Selling the "Settlements" to the American Public

[TruthSeeker]

A pollster's recommendations on how to sell Americans on the idea of Israeli settlements.

How to Sell Americans on Israeli Settlements | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com

By Dan Ephron | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jul 10, 2009

How do you sell the American public on the idea that Israel has the right to maintain or even expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank? Be positive. Turn the issue away from settlements and toward peace. Invoke ethnic cleansing.

Those are three of the recommendations made by Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, in an internal study he wrote for the Washington-based group The Israel Project (TIP) on effective ways to talk to Americans about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The 117-page study, titled The Israel Project's 2009 Global Language Dictionary, was commissioned by the nonprofit group, which aims to promote Israel's side of the story, and leaked to NEWSWEEK. It includes chapters with such titles as "How to Talk About Palestinian Self Government and Prosperity" and "The Language of Tackling a Nuclear Iran."

Asked about the document, TIP's founder and president, Jennifer Laszlo-Mizrahi, told NEWSWEEK it was based on polling and work with focus groups and is used to formulate communications strategy. She said setting people straight about settlements is particularly important: "The idea that some have in Washington that unilaterally putting pressure on Israel to make concessions on settlements is going to lead to peace is unfortunately shortsighted."

The settlement issue has been the single biggest source of friction between the United States and Israel since Benjamin Netanyahu became Israel's prime minister in March. President Obama has said he wants to see a complete halt to housing construction in Jewish communities of the West Bank. About 300,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem; Palestinians regard the area as the heart of their future state.

In the report, Luntz describes the "best settlement argument" as one that draws a parallel between the Arab communities in Israel and the Jewish settlers in the West Bank—and refers to the idea of evacuating Jews as racist. "The idea that anywhere that you have Palestinians there can't be any Jews, that some areas have to be Jew-free, is a racist idea," he suggests saying. "We don't say that we have to cleanse out Arabs from Israel. They are citizens of Israel. They enjoy equal rights. We cannot see why it is that peace requires that any Palestinian area would require a kind of ethnic cleansing to remove all Jews. We don't accept it. Cleansing by either side against either side is unacceptable."

One line of argument that Luntz says actually harms the cause is Israel's policy of restricting Arab housing construction in East Jerusalem: "The arguments about demolishing Palestinian homes because they are not within the Jerusalem building code tested SO badly that we are not even going to dignify them with a Word's That Don't Work box. Americans hate their own local planning boards for telling them where they can and can't put swimming pools or build fences. You don't need to import that animosity into your own credibility issues. Worse yet, talking about 'violations of building codes' when a TV station is showing the removal of a house that looks older than the modern state of Israel is simply catastrophic."

 

[Patriot]

Well, mostly American people are too busy in their personal life to worry about these things.The power is with American Senators and people who are into Politics/Diplomats etc.I don't think Israelis have to sell it to American Senators rather they have to buy Senators and then you also have people like Bill O Riley who says all Muslim countries are evil and wants to destroy America.

 

[muse]

America doe snot need much help buying into any Israeli idea - S2 says that the ROI with Israel is worth giving up critical evaluation, perhaps he would also do well to examine opportunity cost.

Mindless, non-critical acceptance of what Israel has to sell, has brought America to near bankruptcy, and taken the US from the most admired to the most despised.

However; a more balanced approach is something that will not come about in the US without a great deal of introspection and pain - it's how the US learns, it's how we all learn. From it's government, that is to say congress, to the Pentagon, to it's media, to it's evangelical and protestant churches, Americans get the same non-critical message, Israel can do wrong and Islam is the enemy of the US.