record on gay rights dismissed as camouflage for discrimination against others?
The answer lies in the systematic delegitimization of the Jewish state. Having failed to destroy Israel by conventional arms and terrorism, Israel's enemies alit on a subtler and more sinister tactic that hampers Israel's ability to defend itself, even to justify its existence.
It began with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's 1974 speech to the U.N., when he received a standing ovation for equating Zionism with racism—a view the U.N. General Assembly endorsed the following year. It gained credibility on college campuses through anti-Israel courses and "Israel Apartheid Weeks." It burgeoned through the boycott of Israeli scholars, artists and athletes, and the embargo of Israeli products. It was perpetuated by journalists who published doctored photos and false Palestinian accounts of Israeli massacres.
Israel must confront the acute dangers of delegitimization as it did armies and bombers in the past.
I imagine a New Yorker cartoon:
Man 1: “It’s pretty sinister that they call me a ‘bigot.’ I have to figure a way to change their perception of me.”
Man 2: “You could just stop being a bigot…”
“Why has Israel’s image deteriorated?” Simple. People in the US and around the world now have access to the facts, the truth via other means of communication other than the MSM.
“Why has Israel’s image deteriorated?”
Because Oren is a **** like the rest of them
How can we explain the assertion that an insidious “Israel Lobby” purchases votes in Congress ?
http://www.aipac.org
BDS is already hurting the carefully constructed image of Israel in goyland
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“published doctored photos and false Palestinian accounts of Israeli massacres” & how’s that for Nakba denial?
Cannot read the WSJ piece; pay-wall?
Based on above: Just gotta love that “more sinister”. He seems happy with the (Israel’s) brutalities of war, etc. I suppose he’d say (if asked — no one will ask) that it would be well and proper if Israel were defeated in war — because he knows it’d never happen. But he dislikes the use of the weapons of words, the non-violent means of boycott. War never threatened Israel, but peace always threatened. It was the PLO’s peacefulness that brought on the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, after all.
“Say goodnight, Israel.” (“Goodnight, Israel”.)
If you search for the article in news.google.com (or probably any other search engine), you will bypass the pay wall.
The article is worth reading, but not for the reasons that Oren would give.
By MICHAEL OREN
This year Israel is celebrating . . . a series of accomplishments that have surely exceeded the expectations of its most visionary founders. It is one of the most powerful small nations in history. . . . [It] has tamed an arid wilderness [and] welcomed 1.25 million immigrants. . . . The Israelis themselves did the fighting, the struggling, the sacrificing in order to perform the greatest feat of all—forging a new society . . . in which pride and confidence have replaced the despair engendered by age-long suffering and persecution.
So Life magazine described Israel on the occasion of its 25th birthday in May 1973. In a 92-page special issue, “The Spirit of Israel,” the magazine extolled the Jewish state as enlightened, robustly democratic and hip, a land of “astonishing achievement” that dared “to dream the dream and make that dream come alive.”
Life told the story of Israel’s birth from the Bible through the Holocaust and the battle for independence. “The Arabs’ bloodthirsty threats,” the editors wrote, “lend a deadly seriousness to the vow: Never Again.” Four pages documented “Arab terrorist attacks” and the three paragraphs on the West Bank commended Israeli administrators for respecting “Arab community leaders” and hiring “tens of thousands of Arabs.” The word “Palestinian” scarcely appeared.
There was a panoramic portrayal of Jerusalem, described as “the focus of Jewish prayers for 2,000 years” and the nucleus of new Jewish neighborhoods. Life emphasized that in its pre-1967 borders, Israel was “a tiny, parched, scarcely defensible toe-hold.” The edition’s opening photo shows a father embracing his Israeli-born daughter on an early “settlement,” a testament to Israel’s birthright to the land.
Would a mainstream magazine depict the Jewish state like this today, during the week of its 64th birthday?
Unlikely. Rather, readers would learn about Israel’s overwhelming military might, brutal conduct in warfare and eroding democratic values—plus the Palestinians’ plight and Israeli intransigence. The photographs would show not cool students and cutting-edge artists but soldiers at checkpoints and religious radicals.
