Another PR war

The tensions and many public declarations over the planned “flightilla” by pro-Palestinian activists who are expected to start arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport are causing us to wonder whether we are back in 1948, with the Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, Iraqi and Lebanese armies threatening to destroy us. We can assume that if we survived that horrific scenario, we can survive this one as well. Except that things were easier for us then, when we had to fight real armies and not “humanitarian activists.” Back then, the world viewed us as the underdog and as the ones who were abiding by international law.

Times have changed. The people in Gaza have chosen Hamas, and have not been swayed by the wave of “Arab Spring” revolutions that has swept through the region. The world now views the Palestinians as the victims who require the assistance of such protest flights.

A public relations war, not a war of survival, is expected at the airport. The war for the main headline of 2011 is no less important than the war for the establishment of Israel's borders in 1948. The protest flight is also a type of war, one of the kind that we rarely win. Some will say that we lose such wars because of our limited public relations efforts; others will say we lose because of our flawed policies, while still others will attribute our failures to the world at large.

Israel has a few advantages this time, for a change. The world has recently proved to us that we are not alone. Turkey did not send the renovated Mavi Marmara ship to sea again; Greece stopped Gaza-bound ships as they tried to leave its ports; Cyprus did not allow ships to dock at its ports, and France criticized the idea of the flotilla. Both Washington and the United Nations have opposed the flotilla as well. Are we isolated? Or is it the flotilla that is isolated-

The findings of the U.N. investigation into the 2010 flotilla headed by New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer were released recently. The Palmer report found that Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal. This declaration, in one stroke, delegitimized the flotilla protests, flight protests, and any other such protests.

Israel has no reason to worry about the impending protest flights. We did not need to make numerous unnecessary public declarations. Israel has the right to defend itself. It needs to act, not talk. The United States and Europe defend themselves from hostile elements as well. Imagine, for example, what would await them if several hundred protesters affiliated with al-Qaida decided to arrive in Washington.

On the other hand, we need not worry about a few truly peaceful protesters at Ben Gurion airport. We should save our toughness for those who really do disturb the peace at the airport. We are, after all, in Israel, not Syria. No one is preventing us from adding those who enter Israel peacefully to our tourism statistics after they arrive at the airport. Those who prefer to be unruly upon their arrival are welcome to continue being so all the way back home.

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