March 14-15

"Like a tsunami wave, miles long and tree-high, Israel has roared to life."

--Aris Bussel, "Be Careful Not to Offend Israel," Canada Free Press

"Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.”

--Isaac Newton; image from

BLOG OF INTEREST

Propaganda and History: Propaganda and history are found together quite often. This blog is devoted to both

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

P.J. Crowley Resigns: "PD of deed"? - Elena Osipova, Global Chaos: "The real public diplomacy challenge now, then, is to demonstrate that the torture allegations [regarding 'the treatment of Bradley Manning, who is currently in detention, pending trial for allegedly passing thousands of classified U.S. documents to Wikileaks'] are really untrue and that the U.S. is truly devoted to all the principles of justice and fairness that it so proudly promotes abroad." [Article also gives background on the


Crowley resignation and cites Secretary of State Clinton's statement of the subject: "PJ has served our nation with distinction for more than three decades, in uniform and as a civilian. His service to country is motivated by a deep devotion to public policy and public diplomacy, and I wish him the very best."] See also. Image from

Memo to Madam Secretary: "First, Do No Harm‎ - Aaron David Miller, Foreign Policy: "The sudden onset of the Arab spring and winter has reminded us yet again that America doesn't run the world. ... Despite her popularity and adept practice of public diplomacy, Clinton understands her own limitations and those of the United States. She knows she's between a White House and a military that owns all the consequential hot-button issues.


Indeed, more than two years in, America's top diplomat -- one of Washington's ablest, smartest, and savviest players -- has yet to put her signature on a high-profile issue of peace or war likely to get her admitted into the secretary-of-state hall of fame."

U.S. Travel Association Urges President Obama To Discuss Inclusion of Brazil and Chile in Visa Waiver Program - hotelinteractive.com: "Citing an opportunity to advance our national security, economic competitiveness and public diplomacy, the U.S. Travel Association has urged President Obama to discuss prospects for including Brazil and Chile in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) when he visits South America this month."

Lessons from Davis saga, Moeed Yusuf - DAWN.com: "No longer can the US expect the Pakistani government, especially a politically weak one, to deliver on sensitive issues as freely as it may have in the past. If anything, the Davis controversy will make the media even more sensitive to any smoking guns in the future. ... In Pakistan’s case, there are two anomalous nodes: (i) the military establishment’s dominant role in the bilateral relationship causes a civil-military disconnect in policy preferences; and (ii) within the civilian enclave,

the political leadership’s propensity to deal directly with US officials rather than valuing institutional memory of organs such as the Foreign Office leaves the latter ineffective, and often in contradiction with the desires of individuals who matter. Finally, in terms of lessons, a more institutionalised and relatively transparent framework would require new methods to manage controversies. Street sentiment is critical; therefore, winning the people over becomes an obvious target. The US will have to focus much more on a viable public diplomacy strategy in Pakistan." On Davis, see.

Monday, March 14, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Report: "http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/appt/2011/03/158256.htm
US FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS JUDITH MCHALE 9:30 a.m. Under Secretary McHale joins Deputy Secretary Steinberg’s meeting with the Assistant Secretaries, at the Department of State. (CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE) 2:00 p.m. Under Secretary McHale meets with her public diplomacy leadership team, at the Department of State. (CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE) 3:00 p.m. Under Secretary McHale meets with representatives from the German Marshall Fund, at the Department of State. (CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)"

Good Governance in the Age of Internet Freedom: A Summary - Tori Horton, Newswire – CPD Blog, Center for Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California: "[W]hile the idea of every individual’s right to connect and the U.S. State Department’s commitment to open and transparent Internet platforms continue to be laudable goals,


there remains an unquestionable gap in practice among all sectors of U.S. government." Image from

Activists want internet freedom funds to go to the State Dept, not "narrowly focused" BBG - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting: "Interestingly, US international broadcasting, to be effective, must also be 'message-blind.' In other words, it should just report the news. Independent journalism is 'exemplary of core American principles.' Because internet freedom is central to the BBG's ability to reach its audience, the BBG would perhaps pursue this goal with greater urgency than State. And I think the BBG can carry out these efforts with sufficient agnosticism. If both State and BBG do this, there is potential for inefficiency through duplication of effort. In any case, let's get ready for a good, rollicking, inter-agency competition for federal funds. Should be entertaining."

Latest swipe at US international broadcasting to Iran contradicts itself within a single sentence - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting

Group to jazz it up at the Cathedral - Jessie Moniz, Royal Gazette: "A new musical group will literally be jazzing things up today at an annual charity performance by Harvard University here [in Hamilton, Bermuda]. A capella singers Harvard Voxjazz will join the Harvard Krokodiloes, the Radcliffe Pitches and the Harvard Din & Tonics for ‘Harvard in Hamilton For Habitat V’.