Why has Israel’s image deteriorated? After all, Israel today is more democratic and—despite all the threats it faces—even more committed to peace.
Some claim that Israel today is a Middle Eastern power that threatens its neighbors, and that conservative immigrants and extremists have pushed Israel rightward. Most damaging, they contend, are Israel’s policies toward the territories it captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, toward the peace process and the Palestinians, and toward the construction of settlements.
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AFP/Getty Images
Planes perform in Tel Aviv during a military parade marking Israel’s 64th anniversary this year.
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Israel may seem like Goliath vis-à-vis the Palestinians, but in a regional context it is David. Gaza is host to 10,000 rockets, many of which can hit Tel Aviv, and Hezbollah in Lebanon has 50,000 missiles that place all of Israel within range. Throughout the Middle East, countries with massive arsenals are in upheaval. And Iran, which regularly pledges to wipe Israel off the map, is developing nuclear weapons. Israel remains the world’s only state that is threatened with annihilation.
Whether in Lebanon, the West Bank or Gaza, Israel has acted in self-defense after suffering thousands of rocket and suicide attacks against our civilians. Few countries have fought with clearer justification, fewer still with greater restraint, and none with a lower civilian-to-militant casualty ratio. Israel withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza to advance peace only to receive war in return.
Whereas Israelis in 1973 viewed the creation of a Palestinian state as a mortal threat, it is now the official policy of the Israeli government. Jewish men of European backgrounds once dominated Israel, but today Sephardic Jews, Arabs and women are prominent in every facet of society. This is a country where a Supreme Court panel of two women and an Arab convicted a former president of sexual offenses. It is the sole Middle Eastern country with a growing Christian population. Even in the face of immense security pressures, Israel has never known a second of nondemocratic rule.
In 1967, Israel offered to exchange newly captured territories for peace treaties with Egypt and Syria. The Arab states refused. Israel later evacuated the Sinai, an area 3.5 times its size, for peace with Egypt, and it conceded land and water resources for peace with Jordan.
In 1993, Israel recognized the Palestinian people ignored by Life magazine, along with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the perpetrator of those “Arab terrorist attacks.” Israel facilitated the creation of a Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza and armed its security forces. Twice, in 2000 and 2008, Israel offered the Palestinians a state in Gaza, virtually all of the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. In both cases, the Palestinians refused. Astonishingly, in spite of the Palestinian Authority’s praise for terror, a solid majority of Israelis still support the two-state solution.
Israel has built settlements (some before 1973), and it has removed some to promote peace, including 7,000 settlers to fulfill the treaty with Egypt. Palestinians have rebuffed Israel’s peace offers not because of the settlements—most of which would have remained in Israel anyway, and which account for less than 2% of the West Bank—but because they reject the Jewish state. When Israel removed all settlements from Gaza, including their 9,000 residents, the result was a terrorist ministate run by Hamas, an organization dedicated to killing Jews world-wide.
Nevertheless, Israeli governments have transferred large areas to the Palestinian Authority and much security responsibility to Palestinian police. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has removed hundreds of checkpoints, eased the Gaza land blockade and joined President Obama in calling for the resumption of direct peace talks without preconditions. Addressing Congress, Mr. Netanyahu declared that the emergence of a Palestinian state would leave some settlements beyond Israel’s borders and that “with creativity and with good will a solution can be found” for Jerusalem.
Given all this, why have anti-Israel libels once consigned to hate groups become media mainstays? How can we explain the assertion that an insidious “Israel Lobby” purchases votes in Congress, or that Israel oppresses Christians? Why is Israel’s record on gay rights dismissed as camouflage for discrimination against others?
The answer lies in the systematic delegitimization of the Jewish state. Having failed to destroy Israel by conventional arms and terrorism, Israel’s enemies alit on a subtler and more sinister tactic that hampers Israel’s ability to defend itself, even to justify its existence.
It began with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat’s 1974 speech to the U.N., when he received a standing ovation for equating Zionism with racism—a view the U.N. General Assembly endorsed the following year. It gained credibility on college campuses through anti-Israel courses and “Israel Apartheid Weeks.” It burgeoned through the boycott of Israeli scholars, artists and athletes, and the embargo of Israeli products. It was perpetuated by journalists who published doctored photos and false Palestinian accounts of Israeli massacres.
