Reframing the narrative: Israel’s most important strategic objective right now
Israel is in its most difficult strategic position since October 7th itself. It needs to find a new paradigm and a new voice, and quick.
Back then, after the horrors of October 7th, and with Hezbollah bombarding the north, most of the world rallied behind Israel… for several weeks at least.
How much that scenario has changed.
Faced with grim potential outcomes from the US-Iran negotiations, G-d forbid, Israel will likely respond the way it always does – angry defiance.
Few Israelis would disagree. There has been a lot of pain and suffering over the last few years while the north continues to bear the brunt.
But this cannot be the way in which Israel continues to present itself to the world. The Israeli public may demand this, but the interests of most of the rest of the world – rightly or wrongly – point in the opposite direction.
For President Trump, a rout in the mid-terms not only endangers the Administration’s agenda and legacy. It may also lead to renewed impeachment efforts in Congress and a raft of legal actions against his interests.
Ordinary Americans, and many people around the world, were already struggling with the ‘cost of living crisis’ before the Iran war. Israelis know the feeling. President Trump campaigned on it.
Since the war, not only have fuel prices risen sharply, global food and fertilizer supply are also at stake. (As the shekel soars against the dollar, the Israeli public may not understand the extent of this pain – Israel’s prices were long already sky high, and have even eased somewhat in recent weeks.) President Trump has stated he doesn’t “want to be Herbert Hoover”, the president who saw in the 1929 Great Depression.
Popular support for Israel has been in freefall worldwide. Politicians the world over will find fertile ground by blaming Iranian manipulations on Israel. We already saw how this plays out over Shabbat. Hezbollah attacks Israel. Israel fights back. Israel gets the blame.
A moral and intellectual travesty no doubt, but the rest of the world does not feel duty-bound to protect Israel’s interests when their own fundamental interests are also at stake.
Add into this mix the predictable flow of noxious statements from Israel’s high profile extremist ministers, and more footage emerging of rampant thuggery from their supporters, and the hopes of a sympathetic global response drop even further.
While the feelings of hurt, betrayal and resentment among the Israeli public are legitimate, a new paradigm is required, and with it, a new voice to establish that paradigm.
- Calm, measured and constructive.
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Shared values – democracy, liberty, peace.
- Defender of minorities.
- Holy, serene, and righteous.
- Continually frustrated peaceniks.
- Victims of good intention.
- Responsible global citizen.
- Vision for the future peace.
All of these projections to varying extents have been, are, and certainly can continue to be true. Israel just hasn’t chosen to project itself in these ways. (This psychology – ‘our enemies only understand force’ – is reductive, self-defeating and more often than not wrong, not least because when it communicates, a country is not only talking to its enemies.)
So where can we find an example of this new paradigm?
Why, from PM Netanyahu himself, of course.
10th June. Watch the video. Read the statement. See the X (or twitter, or whatever).
Netanyahu knows. He knew already.
So what’s the problem?
It was one-off. It got lost in the noise. No-one listens any more. And Israel Katz, Betzalel Smotrich, and Itamar Ben Gvir – among probably many other of our political hotheads – didn’t get the message.
For it to be effective, it needs to be consistent. It needs to be repeated. Over and over again. On every external channel. Several times a day. From every political leader. From every spokesperson. From every ambassador. In every interview. Media makeover time, gone large.
And for this to really work, it also needs a big new political vision of peace rooted in a new way of conceiving how Israel’s interests can best be secured. I have argued for this kind of approach many times before (for example, here, here, here, and here), and I will argue once again for it soon.
It gives me no pride, and I feel no hubris, only disappointment and concern, to say, I was right then, I am right now.
G-d willing, for the sake of the Jewish people, Israel also needs to start getting it right.