The annual concert at the Anglican Cathedral in Hamilton will benefit Habitat for Humanity Bermuda, and is sponsored by United States Consul General Grace W Shelton. ... The dozen or so undergraduate women who form the Radcliffe Pitches perform a selection of songs inspired by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. 'It is always a pleasure,' said consulate public diplomacy specialist Astrid Black, one of the organisers. 'The music is very high tempo, and you want to tap your toes. You really get into the music. It is good family fun."

'We can also use unusual forms of public diplomacy' - Ben Hartman, Jerusalem Post: "Graphic photos of the bodies of the five members of the Fogel family murdered


in their home in the Itamar settlement Friday night will hopefully have an effect on international media outlets when they write about Israel, Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein said Monday. ... Edelstein laughed off claims made by some that Israel was looking to exploit the tragedy for hasbara (public diplomacy) purposes, saying, 'I don’t even have a response to this ridiculous claim. We didn’t create this attack, this attack happened, and the fact that we want the world to know what we’re dealing with is our obligation.' ... He declared that 'our goal in sending out the photos was clear: to show that this attack crossed all lines. And to show that Israel can also take unorthodox steps in hasbara.' ... Edelstein explained the decision on Sunday, saying, 'We have never done anything like this before, but only these horrific pictures can make the world realize who Israel is dealing with.' He noted that 'I have never had a meeting overseas on the subject of public diplomacy in which I wasn’t asked why the images representing the Israeli side are so sterile, while those of the Palestinians are quite graphic. This is a very serious incident for us, but for too many people in the world, there is a neat and cozy picture of an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and this can help those people understand with whom we are doing business.'" See also. Image from article

Israeli Settler Minister: We Published Pictures Of Corpses For Hasbara - Richard Silverstein, Eurasia Review: "Edelstein is the aptly named ‘minister of hasbara’ (in Hebrew–in English he’s the ‘minister for public diplomacy’). And what he’s done is disseminate terror porn. ... What astonishes is an Israeli minister publicly admitting that he’s exploiting the dead for the propaganda value of their images. This is one of the worst sins Judaism can imagine: exploitation of the dead. It’s a hillul ha-Shem, a desecration of the divine name. ... It’s as if the entire Israeli government along with much of the country is the blind leading the blind. They kill us. We don’t kill them. They exploit their dead. We don’t exploit ours (except in response to them)."

Be Careful Not to Offend Israel‎ - Ari Bussel, Canada Free Press: "[L]ast defenders of the Jewish state, standing on the front line of the public diplomacy front around the world, are exhausted, but more so they are frustrated to the very core. There is no back up; no support—regular or intermittent—so they battle alone. They must fight the enemy that surrounds them and they need to respond and counter the attack from their own back as some Israelis and Jews do everything to help the enemy."

How India’s External Affairs Ministry Used Twitter During Libya Evacuation - medianama.com: "'Our experience (of Social Media) with the Public Diplomacy division has been transformational, and given the events in Egypt and Libya, we have to be there,' Navdeep Suri, Joint Secretary (PD), Ministry of External Affairs, said at the Gov 2.0 conference held in Delhi last week. Suri said that the image of India’s foreign office has been that they’re 'fuddy duddy', and they joined Twitter and Facebook with the intent of building a positive narrative about india, development partnerships, and create Friends of India communities via facebook.” More importantly, it was about communicating quickly, setting the agenda, get feedback and improve the interface between government and citizens: a focus on greater responsiveness and accountability.


'We started with Twitter in July, and have 7000 followers. We got reactions spontaneously, many of them positive and welcoming because people had low expectations from government. We were the pilot (project) for the Department of Information Technology,' he added. 'The Libya experience,' Suri said, 'has shown that it has worked very well for us. While the Facebook experience has worked better than Twitter experience (in terms of the positive responses), we used Twitter for utility during emergencies. (During the Libya evacuation), we put up over 300 tweets, the Foreign Secretary (Nirupama Rao) became the first senior official to join twitter. We used it to sent the agenda and be the first to put out factual information, rather than interpretation. Credibility needs to be key for us, and we need to be quick but also correct and authoritative.'" Image from article

Istanbul to host Leaders of Change Summit‎ - Hurriyet Daily News: "Prominent international figures including former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are set to meet in Istanbul as part of a summit on regional change. ... Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will speak at the opening ceremony of the summit, which is supported by the Prime Ministry’s Promotion Fund and its Public Diplomacy Office, while President Abdullah Gül will deliver his remarks during the closing event."

