by David Frum
Jennifer Rubin at Commentary describes the launch of a new pro-Israel group, the Emergency Committee for Israel:
There is a gaping hole in the Jewish community’s response to the Obama administration and in its defense of Israel. In the past, these groups’ close relationship with incumbent administrations has served them well. But as I have written for nearly a year, that tactic is not suited to the current challenges and has proven counterproductive in the Obama era. The need is great to expose, confront, and challenge the administration when it, for example, eggs on an international flotilla investigation or excepts Russia and China from sanctions on Iran or mindlessly pursues engagement with Syria.
Probably much of the press attention will go to the group's directors, which include Bill Kristol. But the real news is the group's director: Noah Pollak, a friend of mine, and a brilliant advocate for rethinking Israel's self-defense in a new media era. As a blogger, he proposed that the Israeli Defense Forces aunch their own YouTube channel, which did enormous service rebutting falsehoods during the Gaza campaign.
It's long been a thesis of mine, to adapt Clausewitz, that modern warfare is PR by other means. Pollak understands this truth (wrote his Yale thesis on it) - and friends of Israel will be excited to watch his deployment of the truth in the critical days ahead.
Here's a link to the committee's first ad, which will run in Pennsylvania.