‘YES’ he can – Obama hawks for Israeli cable
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Israeliness, Politics, Pop Culture, tv
President Barack Obama may not have pleased many Israelis with his Middle East policy during his first year of his presidency. To give him the benefit of the doubt, let’s just call it naive.
However, that doesn’t mean that we still don’t appreciate Obama’s charisma, his ability to inspire and his movie star charm and appeal. YES, one of the two cable TV providers here, apparently realizes that – which is why they recently started screening this very clever and well-made commercial for their new services they’re offering viewers.
I’m not sure we’re they got all the actors, but the ad – produced by McCann Films for McCann Erickson Israel, the local arm of international advertising giant – will surely put your week off to a good start.
The next prime minister of Israel – Dennis Ross?
Ross - Ammunition both for and against Bibi
With the major parties – Kadima and Likud – frothing at the bit after being held up due to the the ‘national unity’ displayed during the war in Gaza, they’re now finally unleashing the campaigns that their spin doctors and media specialists have been cooking up these last few weeks.
And, strangely enough, they’re using some of the same strategy, courtesy of a one-time aide to Bill Clinton who is set to make a comeback under President Barack Obama – Dennis Ross. The former Middle East negotiator, who’s expected to be appointed as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s point man on Iran, was up to his elbows in the Israel-Palestinian issue during the 1990s and he knew all the players involved.
That’s why both Kadima and Likud are planning to use quotes from Ross’s published memoirs to both praise and bury Likud leader Bibi Netanyahu, according to Gil Hoffman writing in The Jerusalem Post.
“Bibi rarely seemed to know how to act on his ideas – how to present them, to whom, and even when to do so,” Ross wrote about Netanyahu in a quote from his book, The Missing Peace, that was distributed by Kadima. “Translating an idea into action seemed beyond his grasp. It was not lack of intelligence… it was the lack of judgment… but there was something more: Often he would come up with ideas simply to get himself out of a jam.”
The Likud, by contrast, focused on Ross quotes that were policy-oriented and not personal. They distributed interviews with Ross and articles he wrote in which he regretted not insisting upon reciprocity with the Palestinians as Netanyahu had advised him.
“Rather than trying to resolve issues like Jerusalem and refugees, we would have focused on expanding the scope of Palestinian independence from Israeli control, developing and investing in the Palestinian economy, and expanding the connections between the Israeli and Palestinian societies,” Ross wrote in The Wall Street Journal in June 2007, sounding very much like Netanyahu’s current “economic peace” diplomatic plan.
How the new prime minister of Israel will work with the Obama administration is playing a big role in the election propoganda.
Likud officials said they hoped Kadima would continue to portray Netanyahu as someone who would have a difficult relationship with the Obama administration, because they believe this would help Netanyahu win more support among the public. Both Kadima and Labor have already started warning that Netanyahu would have an adversarial relationship with Obama, according to Hoffman.
“Whoever thinks that it will be easy for Israel with Netanyahu as prime minister is wrong,” Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog told Army Radio on Friday. “It will be hard because it seems that Netanyahu’s policies will be in direct contrast with those of Obama.”
So while Americans can now relax in the knowledge that the election is over and Obama is firmly ensconced in the White House, here in Israel, the charismatic leader is still smack in the middle of the election campaign.
Obama’s inauguration enraptures Israelis
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Politics, War
With the Gaza ceasefire apparently taking hold, Israelis have been happy to have something new upon which to fixate our attentions in the news. Something hopeful. US President Barack Obama’s inauguration yesterday and the festivities surrounding it this whole week have kept Israelis enraptured.
The one exception to this trend might be American immigrants to Israel, who tend to be a Republican-leaning crowd, often because of the popular perception that the American Right is more friendly to Israel than the Left. This perception might or might not be true, but Americans living in Israel are certainly wary of Obama’s alleged lack of Zionism.
So despite citing nightlife-themed parties surrounding the inauguration which took place in Tel Aviv as well as Jerusalem, a Haaretz piece from earlier this week points out that mainstream American organizations were shying away from the event:
Neither the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel nor the American Israeli Action Coalition – two non-partisan groups – have planned any special activities to mark the swearing-in of the new president. A spokesman for Israelis for Obama, a small group that was formed before the elections and operated mainly online, told Haaretz the group had dissolved after completing it’s only goal of seeing Obama elected.
But even though George Bush is considered by the people here to have been a great friend to the country, most Israelis are optimistic about new blood inhabiting the White House. The Associated Press even hints at some more literal connections between the Israeli appetite for inauguration news coverage and the Gaza ceasefire:
Obama’s inauguration became the lead story in Israeli media, which had been dominated by coverage of the Gaza offensive that began with a massive air bombardment on Dec. 27.