Professors release results of survey on Americans’ attitudes about China - Indiana University School of Journalism: "A new national survey of Americans finds that many U.S. citizens believe that China's economy is overtaking the United States' in terms of size and influence. They are also somewhat worried that the Asian nation could become a military threat in the future. Nearly half (48 percent) hold unfavorable views of China and almost 7 in 10 (69 percent) respondents are worried that China could become a military threat to the United States. However, the survey, conducted by Professors Lars Willnat


and Emily Metzgar from the School of Journalism at Indiana University (USA), also found that a vast majority (82 percent) of those surveyed have a favorable view of the Chinese people. ... Willnat and Metzgar today (March 14) presented their preliminary findings at a conference at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, co-organized by IU's Research Center on Chinese Politics and Business. The theme of the conference is 'U.S.-China Business Cooperation in the 21st Century: U.S.-China Economic and Trade Relations in the Post-Economic Crisis Era.' ... Metzgar,


whose research focuses on public diplomacy and social media, said these findings suggest that many Americans have 'an unmet hunger for news about China.'" Willnat and Metzgar images from article

Public Diplomacy: Modern Approaches - Betina Frazao, Public and Cultural Diplomacy B: A reflective group blog by students on the Public and Cultural Diplomacy module at London Metropolitan University: "The USA is not the only example of a country becoming more concerned with their image in the East post 9/11, and most countries in Europe have made attempts to ensure that they develop a more positive image in the region."

DABS: Lunch Meeting with the Former Danish Ambassador to Singapore Mr. Klavs A. Holm - scandasia.com: "Klavs A. Holm left The Danish Embassy in Singapore in 2007 for a new position as head of the new department for Public Diplomacy at the Foreign Ministry in Copenhagen. That's more than 3 years ago. Now the former Danish Ambassador


is back in town and is ready to tell the members of DABS what Public Diplomacy is, how diplomats’ work has changed dramatically and why nation branding is becoming a still more important part of a country’s foreign policy involving non-state stake holders and especially businesses all over the world." Image from

Global influence - advocacy journalism conference - Willow Williamson - SIS Public Diplomacy: The Group Five Blog: http://www.newseum.org/programs/2011/0301-conference/advocacy-journalism-in-the-digital-age.html"

RELATED ITEMS

The Ike Phase - David Brooks, New York Times: Obama said his cautious reactions to the Libyan revolution amounted to “tightening the noose” around Qaddafi. Yet there is no evidence that Qaddafi is feeling asphyxiated or even discomforted. As he slaughters his opposition, Western caution looks like fecklessness.

Gadhafi's Propaganda Has Tripoli Celebrating: Rebels losing ground as government attacks morale - Kevin Spak, Newser: It was a bad day for rebel forces in Libya, but in the streets of Tripoli people


were celebrating—in part because they believed the news state-run television was broadcasting. a few hundred Moammar Gadhafi supporters said they believed that al-Qaeda was responsible for the uprising, a message the state-run media has been heavily propagating. Image from article

Hate propaganda, peace can't coexist - Steve Huntley - Chicago Sun-Times: Years of efforts to find a way out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have floundered time and again on the failure of the world, and specifically the Obama administration for the last two years, to hold the Palestinian authorities accountable for their ceaseless flogging of hateful passions among their people. A case in point was the weekend slaughter of an Israeli family of five in a community in the disputed West Bank. The White House, the State Department and the Middle East Quartet — the group of America, the U.N., the European Union and Russia — issued statements to condemn “in the strongest possible terms” the murders.

Palestinian Propaganda Map Deconstructed - cifwatch.com:


This map is a lie. Image from article

French Culinary Diplomacy Through Stamps and Airport Food - Jaxiecracks, The Cultural Diplomacy of Food: It does seem rather a pity that Paris, birthplace of haute cuisine, lacks good airport food, both for practical purposes and culinary diplomacy objectives. Closer to home, it might be asking a bit much to get a Ben's Chili Bowl outlet in Dulles, but surely even we can do better than Wendy's and cold sandwiches?

Women in World War II Propaganda - Eric Brothers, Propaganda and History: Propaganda and history are found together quite often. This blog is devoted to both. Sometimes history is used as propaganda and vice versa: When the battlefields of World War II were populated with American men, their wives, girlfriends, sisters and daughters had to help boost the soldiers’ morale--and do jobs that they normally would not do.


And it was propaganda that inspired, cajoled, warned, applauded, and motivated them. Image from article

AMERICANA

Study: 80 percent of children under 5 use Internet weekly - USA Today: Nearly 80% of children between the ages of 0 and 5 use the Internet on at least a weekly basis in the United States, according to a report released Monday from education non-profit organizations Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Sesame Workshop. The report, which was assembled using data from seven recent studies, indicates that young children are increasingly consuming all types of digital media,


in many cases consuming more than one type at once. Television use dwarfs internet use in both the number of children who surf the web and the amount of time they spend on it. The analysis found that during the week, most children spend at least three hours a day watching television, and that television use among preschoolers is the highest it has been in the past eight years. Of the time that children spend on all types of media, television accounts for a whopping 47%. Image from

ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"When you went in, the first thing you saw was a cardboard [Neville] Chamberlain fishing in rubber waders and, beyond, an elegant pattern of golf balls, a frieze of tennis rackets, polo sets, riding equipment, natty dinner jackets and, by a pleasant transition, agreeable pottery and textiles, books finely printed and photographs of the English countryside."

--Kingsley Martin, describing the British Pavilion at the Paris Exposition in 1937

IMAGE: P.J. Crowley