Israel must confront the acute dangers of delegitimization as it did armies and bombers in the past. Along with celebrating our technology, pioneering science and medicine, we need to stand by the facts of our past. “The Spirit of Israel” has not diminished since 1973—on the contrary, it has flourished. The state that Life once lionized lives even more vibrantly today.
Mr. Oren is Israel’s ambassador to the United States
Oren asks what changed since 1973
The Lebanon war in 1982 opened a lot of eyes to the nature of the Zionist war machine
link to magnumphotos.com
link to magnumphotos.com
Promises in 1993 were just empty words
link to blogs.reuters.com
Pointless wars with American soldiers
link to magnumphotos.com
And then there was the white phosphorous
link to freedomsphoenix.com
Israel just grew up and turned into a sociopath .
Yes, the crimes against humanity would make those visionary founders blush.
Is Orem suggesting that tehre are more rockets in Gaza and Lebanon than in Israel? Does Oren have such comtempt for teh public that he expects them to believe a Katusha or Qassam even comared to the lethality of a 1000lb bomb?
Olmert just exposed this as a lie. That’s the problem with Hasbra – it has a limited shelf life.
Palestinians have rebuffed Israel’s peace offers not because of the settlements—most of which would have remained in Israel anyway, and which account for less than 2% of the West Bank—but because they reject the Jewish state.
Notice how Olmert brings up 1993, and the claim that Israel recognized “the Palestinian people”, not a Palestinian state, but himself ignores that the PLO recognized Israel in return, not to mention that the PLO also gave up claims to the territory that lay between Israel’s 1948 border and the 1949 Armistice Line?
You have to love he hyperbole here. Where else but Gaza does Hams even exist?
Even the ones stipulated in the 2002 Road Map that Israel signed and ratified.
You can’t, especially when senior AIAPC people already baosted publicly about doing so.
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“Tamed” as in killing and running off the wild Ayrabs?
And the welcoming of immigrants (as long as they’re Jews) in excess of a million doesn’t seem quite so magnanimous when considering that actual native former inhabitants of the region are also welcomed not to return (as long as they’re not Jews – even if they have their mothers and/or grandmothers convert )
Speaking of…aren’t converts to Judaism deprived of Platinum class Jew status? Too bad, otherwise all the Palestinians could “convert” to exercise their newly acquired right of return. Israel most certainly would never allow that because the newly Juderized would skew the curve on character so much as to render Zionist narrative fabrication mechanism problematic (that is, in fact, unless Zionism is so toxic that the Ziocane spike makes them totally numb to the reality they just arrived from).
Full article can be found at elderofziyon.blogspot.com
“What happened to Israel’s reputation?”
Great piece up over at Race for Iran
I love how everything shows the boycott is working except for the relatively small number of people and companies, you know, boycotting. Kidding aside, if by “working” you mean “is slightly irritating some people” then it is working, if you mean “is going to get Israel to pack up and leave (i.e. give the Palestinians the right of return), then it’s never going to work.
” get Israel to pack up and leave (i.e. give the Palestinians the right of return), ”
Fredo, why isn’t that you can’t even make a lame point without lying about the situation there?
Why do you think Michael Oren is so concerned about BDS?
@Elliot because it is his job to be concerned about irritants in the non-violent field. As opposed to Israel’s security forces, that are concerned with irritants in the violent field.
What’s Israel doing to “irritants” with advanced US warplanes, German submarines and nuclear missiles?
In the next version, I see one streamlined hi-tech gizmo that can soothe both the violent and non-violent strains of irritants with just one button.
Yeah, it’s called a phaser with settings for “kill”, “stun”, and “shut up and go away”.
What, no settign for “move out of you house, there’s a Jewish family that has their eye on it”?
Fred
I have been listening to you recently so I thought BDS was a joke until I was contacted by Judaica webstore.
What is the big deal about the shopafada ?
@seafoid
You are going to have to clarify if you want to be understood.
Calls for boycotts of specific stores often lead to buycotts where supporters of Israel buy out the entire stock of Israeli products.
