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John Brown aggregates all the most recent public diplomacy related news, including current issues in U.S. foreign policy, international broadcasting and media, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, educational exchanges, anti-Americanism, and the reception of American popular culture abroad.

PDPBR FOR FEBRUARY 23 SUPPLEMENT (MIDDLE EAST, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA)
by John H. Brown

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AS A GLOBAL PHENOMENON, 2006: AN INTERNET-BASED SURVEY OF THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE WORLD MEDIA MIDDLE EAST, SUB-SAHARAN ADRICA MIDDLE EAST MUTUAL MISCONCEPTIONS: ARABS NEED A LOT MORE PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE U.S. - JAMES ZOGBY (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, JULY 5): While there is no doubt that most Arabs do not understand America and its complex political and social culture, the more pressing need is for the United States to understand the Arab world. LINK THE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF ISRAELI PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE WAR AGAINST THE IRAN-HIZBALLAH AXIS OF TERROR - RAANAN GISSIN (JERUSALEM ISSUE BRIEF, VOL. 6, NO. 9, AUGUST 23): “Why should it be that once we start attacking, we immediately start to lose in the diplomatic arena? Because Nasrallah and his patrons in Iran successfully integrated the ‘ABCs’ of public diplomacy into their long-term strategic war doctrine.” LINK LINK AMEN!?!? STRATEGIES IN ISRAEL’S PR BATTLE – SWU RESEARCH FELLOW (ISRAEL RELATED BLOG; FIRST APPEARED IN STANDWITHUS, DECEMBER 25): “I’m so frustrated with most Israeli hasbara: - It’s reactive, trying to explain what’s been done rather than influencing the formation of policy. - It’s largely based on saying things that reassure us and our supporters, rather than communicating effectively with those who are not already on our side. … - It’s far to obsessed with ‘beating’ our ‘enemies’, instead of with succeeding as a modern, thriving, Western-oriented democracy.” LINK A HEDGEHOG’S HASBARA - (DON RADLAUER BLOG, DECEMBER 26): There is one thing that all of us (or at least all of us involved in this debate) agree on: Israel’s image in the eyes of the rest of the world is abysmal. Our response has been to attempt more effective hasbara - literally, “explanation” but more accurately translated as “public diplomacy”, “public relations”, or (less delicately) “propaganda”. The problem is that Israeli public diplomacy has been monumentally unsuccessful of late: the plucky little underdog of yore is now seen as the big bad wolf, oppressing and occupying the Palestinians, offending Hezbollah (by existing, basically), insulting Iran by accusing President Ahmadinejad of all kinds of horrible things, and feeling offensively sorry for itself every time a walking bomb blows up a bus or café. We seem to have tremendous difficulty understanding why we are perceived so negatively. Are we not a thriving democracy? Do we not mean well? Okay, we’ve had to do some rather unpalatable stuff at times, but hey, we live in a rough neighborhood, and it’s not like we enjoyed knocking all those houses down! And our adversaries include some genuinely evil people: guys who think blowing innocent women and children to bits is a good thing, as long as it happens to us and not them. The hasbara establishment - consisting of certain individuals and agencies of the Israeli government, along with a bunch of concerned individuals and private organizations - has responded to the failures of Israeli image-making by circling the wagons, closing ranks, girding their loins, going for the jugular, and keeping their…... FULL TEXT
 
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