The Flotilla Fiasco

The video says it all. Israeli naval commandoes boarding the flotilla, and as each commando was lowered from the boat, an onslaught of metal poles, knives, and beatings were meeting them. Some of the Israeli commandoes were thrown from the top to bottom deck by the activists. A journalist on CNN pointed out that if a US naval raid was met with that kind of violence, the activists would be very lucky if everyone on the flotilla was not killed. But somehow Israel loses the PR battle.

A little background on PR:

We learned that the founding fathers of the USA were the first innovators of Public Relations. A bunch of middle class merchants in colonies were not ready to fight a bloody battle with the British. So our founding fathers kicked it into high gear. The Boston Massacre took place, where colonists claimed a mass killing of colonists took place on behalf of the British. It turned out only 5 colonists had died, and those colonists were part of a crowd that was throwing projectiles at British Troops. However, the colonists got their story to the press first, and this "massacre" sparked the rebellion which culminated in the American Revolutionary War. 

The pro-Palestinian and pro-Arab media are very savvy concerning public relations. They always get their twisted side of the story out first, and by the time the Israeli (most often the most truthful) side gets out, opinions have already been formed. Jenin is another excellent example of this. The fact that the Arabs got their side of the story out so quickly created a reality where some still believe to this day that Israel committed a massacre in Jenin against unarmed civillians. Also, many people dont know that the US's involvement in liberating Kuwait was directly due to Hill & Knowlton, then the world's biggest PR firm. They sold a whole story of Iraqi soldiers take Kuwaiti babies and leaving them outside to die. It turned out the whole story was a lie, and the sobbing girl who told it, a 15 year old girl named Nayira, was actually a daughter of a high-ranking Kuwaiti diplomat.

Its not about right and wrong.  Its a battle of information. Things can go very well or very wrong simply due to the Public Relation techniques (or lack thereof) employed. Arabs have been fantastic with PR for decades. If Israel just puts a little bit of thought and time into it, the dividends paid will be HUGE.