Why are Judaica webstore mailing all their customers with shopafada ?
@seafoid
Depressing that anyone would make light of BDS, but I think what you described in your previous comment sounds more like an attempt to drum up business without a specific BDS threat than an attempt to undo the effects of any actual boycott.
Hey Fredblogs, cheer up, Israel can truck along for years yet doing what it does best, same as apartheid S Africa did–don’t you remember, the US government was virtually the last western country to oppose BDS against that regime? And of course you know Israel stuck with that regime the longest–they had a “special relationship” together too….
PS Good luck making China or India Israel’s next “special relations” partner. You won’t find much white Christian guilt there.
I can easily imagine a South African diplomat penning a piece like Oren’s circa 1985. I wonder if any of them did.
I can easily imagine a South African diplomat penning a piece like Oren’s circa 1985. I wonder if any of them did.
You betcha! Everything old is new again too:
link to news.yahoo.com
Duh! The folks who pick the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize really don’t have a higher success rate than your typical Lotto player.
From Michael Oren in the WSJ article:
Israel may seem like Goliath vis-à-vis the Palestinians, but in a regional context it is David.
and a Goliath all over again in US and world politics, which is what Oren is addressing.
That casual addition of the word “seem” is delicious in its hutzpah. Israel’s overpowering command of every kind of top of the line materiel, its domination through the use of police, secret service agents, informers, not to mention torture, not to mention its control of Palestinian water resources, roads, medical treatment, international travel and other aspects of life only “seem” to make Israel look like a giant brute. In reality, and in the proper “regional context”, the Palestinians are actually dealing with a nation of soft-spoken, musical-loving poets.
When dealing with appearances, it’s all just a matter of perspective. If you think you’re seeing Goliath, you’re wrong. Michael Oren will help you see that you’re really looking at David.
I can’t view the article on the WSJ as I’m not a subscriber. But I’m curious as to the nature of the comments in response to Oren’s hasbara. If anyone is a WSJ subscriber, could you repost a few of the comments here?
I didn’t have a subscriber status and could view the comments. On the first page that came up for me, 9 comments were supportive of Oren’s position, 4 were critical.
I’m sure you guys are generally aware of the range of discussion that goes, eg:
PRO: We make the desert bloom, Israel is disliked in the media because they stopped being socialist, Palestinian governments don’t tolerate diversity, Israel started as socialist but that didn’t bring peace so they need the right to survive, the media’s views are based on anti-semitism, and a citation from a book says that Arab pscyhology is about fighting eachother. CON: The comment about it being due to anti-semitism is exagerrated, and that citation is taken from a book by a poor author. etc.
“why have anti-Israel libels… become media mainstays? How can we explain the assertion that… Israel oppresses Christians?”
Because an occupation of 40+ years doesn’t appear temporary anymore? Because those Christians say it does?
From the regime that blackmails gay Palestinians into serving as collaborators, that has 750,000 citizens living in illegal Jew only settlements beyond its borders, that needs a US veto to bypass its obligations under the international treaties it has signed – and it moans about delegitimisation.
Too right it isn’t legit.
link to online.wsj.com
Seems that WSJ participates in “Google News” so some content can be accessed through Google News.
Concerning the whine that Israel is David on regional basis, the policy of Israel is a puzzle. It is deeply annoying to the three largest states in the region: treatment of Palestinians is annoying, killing of Turks execution style was celebrated as heroism, constant threats against Iran. Egypt is the closest to Palestinian question. If nothing improves there, eventually there may be a regional alliance involving all the three big countries and everybody in between and Israel will be eliminated.
Only peace with Palestinians can make Israel a viable state in 10-20 year window. Would Hazbarah sell well in Egypt, Iran and Turkey, the perspective would be different, but with the constant oppression of Palestinians, it will not happen. And neither pink washing, nor bird watching, nor Christian Zionism will help there.
“Israel must confront the acute dangers of delegitimization as it did armies and bombers in the past.”
By extreme military overkill that is. Prepare to be bombed to smithereens, mondoweiss.
