By Patricia H. Kushlis
Public diplomacy needs to be credible to be believed. It may not tell the whole truth – but lies are not part of it. That’s strategic communications – a military term that mixes deliberate falsehoods, misinformation and disinformation with selected facts and images to sway public opinion. Strategic communications with all its warts, not public diplomacy which does not lie, is what the Israelis have been dishing out to the world since May 31. It can also come back to bite them.
Maybe the Israeli government propaganda machine’s overkill in the first 24 hours after its commando raid against the SS Mavi Marmara and the six ship Freedom Flotilla which left nine dead and hundreds under detention – away from cell phones and other contact with the outside world – worked in the first instance.
For about 24 hours it has been argued, the Israelis dominated the airwaves. That should have given them the propaganda initiative. If one were to believe their stories, the Freedom Flotilla was full of arms for the Gazans and dangerous radicals set to undermine the existence of the Israeli state. Classic case of strategic communications lies and misinformation, by the way. Fed perhaps by a serious case of paranoia.
An expanding listNever mind, that the Israeli state has been doing a phenomenal job of undercutting itself through any number of anti-social actions that have presented a worst case face to the world – from the murder in Dubai of a Hamas general and the use of forged British and Australian passports as a part of the operation to the deliberate slap in the face of US President Joe Biden during his visit to Israel over the contentious settlements issue.
I don’t think, however, that the Israeli strategic communications initiative this time around is anywhere as effective as claimed. Rather, it appears to have been a patched together, uncoordinated response concocted in the heat of the moment just as the raid was likely devised in a fit of short-sighted hubris. The result has been a huge international backlash and Israel’s standing in the world plummeting below that of George W Bush after the US invaded Iraq to rescue the world from Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
Israel has not - surprisingly - controlled the international airwaves
In reality, the Israelis have not controlled the airwaves. Or at least for very long. I started to see reports coming in over the Internet almost immediately – and only some were the heavily edited or scripted ones from the government of Israel.
Not only did the government underestimate the importance of some of the people on board – including two former US high ranking career diplomats Ambassador Edward Peck (who I last saw on US television presciently warning against the ill-fated Iraq invasion) and the articulate Ann Wright (who resigned from a still promising foreign service career over the invasion). Arab members of the Knesset, and members of the European parliament and a few journalists including an Al Jezeera reporter and a British journalist for Press World apparently still reported missing were also on one of the six ships carrying 600 passengers from 32 countries to try to run the blockade.
Three of the ships were Turkish: they were cruise ships commanded by civilians not military ships commanded by the Turkish or any other navy.
Prime Minister Erdogan: “No one can test Turkey's Patience”
But what the Israelis totally ignored – or pushed aside in the heat of the moment – was the importance and dangerous repercussions of Turkish wrath. The IDF may well be a formidable land force able to do battle and win against its less powerful Arab neighbors. The country may well have an undisclosed nuclear weapons arsenal. But its navy is weak and does not control the sea. Furthermore, the Israeli military is nowhere as large or powerful as the Turkish military over all.
The most important navies in the north eastern Mediterranean are those fielded by the Greeks and the Turks. They may not be bosom buddies, but they now have a pretty decent relationship and in this case would see eye-to-eye. Furthermore neither has a domestic right wing Jewish lobby - or Jewish lobby at all - that is an important factor in far too many American elections.
Tattered relations with Greeks as well as Turks
The Greeks have also traditionally had a powerful air force. For years, the Israeli and Greek militaries have had a stand-offish relationship but a recent rapprochement came about. Joint air exercises had been publicly announced. No longer.
In a sense of pique, the Greek government canceled these exercises immediately upon learning of the commando action. There has been an anti-Israeli, pro-Hamas field day in the Greek media which, I understand, has served to take the country’s focus off its own dire economic straights.
A series of upcoming joint exercises with the Turkish air force were canceled by Ankara and other Israeli cooperative agreements with the Turks look tenuous. The relationship between the moderate Islamist Party in control of Turkey and the Israeli largely right wing government had already been slowly deteriorating before Israel’s latest fiasco. This will not help.
Strong language from the Turks
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan called the raid a bloody massacre and pushed for a strong UN Security Council resolution in condemnation of Israel and for stronger condemnation of the country by the US. This is a delicate matter because the US also needs to play broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians if anything will ever get settled. The long delayed proximity talks began in early May.
Turkey is currently a non-permanent member of the Security Council which gives it higher visibility and power in that body and throughout the UN than it would have normally. Foreign Minister Davutoglu almost immediately introduced a resolution condemning the Israelis and demanding an apology. Turkey is also a Muslim majority democracy with the most stable government in years and has its economic house in order.
Slow to anger - but watch out
In my experience, Turks are slow to anger. But when pushed too far, lesser mortals and governments should at least think twice and maybe even get out of the way. It’s too early to tell how this previously important bilateral relationship will play out. It may make little difference in the long run: mutual long term commercial interests may once again come to the fore.
Meanwhile, I hope certain Israelis are trying to figure out how to deal with the next two humanitarian aid ships headed their way. Commando raids against unarmed civilians in international waters are not acceptable – and tear at the fabric of long time international maritime law.
What next?
The Egyptians have opened the Rafah border crossing which is likely a far more effective way to end a blockade that has, in any event, not worked. Hamas, like it or not, won the elections and the blockade that began in 2007 has not dislodged the organization from control over the Gazan population.
World media coverage will be on those ships, anti-Israeli demonstrations throughout the globe as well as the funerals of the nine people killed needlessly by the Israeli Naval Commandos. Perhaps only in Israel and among the right wing Jewish Diaspora abroad will Israel’s tattered spin and bankrupt foreign policy remain the accepted story. When will the Israeli government recognize it needs to stop behaving this way and begin to look for resolutions to its problems? Like it or not this won't come through the display of brute and unwarranted military force or bad strategic communications.