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The Selling of Israel
(Israelinsider) Jonathan S. Tobin - The fact that Israel is a tiny, besieged democracy surrounded by an Arab world whose main desire is still to extinguish the one Jewish state, has been lost amid a sea of media bias. One school of thought says the problem lies in the obsessive focus on the conflict itself. If only the world could see Israel as the modern, engaging, and entertaining place it really is, then, the theory goes, the country's image would improve. Others contend that as long as Israel's right to exist is called into question, an infinite number of pleasant stories about life there will not convince anyone it deserves to survive. Pollster and political consultant Frank Luntz argues that the focus should be on Israel as "a proponent of peace, an advocate for justice, and a force for compromise." Yet a campaign based on how generous Israel has been in giving up Gaza, and even future concessions in the West Bank, will earn Israel no credit when the Palestinians inevitably ask for more. In fact, the last decade of post-Oslo Israeli concessions has resulted in an increase in vituperation against Israel and Zionism, not a decrease. The writer is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.