Suissa is savvy, no question about it.
Political spurts of vapid conventionalism will never carry the day in promoting peace in the Middle East. Yet clever ad campaigns will never accomplish the task, either.
Tenets of religion are far more entrenched than political views. When a Muslim or Jew espouses certain doctrines of faith, they are talking about their identities, something which many people are never comfortable with changing.
An ad campaign will never be enough to bring two religious camps together, especially when one side is dedicated, nay defined existentially, by the destruction of the other.
"We need new ideas to break through the hardened clichés that dominate the discourse. . . .shaming the haters and honoring the lovers."
I do believe that Israel would benefit from a more aggresive ad campaign which paints the Jewish state in its positive light, in contrast to the hateful and distorted messages released by the Mainstream Media.
I think a more effective ad campaign would including comparing passages of the Torah with the Koran.
Why not ask Muslims to rethink the whole 72 virgins after martyrdom thing? A vilified Danish cartoonist a few years ago published one cartoon, with Mohammed relating to a suicide bomber: "We have no more virgins left." How about, "Yes, we have no more vigins?" sung to the tune of "Yes, we have no bananas?"
I do like the idea of blasting an ad campaign to the Al Jazeera World: Israel is not your enemy. Not so much, though, because it would effectively dissuade a new generation of Muslims and Arabs to stop hating Israel, but because it would compromise the ersatz-neutrality of the Arab news network. Al-Jazeera would certainly be pressured not to air the ads; or if it did, would probably see its share of the media market decline so rapidly as to go out of business.
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