The State of Israel can thus far claim a military victory in Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 offensive launched by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. Nonetheless, when it comes to Israel’s public relations (PR), foreign affairs and social media efforts, Israel’s recent blunders undermine the overwhelming force carried out in Gaza by the IDF.

The latest snafu by Israel unfolded on Twitter, the cross-platform messaging system that has quickly become the CNN of the social media world. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Israeli government officials have been using Twitter as a sort of propaganda tool in order to draw a comparison between the fundamentalist Palestinian faction Hams and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the abominable Al-Qaeda offshoot that has been terrorizing and occupying several communities in Iraq over the last few months. At a recent press conference, Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, commented on the grisly filmed execution of American journalist James Foley by a masked, self-described ISIS fighter who spoke with a British accent. The WSJ quoted Mr. Netanyahu:

“You saw this beheading of an American journalist Foley,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “We face the same savagery.”

The day after Mr. Netanyahu’s press conference, the Twitter account of the Prime Minister posted an update that featured a graphic taken from the video of Mr. Foley’s execution with the following caption:

“RT this: Hamas is ISIS ISIS is Hamas.”

The Prime Minister’s call to retweet was heeded by about 900 Twitter accounts before it was deleted in haste hours later. It would be posted again; this time without the image of the late Mr. Foley. Israeli government officials acknowledged that the original tweet backfired; they realized this after an upheaval of criticism within social media. The WSJ reports that even Hamas was not amused; a Palestinian official commented on the movement’s Facebook page that the ISIS comparison made by Israel was a cheap shot. This reaction can be understood insofar as Al-Qaeda seeking to distance itself from other radical groups such as ISIS and Boko Haram.

 

Ill-Advised Tweets, Insensitive Comments and Misinformed Zingers

The recent Twitter faux pas by Mr. Netanyahu’s office is just one of many. A late July article by Arsalan Iftikhar for Quartz goes further into how the State of Israel should look into contracting a PR and social media consultancy firm. Mr. Iftikhar’s piece, “Twitter hashtags are finally neutralizing the Israeli government’s propaganda” explains that:

“In this most recent Israel/Gaza crisis, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have played a far more prominent role in shaping global public opinion than they did in previous Middle East conflicts.
The conflict in Gaza has quickly become a “war of the hashtags.” Whereas Israel’s side of the story had dominated global media coverage for nearly half a century, social media may finally be a great equalizer…”

Mr. Iftikhar continues to illustrate how Israel’s dubious PR is not helping them on the international stage:

“[Mr.] Netanyahu had the audacity to claim that people in Gaza are using “telegenically dead Palestinians” in order to bolster international support for Palestinians on social media.”

To the above comment by Mr. Netanyahu, Benjamin Wallace-Wells of New York Magazine replied:

“If Netanyahu is so bothered by how dead Palestinians look on television then he should stop killing so many of them.”

This is not the first time Mr. Netanyahu has been called out for outrageous commentary; to this effect, he is sometimes compared to former United States President George W. Bush, whose prodigious verbal gaffes are collectively known as Bushisms. To Mr. Netanyahu’s credit, he still has miles to go before he can even come close to being compared to former President Bush in the gaucherie department; but, what about his cabinet? Surely he has capable spokespersons ready to take on the difficult task of diplomacy and foreign affairs?

Unfortunately the cabinet includes the likes of Yigal Palmor, Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel. Mr. Palmor, who has been serving in this capacity since 2008, recently gained notoriety with his snappy retort to Brazil’s recall of its Ambassador to Israel and the Latin American country’s condemnation of the disproportionate use of force deployed by the IDF in Gaza. Mr. Palmor’s incredible, your momma-style response, was deemed an insult by Joe Leahy of the Financial Times:

“This is an unfortunate demonstration of why Brazil, an economic and cultural giant, remains a diplomatic dwarf […] The moral relativism behind this move makes Brazil an irrelevant diplomatic partner, one who creates problems rather than contributes to solutions.”

He went on to insult Brazil even more deeply […] by raising [Brazil’s] 7-1 defeat to Germany in the World Cup. He said in football, a game that ended 1-1 was considered “proportional” while 7-1 was considered “disproportional”. But no such measures existed in international law when it came to conflicts. “This is not football,” Palmor said.

Ouch. One would think that a Foreign Ministry Spokesman would know that football is a very important aspect of Brazilian life. If Mr. Palmor was looking to diss Brazil as retaliation for calling Israel’s use of overwhelming force in Gaza disproportionate, then he succeeded; however, is this what we should expect of a government spokesman, one who speaks on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Sadly, this is not the first time that Mr. Palmor has reached deep within his uncouth repertoire.

In late 2013, Mr. Palmor was interviewed by The Times of Israel with regard to a Christmas message delivered by Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, who suggested that Jesus Christ was a Palestinian and that:

“Israel was to blame for the exodus of Christians from the Holy Land. We celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem under occupation. This Christmas Eve, our hearts and prayers will be with the millions who are being denied their right to worship in their homeland.”

And here’s Mr. Palmor:

“He should have read the Gospel before uttering such offensive nonsense, but we will forgive him because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. [These statements are] not exactly in the spirit of Christmas. Maybe [President Abbas] needs a hug from Santa [Claus]?”

The Gospel does cite Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus Christ, which at that time was ruled by King Herod the Great of Judea; Bethlehem did not fall under Palestinian control until 1995, nearly two millenniums after the Nativity.

