And the world keeps spinning....

What will the world look like 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now. Will Israel still exist as a Jewish state? Will the fighting continue? It has gone on for centuries, some claim it could go on for centuries more. Not likely. This is not the dark ages, the Romans didn’t have to contend with the world judging them on cnn.com, the Macabees couldn’t watch their actions play out on YouTube. We live in a very different time. Our wars are fought on many different fronts, some thousands of miles away from the soldiers.

If Israel ever ceases to exist as the Jewish homeland it will most likely be not because she lost the fight on the battlefield, but because she lost the fight in the hearts of the world. Not because of the autrocities committed in war, but for the silence and mismanagement of the autrocities committed against her. For all Israel’s strength it has some of the worst public relations management around. Is this a flaw or a reality of our ethics?

We were joined at dinner tonight by Jennifer Mizrahi founder of The Israel Project (TIP) and Lanny Davis, a lawyer, advisor to presidents and journalist. The Israel project’s whole reason for being is to help provide more accurate and timely facts about the goings on in the Middle East. To help get a voice out there that Israel herself is unable to accomplish.

Some reading this will assume the message I am talking about is the, poor Israel, have pity on us, the bad guys are beating us up message. Actually I am talking about just the opposite. TIP’s goal is to provide accurate facts related to situations that are often sensationalized by the media and Israel’s enemies. They help to provide reporters with a context for events that taken alone appear other than they are, to help find the complete answer to half truths and to try to bring balance to a story that is often slanted to one side.

Why is that slant there? Is the media anti-Israel, or anti-semitic? In some cases maybe, but it is not the root of the problem here. The sad reality is that much of the media we see around the world is what is put out there, because it is all that IS put out there for reporters. In a world where you have moments or you are “old news” Israel has never learned to play the game. Unlike her enemies Israel does not spend its time making martyrs out of the injured and killed. Their bodies are not paraded through the streets for reporters. The bereaved do not sit for the cameras. Israel cares for her wounded, repairs homes and lives the best they can. That does not make for good sound bites. As Jennifer pointed out to us tonight, much of the problems facing Israel in the hearts around the world is “the difference between bias and sympathetic visuals”

In this last war, 100 Israeli soldiers died, think if you saw one of those deaths make the news? A kindergarten in the south was hit by missiles. Can you name it?

It is time that more of use that know the personal stories of those suffering share those stories and make their voices heard. Not in the perverse way we often see our enemies do, we can’t lose our ethics in this. We can’t put the world view above the humanity people deserve. But we need to share the stories. Being tough and stoic has served us well through history, but now it may well be our undoing.