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I opened the front page of yesterday’s N.Y. Times Magazine and was greeted by a two page spread promoting Israeli tourism and the 60th anniversary celebration. It was a bit of a shocker. Here’s the copy:
You’ll love Israel from the first “Shalom.” Who can say “Shalom” more eloquently than Maya Weiser? She found her first love–dance–when she was six. She became a member of the Bat Sheva Dance Company, performing in the beautiful Susanne Lelall Center in Tel Aviv, and at New York’s Lincoln Center. Recently she found a second love–saving the animals–so she is studying animal science at Hebrew University. Her next love? A considerable number of young men have their hopes up. Meanwhile, she dances and lives with her cat in the same Tel Aviv apartment where her father grew up.
Israel. We hope to see you soon. Shalom!
I’m no expert on NY Times ad rates but I figure this had to cost them at least $250,000. Here’s background on the campaign:
Israel`s Ministry of Tourism has launched a multi-million dollar advertising campaign in North America, designed to boost tourism to Israel from the United States and Canada. The budget for the campaign is an unprecedented $11 million…
“Our goal,” explains Sommer, “is to deflect the constant barrage of negative news images of Israel, and to show the country as it really is: sophisticated, hip, ancient, modern, friendly, spiritual and beautiful.”
What a waste! Not that it is a waste to promote Israel. On the contrary. But it is a waste to promote Israel under false pretences such as this. Look at this image: a beautiful girl, a strikingly modern city skyline. And look at the cool, clear, pristine reflection of the buildings in the water. The flash of this ad is betrayed by the murkiness of almost everything going on within Israel society now. The ad’s clean lines mask an underlying social reality. An Occupation. A nation adrift in despondency in the aftermath of the Lebanon war. A society buffeted by high-level sex and corruption scandals.
And speaking of “spiritual,” let’s juxtapose this ad with today’s headline:
Four children killed in Israeli attack
A PALESTINIAN mother and her four children were killed while eating breakfast yesterday in Gaza when Israeli missiles struck…their house…
I’m no advertising expert so I can’t tell Israel how to promote itself. But I can tell Israel that as long as these headlines come out practically daily, there isn’t a hope in hell that its $11-million tourism campaign will convince anyone other than Israel’s die hard supporters that “No one belongs here more than you,” as the campaign slogan inveigles.
I think the thing that really broke the spell for me regarding this ad was the come-on for all the eligibile male bachelors in the audience–the promise that you too might win Maya Weiser’s hand and heart for your very own…if you but make that trip to Israel. Touching.
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Tags: 60th anniversary, israeli tourism, youll love israel from the first shalom
Richard is always telling Israel to negotiate with HAMAS. HAMAS says it will never make peace with Israel, so I don’t now how Richard expects his hoped-for negotiations to work.
Here is a link to an article by Paul Berman of the New York Times in 2003 about the main religious thinker of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Sayid Qutb. HAMAS is a branch off from the Muslim Brotherhood. Note carefully what Qutb says about the Jews, and then you all tell me what are the chances of Israel reaching an agreement with these people.
http://members.cox.net/slsturgi3/PhilosopherOfIslamicTerror.htm
@bar_kochba132: You remember the old Simon & Garfunkel song: “A man hears what he wants to hear & disregards the rest.” That would be you.
Khaled Meshal has just publicly announced in the Arab-lang. press that Hamas will accept an Israel that returns to 67 borders & you claim it “will never make peace w. Israel.”
First, Paul Berman is no expert on Islamism. He’s merely a journalist w. a partisan pt of view on the issue. Second, the imam featured represents the “Egyptian Mulism Brotherhood” as you noted–NOT Hamas. You may wish to collapse them into the same entity. But that would be a typically gross distortion of political reality. Hamas is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. It is a Palestinian movement with goals that apply to Palestine alone.
I dare you to provide a similar quote from a senior Hamas leader.
What a great add… Israel is a beautiful place with a lot of beautiful people aside from only seeing 1 thing when it relates to Israel violence and tragedy…
It’s funny if such an add was made for the West Bank or Saudi Arabia Mr. Silverstein would kvell and then he would boisterously and condescendingly condemn any right wing Israel first extremists who might engage in the same type of back handed insulting of the Palestinians for the ‘misleading’ add….
No hypocrisy there… but thanx I really liked the add… I knew there’d be something enjoyable about this conetentious preachy site.
@Solomon123:
Lord protect us from right-wingers & their feeble attempts at snark.
I don’t know where the PA would get any money to fund a tourism ad; and what would they promote? Could they invite tourists to “take the waters” in Gaza where the sewage is running into the sea because Israel refuses to allow parts that would build a suitable sewage system? Or perhaps they could promote themselves to military tourist types who’d like to see a targeted assassination up close. Or maybe they’d like to promote an eco-tourism trip to the olive groves of West Bank Palestinians during harvest time so they can watch settler thugs beat up farmers attempting to harvest their olives.