Yup! That’s how I read it. Israel is happy to outlaw commemoration of the Nakba and BDS. I’m sure that all of us are on some list somewhere. Based on this line, I wouldn’t be surprised to see increased efforts to target activists, journalists, and academics in the US. That’s what Oren is prescribing in the WSJ.
Oren really goes for the grade 1 bullshit with sentences about Israel like
” [It] has tamed an arid wilderness ”
link to online.wsj.com
Who buys this crap ? Laura Bailer does.
“Laura Bailer Wrote:
. On Sunday, I was trying to teach my fifth grade Hebrew class about the birth of Israel in 1948. I didn’t want to just read from the textbook, but find some real footage on line that would make the story more compelling for them. What I found out on Youtube and the internet was shocking. History had been rewritten. The Jews were the aggressors in 1948, attacking the Arabs and driving them out of their homes. There was no mention about all the Arab countries pouncing on the fledgling country, or of all the displacement of Jews throughout Europe after the Holocaust. Sometimes there was no mention of the U.N. role in creating Israel! I tried to show a fair 10-minute clip to fifth-graders and had a very tough time! There were so many distortions. The Jews were definitely the aggressors and the Palestinians the victims. Very sad”
Meanwhile the Zionist attempt to regain control of the internet appears to be floundering
“Oren really goes for the grade 1 bullshit with sentences about Israel like
‘[It] has tamed an arid wilderness ‘”
What I don’t get is why people think that this is such a big friggin’ deal. Pheonix is as dry as Beersheeba and Las Vegas is a lot more arid. Maybe we should talk about the “miracle” of making the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts bloom. What a joke.
RE: “Why is Israel’s record on gay rights dismissed as camouflage for discrimination against others?” ~ Michael Oren
SEE: Israel’s Treatment of Gay Palestinian Asylum Seekers ~ by Caroline Esser, The Washington Note, 6/06/11
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to thewashingtonnote.com
P.S. ALSO RE: “Why is Israel’s record on gay rights dismissed as camouflage for discrimination against others?” ~ Michael Oren
FROM RICHARD SILVERSTEIN, 5/15/12:
SOURCE – link to richardsilverstein.com
“How can we explain the assertion that … Israel oppresses Christians?” Pay no attention to that 6o Minutes episode behind the curtain — I am the great and powerful hasbarist.
When I first heard the Israeli government’s attacks against BDS I saw it as a sign of weakness on their part as is suggested in Phil’s headline. However, if one is fighting against a political campaign, never repeat the charges made against you. This Oren character does that here and I think he is too slick to make that error.
This is an orchestrated campaign to create fear in the hearts of American Jews so those suckers will pour more funds into Israeli charities. Fear is Israel’s greatest ally. It is a sign of weakness in one respect — Israel is using it’s propaganda opportunities to target American Jews. One would think that constituency would be locked up by now.
support wrapped up?
obviously not, looking at this blog…
25 years or so ago…met a carpenter in SOMA San Francisco who was working inside some of the old buildings making Loft type spaces for a developer…he said he was a Captain in the Israeli Army…he had had enough…and got his wife and kids outta there and wasn’t going back….so he was banging nails in San Francisco and considered himself lucky…talked to him for awhile because of some common background…California looked like a paradise to this guy compared to the problems in Israel according to this guy…
That was the end of Munich the movie too, I think…
disaffection is what’s going to kill the deal for Israel…that and the instantaneous media input from Palestine…that and a bet on the third race at Santa Anita will make you a fortune
That struck me too, that he is broadcasting Palestinian grievances. He apparently knows his audience. The commenters at the NYT would give him a hard time, but this is the WSJ and many of these commenters are doing him one better, and also using the opportunity to air their feelings about Arabs in general. Nice crowd. He’s pulling out the old, nasty claims that aren’t in such wide circulation these days, the old arid desert schtick, etc. Must be the signal for the crazies to come out and howl at the moon.
Is it legal to post parts of the WSJ article
here?
Isn’t it for pay or something?
OlegR,
As always the protector of rights and rights of way.
Also the asker of deep questions
And a veritable empath to boot (when not polishing them…)
Israel must confront the acute dangers of delegitimization as it did armies and bombers in the past.