For the record, The Times of Israel is a fine publication that has mentioned The Costa Rica Star in the past. As befits a journalist writing for a fine publication, diplomatic correspondent Raphael Ahren included comments from Member of Knesset Hanna Swaid of the Hadash political party, who stated:

“What President Mahmoud Abbas said describes the real situation — Palestinians, including Christians, are celebrating Christmas and New Year’s Eve under Israeli occupation. That’s a fact.”

The above is just one example of a grownup being called in to inject some sense into Mr. Palmor’s comments. After the botched commentary on Brazil, it was up to President of Israel Reuven Rivlin to clean up Mr. Palmor’s mess with a lengthy phone call and apology made to President Dilma Roussef.

 

The Real Diplomatic Dwarf

Aside from being asinine and offensive, the comments by Mr. Palmor are largely baseless. If anything, the State of Israel could be deemed a diplomatic dwarf when compared to Brazil. We can start with the fact that Brazil is one of 11 nations that can boast about having diplomatic relations with all other members of the United Nations.

Like Costa Rica, Brazil is an important member of the UN Human Rights Council, which may be the basis for Mr. Palmor’s affront. According to Mr. Leahy of the Financial Times, Brazil was:

“one of the larger nations that voted in favour of a resolution in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations that called for an investigation into all human rights violations during military operations in the Gaza Strip.”

Since the late 20th century, Brazil has committed tens of thousands of soldiers to several peacekeeping missions around the world, including the volatile southern Lebanon border with Israel. Although the IDF is several orders of magnitude larger than the armed forces of Brazil, Israel’s troop commitment to peacekeeping missions has been a dozen or so. Let’s put it this way: The UN April 2014 report (PDF) on peacekeeping contributions indicates that Brazil had 1,764 security forces deployed; Israel has zero. These facts do not quite paint a picture of Israel being a diplomatic giant.

Mr. Palmor’s comments do absolutely nothing to honor the memory of Osvaldo Aranha, the Brazilian diplomat who served as President of the UN General Assembly, and who was crucial in partitioning Palestine and creating the State of Israel. These days, Mr. Aranha’s contribution to the founding of the State of Israel is remembered in Jerusalem with a memorial square.

 

A Football Minnow

The response from Brazil to Mr. Palmor’s verbal fatuousness has been very measured, particularly in light of the millions of dollars that the Latin American powerhouse has spent on purchasing fighter jets and other military equipment from Israel. However, the most uninformed portion of Mr. Palmor’s zinger against Brazil was bringing up the 2014 World Cup rout of the national football by Germany at Belo Horizonte. As an Israeli spokesman, Mr. Palmor simply cannot qualify his foolish comments by means of comparison.

For starters, let’s take a look at the FIFA World Ranking of both Brazil and Israel as of August 2014.

• Brazil is tied at #7 with Spain
• Israel is at #68

As a point of reference to the positions above, Costa Rica’s own La Sele is ranked at #15, and Panama is ranked at #63. In FIFA’s criteria, Panama has a greater standing in the football world than Israel.

Although the Israel Football Association predates the State of Israel by 20 years, the national team’s World Cup history is limited to just one appearance in 1970 in Mexico, where they lost to Uruguay but drew against Sweden and Italy. It was a great team with talented midfielders such as George Borba and Moshe Romano and the spectacular striker Giora Spiegel. Alas, it would be the last World Cup appearance by Israel at FIFA’s highest competition.

Brazil, by comparison has the best World Cup record of all nations: 70 victories in 20 World Cups (all of them) and five championships.

Israeli football fans often complain that their national team is forced to play in the highly competitive Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) due to the tense political situation of the Middle East. For this reason, we never get to see matches such as Israel versus Iran; however, Israel has been a member of UEFA since 1992, and since then the national team has not managed to qualify for a single UEFA Championship, and this is despite signing up high-caliber European coaches such as Luis Fernandez from France.

During the 2014 World Cup qualifying round, Israel’s rivals were Portugal, Russia, Northern Ireland, Luxembourg, and Azerbaijan. With Russia and Portugal playing at a diminished level (neither team performed well in Brazil), Israel managed to only beat Luxembourg and Northern Ireland; the rest of the matches were draws and losses, including a 4-0 shutout by Russia at the Ramat Gan National Stadium in Tel Aviv.

What is interesting about Mr. Palmor bringing up the Mineirazo defeat of Brazil by Germany and the infamous 7-1 final score is that a very similar thing happened to Israel in 2002 at Kaiserslautern, when the current World Cup champions spanked Israel by a score of 7-1, a feat that had been previously achieved by Egypt’s national team in a match that took place before World War II.

In the end, a look into the facts that do not support Mr. Palmor’s comments actually manage to show that the diplomatic dwarf label is actually better suited for Israel, at least in comparison to Brazil. And when it comes to football, let’s just say that Israel’s national team has a lot of room for improvement.

Costa Rica’s own Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also issued strong condemnations against Israel with regard to Operation Protective Edge, which the Jerusalem Post indicates has left 1,867 Palestinians and 67 Israelis dead.

No invective from Mr. Palmor or from Israel has been launched at Costa Rica, a country that has diplomatic relations with both Israel and Palestine; but, then again, Costa Rica has not recalled diplomats like Brazil did. In the meantime, there may be hope for Israel’s faltering PR campaign: According to Arutz Sheva 7, Mr. Palmor announced that he would be leaving the Foreign Ministry after nearly 30 years of service; his announcement comes after irregularities such as worker strikes and alleged leaks of classified information.