Those were strong words that came from Benjamin Netanyahu when he finally got to speak before Congress.
Just as strong were three words he left unspoken.
Israel’s war is everybody’s war. It’s Jihad, silly. It’s ISIS, stupid.
The Israeli prime minister did not even whisper that hallucinatory nonsense about a “two state solution” so favored by the Left.
If the Left still thinks whoring for peace is the way to go, as appears to be the case from the Labor Party’s most recent effort at appeasement (turning the “West Bank” judenrein and into the next Gaza-type hellhole) Netanyahu offers something else entirely – a war to be won on the frontline of words.
Finally something new. An Israeli leader weaned from the implausible “two state” mirage, and intelligent to the ways of marketing. Where has this been?
Netanyahu may finally be the Israeli leader who has learned that public relations are a critical wartime tool. Perhaps it’s time for Israel to stop selling its land and instead focus on selling its message. Israel’s ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor did so last November at the J’accuse speech that still has the walls shaking but social media applauding.
Netanyahu was right to omit what needed to be omitted.
He was wise to say what needed to be said in a powerful new language that can make a world of difference.
I choose to call it The Bibi Code – words hidden to express a new policy against capitulation, and words exposed to illuminate a new approach.
If so, this would be news, because Israel’s weakest link is PR. Israel has never learned how to sell itself. But now, maybe.
Netanyahu may be on to something, using the kind of language people understand, the news media in particular as to the clash of civilizations.
Essentially that it’s not just us against them. Rather it’s all of us against all of them.
The world – led by the media – assumes that there are two hot-spot wars in progress. One, local, pits the Palestinian Arabs against the Jewish State. That Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in particular are part of a wider world of Islamic terror and intolerance, this fact has seldom drawn much attention. A win for their PR.
The other war has global consequences, namely Radical Islam against everybody, as expressed here in a revealing behind-the- headlines newsroom drama.
So there is no cheerleading for these barbarians devouring the Middle East and beyond.
Somebody please, as I have been imploring, connect the dots! Israel’s war is everybody’s war. It’s Jihad, silly. It’s ISIS, stupid.
From day one Israel has been fighting this conflict for itself and for the world.
Sell the truth and dump the particulars. Americans, trained by the movies, only need information that tells them who to root for.
Draw the big picture.
So drop the names. Stop calling them Hezbollah or Fatah or Hamas. People don’t know Hamas.
People know Radical Islam. So name it Radical Islam, period.
Netanyahu appears to have caught on.
Notice how he framed it for AIPAC and Congress: He called out Israel’s tormentors as “Iran’s goons in Gaza, its lackeys in Lebanon, its Revolutionary Guards on the Golan Heights.” Finally, no Hamas for Bibi, as if to prepare the world for the next round from Gaza, only this time the enemy will be called “Iran’s goons.”
Well it’s about time.
Netanyahu put the blame squarely upon the entirety of Radical Islam. This is prose the world understands.
Israel endures the same problem and is part of the same conversation, Netanyahu reminded the world.
This was the code, The Bibi Code, slid through subtly and brilliantly. Our war is your war, our enemies are your enemies.
“The enemy of my enemy is my enemy,” as Netanyahu put it even for Democrats who refused to listen.
But he got the message across by the power of salesmanship, which is another way of saying statesmanship.
What’s taken so long?
Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. The new thriller from the New York-based novelist, The Bathsheba Deadline, a heroic editor’s singlehanded war on terror and against media bias. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Website: www.jackengelhard.com