Thursday, November 29, 2012

Amb. Oren: Who Is Threatening Whom?

In an op-ed at the Washington Post, Falling for Hamas’s media manipulation by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States writes:

...Hamas has a military strategy to paralyze southern Israel with short- and middle-range rockets while launching Iranian-made missiles at Tel Aviv. With our precision air force, top-notch intelligence and committed citizens army, we can defend ourselves against these dangers...For all of its bluster, Hamas does not threaten Israel’s existence.
But it tries to and with more assistance from Iran, who knows?

Then he notes:

But Hamas also has a media strategy. Its purpose is to portray Israel’s unparalleled efforts [so as to] pervert Israel’s rightful acts of self-defense into war crimes. Its goals are to isolate Israel internationally, to tie its hands from striking back at those trying to kill our citizens and to delegitimize the Jewish State. Hamas knows that it cannot destroy us militarily but believes that it might do so through the media.
So, does Hamas threaten Israel's existence, or not?

I'm mixed up.

Oren then informs us what Hamas wants:-

It seeks to instill a visceral disgust for any Israeli act of self-defense, even one taken after years of unprovoked aggression...If Hamas cannot win the war, it wants to win the story of the war.

That's very threatening to me.

Is Oren almost a threat to Israel's public diplomacy efforts?

Couldn't he do better?  Be more threatening to Hamas?

^

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