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Home Posts A Public Diplomacy Blunder or an Image Asset?

A Public Diplomacy Blunder or an Image Asset?
Yarden Assraf
26 October, 2023
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In the moments when 85-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz gave a statement to the throngs of media outlets that enveloped her less than a day after she returned from captivity in Gaza, the former hostage may very well have been immersed in what was before October 7, and perhaps she was not aware of the full scale of the trauma that is now shaping the Israeli collective memory. Her statement to the media created new dilemmas that Israel has not had to deal with to this day. Against the need to maintain information security that may provide vital information about the other hostages, as well as the desire to add Mrs. Lifshitz to the national talking points, stands her right to freedom of expression as a private person, as a citizen in a democratic country.

Israel has apparently chosen to continue playing according to the rules of the game and Western values, thanks to which Western powers have aligned themselves with Israel throughout the years of its existence, as well as in this difficult period. Therefore, the question that deserves to be asked does not revolve around Mrs. Lifshitz’s remarks to the media or about the independence of her statement, but about the public diplomacy front that remains abandoned on the civilian level. The situation is particularly complex given unprecedented scenarios with which this front is now compelled to address, However, as yet no answers have been formulated, in light of the involvement of kidnapped citizens.

Immediately upon making her statement, various headlines in Israel and around the world chose to emphasize precisely the latter portion, when Lifshitz lists facts about how she was treated in captivity in a way that may shine a humane spotlight on Hamas. This is where the responsibility of the national public diplomacy system in the Prime Minister's Office comes into the picture. It was aware of the existence of the statement given live, as well as the attention it commanded among prominent media outlets in the Arab and Western world. Instead of assessing the damage after the fact, the procedure that should have been put in place even before hostages were returned was the broadcast of an edited, recorded statement. In this way, it is possible to neutralize the obvious risk of a live broadcast with the words of a civilian who returned from Hamas captivity, which in this case might well have been heavily influenced by the fact that her husband is still being held by the terrorist organization.

However, a day after her media appearance, it became clear that it was precisely the authenticity of her statement, outside the talking points, and which was initially blasted as a public diplomacy blunder, is what offered a moral distinction between Israel and Hamas and is an image asset for Israel. The night before she gave her statement at the hospital, Yocheved Lifshitz was handed over to the Red Cross. Along with a farewell, she shook the hand of the stunned Hamas terrorist who was not prepared for such a humane gesture, after the inhuman acts in which he took part. The image echoed the following day on the front pages of the Western press. One of the headlines that accompanied the image was "A gesture of peace in the face of evil."

The approach to this event by those in charge of the media campaign, as yet another statement among many in the open media, makes it clear that the State of Israel is still entrenched in patterns of thinking that are no longer relevant after October 7, including on the international cognitive level. The national public diplomacy system should be the element integrating complex events of this scope that involve civilians. Furthermore, Israel does not have the privilege of being reactive and not proactive, and therefore, the national system must already formulate media procedures for other hostages, both for the purpose of ensuring the mental well-being of those who were abducted and for the benefit of more effective management of the media campaign.

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      • Iran and the Shi'ite Axis
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