The front page of Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s biggest daily newspaper, featured the smiling Obama and his wife over an English headline: “Good luck.”
Seemingly timing its withdrawal to Tuesday’s inauguration, Israel had already pulled most of its troops out of the ravaged Gaza Strip after a deadly three-week offensive aimed at halting years of militant rocket fire. But the crisis is not over, with reports of shooting along the Israel-Gaza border, and with Israeli soldiers poised to resume the assault if Gaza militants break a fragile cease-fire.
Maybe it’s simply a matter of the incoming president’s rock star-like status, but Obama buzz is not relegated to Democrats – even when it comes to Americans living here. Summing up the feelings at last night’s parties, today Haaretz quotes a young reveler named Guy Simen:
“Even people who did not support Obama are excited, because they know the whole world is watching this event – and they feel close to home. They know that now we’ve elected a man who is supposed to change the world and many people are proud to be Americans.”
Image courtesy lostintransitzine from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
Bazooka Joe and Poochie
Filed under: Business, Food, History and Culture, Israeliness, Pop Culture
Bazooka bubblegum might not have represented a revolution in chewable candy back when the product line was launched over 50 years ago, but the brand’s use of mini-comics as an added-value piggybacking promotion was a stroke of genius. The Topps baseball card publisher hired comics pioneer Wesley Morse to develop “Bazooka Joe and his Gang,” an enduring and endearing ensemble of characters that has included the turtlenecked Mort, canine companion Walkie Talkie, Jane the love interest, Hungry Herman and Toughie (a complete and illustrated chronology of the development of these characters over a half-century is enumerated here).
Joe’s cheeky adventures and one-liners have hit it big in Israeli consumerist pop culture over the years as well, thanks to a licensing deal through huge food maker Strauss-Elite, the Israeli spin-off even enjoying success as an export back to the US thanks to its kosher certification.
The quest to keep Joe relevant has been an ongoing and international process, with baggier jeans added to the character’s wardrobe in the grunge- and hip-hop-loving Nineties and new plans to even get Barack Obama involved in Topps-marketed products.
Here in Israel, a marketing campaign costing NIS 2 million is underway to cast a new character to join the Gang, as YNet’s Hebrew website has recently reported. Young Israeli chewing gum aficionados are encouraged to pitch their ideas to the Strauss-Elite decision-makers via homemade production videos, with the winner to be unveiled some time in January.
YNet quoted Elite-Strauss marketing executive Gali Shabad with words of praise on the campaign, which she claims “connects the general public to a cultural icon that we all grew up with, through the use of an interactive marketing platform” (translation ours).
Hopefully the new Israeli Gang-member will enjoy enduring longevity – unlike our beloved Poochie, may he rest in peace.
From Barack to Barkat: A Look Back at the November Elections
The just concluded Jerusalem election, while certainly not as important on a world stage as last week’s U.S. presidential contest, was in many ways spookily similar to its overseas counterpart. For those who supported Nir Barkat, who beat his main competitor Meir Porush by a commanding 9 points (52 to 43 percent), the sheer jubilance that erupted across the city (though certainly not in all parts of it) reminded me of what I’d heard from so many friends and family in the U.S. after Barack Obama bested John McCain.
That tolerance had triumphed over extremism. That inclusiveness would now prevail, not sectarianism. And most importantly, that hope, pride and patriotism had been restored – in the case of Jerusalem, at a time when many residents were saying, either outright or under their collective breaths, what one Beit Hakerem resident was quoted by Haaretz as lamenting: that this election would “determine whether I’m staying” in the city.
The resemblance between the two races extended beyond just the similarity in the winning candidates names. One candidate preached change, the other more of the same. One ran a relatively clean campaign, while the other (or his supporters, it’s not clear) spent much of his political capital on negative attack ads.
To wit: I took a walk several days before the election. There were posters claiming Barkat was really a closet leftist; that with only five years in politics he “lacked the experience” to manage such a complex city as Jerusalem. Sound familiar?
Barkat, to be sure, didn’t run a flawless campaign the way Obama did. He flip-flopped on political positions and took pot shots at low hanging fruit (the light rail fiasco, the over priced “Bridge of Strings”). Posters appeared on city streets in the waning days of the contest almost messianically proclaiming him “HaTikva,” a play on words: the literal translation is “The Hope” but it’s also the name of the Israeli national anthem.
But Porush had his own Sarah Palin debacle when he was caught on tape boasting that, following his presumed election, “there would be no more secular mayors anywhere in Israel within 10 years.” Once publicized, that statement more than any others did the job of scaring away any remaining voters still on the fence.
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