ByAnonymous, Anonymous
Israel's information and diaspora minister, Yuli Edelstein, arrived in Britain today at the forefront of a new campaign designed to improve the country's tarnished public relations image.
The timing could scarcely be worse, in the wake of the intense media speculation about the murder in Dubai last month.
But Mr Edelstein brushed off the issue, saying first that the campaign had been more than six months in the planning, and second, that he did not "have the first idea who is responsible for the Dubai killing — and I checked with the right sources yesterday."
The Edelstein campaign is primarily directed at Israelis. The minister said: "Millions of Israelis travel abroad every year. Eighty five per cent of those Israelis we asked expressed their backing for the national effort of trying to change the perception of Israel."
A new website, www.masbirim.co.il, has been set up. It features three mini-films in English, Spanish and French, each giving a heavily ironic version of how Europeans view Israel.
The English version has a fake BBC reporter walking through the desert with camels, which, he informs the viewer in all seriousness, are the primary forms of transport for Israelis, and are even used to carry weaponry. "The camels are used by the Israeli cavalry," he intones.
Mr Edelstein defended the jokey tone of the campaign. "You can't preach all the time unless you want to sound like a Bolshevik," he said.
He advised Israelis not to get involved in discussing international politics. "Talk about your life, your neighbours, make your life sound normal. Don't be an expert in international relations. Tell people about going to a concert with your wife."
He was convinced, he said, that the only way to "change the negative atmosphere" was to persuade Israeli "public relations missionaries" to tell people in the countries that they visited that Israel was not a 24-hour war zone.
Eventually, Mr Edelstein hopes to extend his campaign to diaspora communities. On Monday, he will bring his message to MPs in Parliament at a meeting under the auspices of the Henry Jackson Society