I can imagine similar ads promoting Saudi tourism. How about promoting petro-tourism? A charming new type of tourism in which foreigners come to view SA’s gorgeous oil derricks.
The idea that this pathetic creature thinks I’m an apologist for the Arab cause & tourism is laughable.
And as I said in my post, the only ones who will be charmed by this ad are the dyed in the wool true believers like Solomon Nebech.
Sure – they could start with the tens of billions in Kuwaiti and French bank accounts that Mrs. Arafat and some higher up PA insiders have access to.
Oh, such dramatics… as if Ramallah isn’t 100x nicer than most cities in most Arab countries.
How about the beautiful greenhouses in Gaza that the Israrelis left for them…thanks to the donations of those evil right wing American Zionists except that they were looted and destroyed…. they could show how their gov’t is more concerned with buying loyalty via checks to ‘police forces’ or rocket/bomb factories than regulating water usage-building new housing-schools etc… they seem to find plenty of money to produce propoganda though.
Sure that would definitely work!!! They could show young kids who like to shoot off rockets…. instead they could watch when Hamas and Islamic Jihad guerillas go on a farmer’s grove between trees and daily shoot tens of rockets into Sderot… kind of like when you were a kid shooting off bottle rockets instead they’re aimed at people and explode.
You mean with the billions or trillions they make with the most sought after commodity in the world – and the price formerly between $30-$40/barrel now heading towards $200/barrel they haven’t been able to build an economy that produces any GDP with anything to see? That however – does not stop their paid for law firms and ad agencies from promoting the Saudis as America’s friend… so perhaps you could ask them how they deftly put on tv adds promoting the Saudis.
Somehow Dubai found the money to build a modern looking country that attracts foreigners?
Wait can you find a phrase where I called an apologist? Wait but you did you call me a pathetic creature?
Now wey’re seeing the true class act that you are…
Don’t worry I’m not very sensitive and since I know you would NEVER call me that to my face I can laugh you off for the lower class human being that you show yourself to be…
For the record though – I can most definitely assure you that NOONE viewing you and I standing next to each other… would mistake who the unappealing figure of the two is…
No, like Allison Kaplan Sommers who writes about Isreal… the country is 100x more than the conflict…. and for IP conflict firsters whose life is set on trying to promote their own importance and vitalness to the world via this conflict 24/7 365/yr as the end all be all of insight and value – ANYthing that touches on something else in a positive light regarding Israel that doesn’t concern the conflict needs to be assassinated immediately…..
@Solomon123:
Are you deliberately trying to come across as a snarky, lame-assed Palestinian-hater; or is that effect unintentional??
When was the last time you were in Ramallah? Or have you ever been in Ramallah? And which Arab cities have you actually visited? None? I thought so?
OK, as I’m reading through this comment I see that your sole purpose here seems to be to spout anti-Palestinian propaganda which is a clear violation of my comment rules. So I’ll read through the rest of yr crap & if the tone or substance doesn’t change you’re history. I’m simply not going to waste my time with pure haters whether they be extremists on the Palestinian side or the Israeli. [UPDATE: I note I banned you in April. Yet you seem to have weaseled yr way back. So let's make this yr 2nd banning.]
As I read I see you don’t just hate Palestinians. You hate Saudis as well. Is there an Arab you don’t hate?
You seem to have missed that yr beloved “moderate Arab” Dubai just ran Lev Leviev’s & his blood jewels out of the country once they discovered that he was the king of settlement builders. How’re you feelin’ about Dubai about now?
That certainly is an understatement. The last time you were sensitive to the suffering of an Arab must’ve been possibly when you in the womb, if then.
The thought that I would ever have to meet you would be enough to ruin my day if not my week, month & possibly yr.
Why don’t you post yr picture here & we’ll let my readers be the judge.
As I said, “the dyed in the wool true believer” propagandists like Allison Kaplan Sommers & you. By the way, you do know how to spell “Israel” don’t you?
I’am arabic, Male,plastienian, I ‘am not sure if any Isreali will believe me or not,and arabic they think I’am against them or not loyal, what ever, but I’am sure I dont hate Isreal, I believe in man kind and we have to find way to love each other, survive and this the important, I want to be free, who I love, who to be my lover, no limit to stop me, we have to cancel boundries of any kind, cancel fear,,lets start, who said it would be easy for the most, but sure their alots like me, may be my relative they will hate me in front of other arabic to feel safe, but this is me, I believe step by step, and dont ask me to hate Isreal