I think this is the sentence people should pay some attention to. Just because Oren is off the wall in his comments does not mean Israel has no counter plan.
So, what has israel done to confront “armies and Bombers”? It built bigger army with more bombs and drones and walls. It built a more ruthless intelligence service. It went after its “enemies” abroad with a campaign of assassinations, kidnappings and what not. It went after the US congress with all it could, activating and mobilizing the full squad of wealth jewish people possessed. It constructed a web of nefarious neocon alliances that set upon subverting the foreign policy of not just the US but the entire West. it supported major media campaigns and take overs – much of it through zionist supportersd and liberal zionist friends. An example – what did israel do to counter the “threat” from gaza? it turned it into an internment camp and periodically embarks on murdering its people and what leader its bombers can get a fix on. And how did the world respond? with silence. Now why was that? The list goes on….
Point is, Israel did have a plan to counter suicide bombers, demographic threats and intifadas. israel did have a plan to counter moves by the rest of the world to bring it to an accommodation. It countered every physical threat – real or perceived – by retaliation – on every level it could get away with. It used financial, political, emotional, theological and military leverage, and then some. It got the US to attack Iraq and is planning to have it attack Iran.
All was not successful, of course, and a new movement has arisen. Surprisingly, amazingly Palestine has become the new anti-Franco movement of Spain. Palestinian resistors and activists are the new Che Guevaras. With keffiahs instead of barrets. That’s what drives Israel crazy. It sees the peaceful activists the same way it saw palestinian resistannce fighters. it considers them armed and dangerous.
So we should listen to Oren’s implied threat and bear in mind the few means we have to fight the oppression and Injustice against Palestinians. As in all of us. palestinians, Israelis and Jewish and not. In short, humans with a sense of justice. The means we humans use include the internet and the blogosphere and the freedom of movement and association people have around the world – physically and otherwise. So that is IMO what israel will set upon attacking next. That is what it’s vaunted security establishments are obssessing over day and night. It’s not that they don’t know what they want to do or how it can be done. It’s that they haven’t figured out a way yet to sabotage the world’s ability to respond and get away with it.
Being conspiracy minded, I think there was a larger purpose to cyber viruses – not just Iran. These seem to have been construed as much as “target assassinations” were. Iran was just a trial run. There’s much more over the horizon. But that’s just a start.
Like they say, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
So many rhetorical questions…..
I wish there was an exception to free speech which made rhetorical questions illegal. It would give the manipulators one less trick and also make commission sales a teeny tiny bit more difficult.
ToivoS-
“Israel is using it’s propaganda opportunities to target American Jews. One would think that constituency would be locked up by now.”
Good point, ToivoS. Outside of Christian Zionists, the hasbarists are losing control of Israel’s story among American Gentiles who know the score. People like Oren are hearing the whispers, and sometimes shouts, of contempt directed towards Israeli leadership by American Gentile critics who are shedding their ignorance and their fear. The hasbarists know that pleading Isreael’s case, frought with lies and lies of omission, isn’t working with Gentiles like it used to. Likewise the misappriated smear of antisemitism. Without a religeous or ethnic connection to make with their Gentile audiences, and with bad news about Israel starting to overshadow the good news, hasbarists are meeting more yawns and steely glares when they make their pitch. Israel’s cheerleaders understand that this ominous trend is bad news for Israel. Even worse, however, are the tremors being felt in America’s Jewish population. With Oren’s WSJ piece, Beinart’s book, etc.. we’re seeing a red alert, panic button frenzy as the hasbarists try to corral a growing number of American Jews who are saying, “Thanks for my share of your concern, but you can keep it. Israel doesn’t speak for me.” Israel’s leadership understands that if Israel loses enough Jewish American support, they’ll lose American support all together.
“The good news is that, despite the worsening crisis in Europe, exports of goods and services rose by an annualized 14.2% in the first quarter, after falling by 0.2% in the preceding quarter. Exports of services rose by an annualized 45% in the first quarter (9.7% on a quarterly basis), and industrial exports, excluding diamonds, rose by 4.8%. Agricultural exports rose by an annualized 18.9% in the first quarter.”
link to globes.co.il