It’s Time for an Israeli TV Channel in Arabic

Ma’ariv, Israel, August 14

The recent Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip highlighted two important facts, unrelated to the military sphere. The first is that, in our day and age, information is essential to promoting our narrative of the conflict to the general public and to back up our military moves. The second is that it is, indeed, possible to win over global public opinion if we act wisely. I still recall how, 15 years ago, at a United Nations Human Rights Council session that took place in Geneva, Israel was blasted on all fronts. Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar Al-Jaafari, now the Syrian deputy foreign minister, attacked Israel and claimed that it was violating the human rights of Syrians because it prevented the transfer of apples grown in the Golan Heights into Syria. That was, of course, a blatant lie. The truth is that while the Syrian representative lied and the council members listened to his words, trucks were transporting apples across the border. Everything on the ground was quiet. I frantically asked Jerusalem for permission to reveal the truth and expose the ambassador’s lie against us. In my eyes it was a simple issue and therefore, the publication of the truth wasn’t supposed to be a problem. I expected a quick answer, and in real time, so we could strike the iron while it was hot. But the answer came to me after a week. Obviously, it was no longer relevant and the council’s members were left with the lie told by the Syrian ambassador. Compare that experience with the most recent round of fighting in the Gaza Strip, when all of the Israeli parties concerned with public diplomacy understood the importance of refuting Palestinian lies in real time. One such lie was that Israel killed children in Jabalia. However, the IDF was quick to release video evidence showing that the kids were targeted by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket. It was a successful move that forces us to draw important lessons about cooperation between various units of our government. Today, information spreads faster than the speed of light. We must leverage the success of the recent strike on Gaza in order to create permanent operating procedures for the future. Our public relations success in the operation in Gaza must inspire us to do the bigger thing, which we discussed in the past but never actually delivered on: launch Israeli television in the Arabic language designed to address the entire Arab world. This will allow us to influence public opinion in the Middle East and wherever Arabic is spoken, while also spreading the beautiful story of historical, moral and cultural Israel. The situation in which we find ourselves in the Middle East – on the one hand, peace agreements and cooperation and, on the other hand, military confrontations and existential threats – makes our own Arabic television project an urgent matter. – Yitzhak Levanon (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)