|
[ARABIC] [HEBREW]
Advertising for a Lasting Peace
Maurice Levy *
Paris - The Palestinian and Israeli negotiating sessions were long and
difficult. Tempers flared, and raw emotions came to the surface. From time
to time, it seemed as if the talks would break down. But in secret session
after secret session over 2004 and the first few months of 2005, the team
began to find a common language. And this May, as if a new Middle Eastern
miracle had taken place, they reached an agreement.
Don't hold your breath just yet: Peace is not about to break out in the
Middle East. Rather, what these Israelis and Palestinians agreed on was an
advertising campaign about peace - and that in itself holds much promise for
the future. This exercise in bridge-building began in January 2004, as the
Intifada was raging and bus bombs were going off in Israel. Friends from the
Peres Centre for Peace and the Palestinian Economic Forum had stopped to see
me in Paris. As an advertising and communications professional who had spent
a career building global brands, perhaps there was some way I could help. To
put it in crude terms, "peace" was a brand in serious trouble.
Thus I helped put together a working team of Israeli and Palestinian
advertising professionals. They came not only from Publicis Groupe, which I
head, but from competing companies. Some were from big and brash ad agencies
in Tel Aviv, others from start-ups in Ramallah or Nablus in the West Bank.
Some were freelancers. All gave freely of their time to pursue the simple
brief they were given: to come up with a single, shared campaign to promote
peace - a campaign for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
In the 1960s, after all, the potent public service ad campaign "Keep America
Beautiful" had helped a new generation of Americans become aware of
environmental protection. Why can't advertising's power be used to help
change perceptions among ordinary Israelis and Palestinians about the
promise of peace? More than ever, we need to give the silent majorities on
both sides a way to articulate their desire for a better future. And it is
vitally important that we use a single message for both populations. The
cause of peace in this unique and holy corner of the planet has been badly
served by "tailoring" messages - talking in one way to Israelis and in
another to Palestinians. Both populations need to be talking, and talked to,
from the same script.
The process of actually creating this peace campaign has been anything but
simple. Because of the closures and roadblocks in the area, it was often
incredibly difficult just to hold meetings. Discussions would often become
interminable mud-slinging sessions over who was more victimized, who was
more "right." Yet the 80 or so dedicated Israelis and Palestinians who
volunteered to work on this project finally succeeded in what they set out
to do.
At a meeting of the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea in Jordan on May 22
I was immensely proud to unveil the peace campaign they jointly created. It
is a moving, powerful set of 30-second spots in which Palestinian and
Israeli children invite others to join them. The tag line: "We hope someday
you'll join us," from John Lennon's 1971 anthem of peace, "Imagine." We are
now moving fast to raise the $3 million needed to produce these ads and
broadcast them in Israel and the Palestinian territories - and, we hope, in
neighbouring countries.
The mere fact that these courageous Palestinian and Israeli professionals
were able to overcome the obstacles and jointly create this campaign gives
me, for one, renewed hope that a way can be found to move forward on other
issues. Communication - a common language - is the necessary beginning of
any joint undertaking.
We aren't deluding ourselves. Advertising will never be a substitute for the
hard work needed to craft a peace agreement. That has to do with fundamental
issues like land, justice, liberty and security. Yet we must remember that
without an underlying popular will and desire to move forward, any
Israeli-Palestinian agreement will be much more difficult to reach - and
will be much less solid.
* Maurice Lévy is chairman and chief executive of
Publicis Groupe, the advertising and communications company, based in Paris.
Source: International Herald Tribune, June 9,
2005.
Visit the International Herald Tribune Online:
www.iht.com
Eine häufig gestellte Frage, beantwortet von Ariel
Scharon:
Warum heißt
haGalil - haGalil?
Der Galil, also Galiläa, ist der nördlichste Teil des Landes
Israel und somit der Europa am nächsten liegende...
Meeting People’s
Expectations
by George S. Hishmeh
Washington-based columnist George Hishmeh comments
on President Abbas’ successful trip to Washington, during which President
Bush, somewhat surprisingly, met many Palestinians’ high expectations.
However, Hishmeh warns that “the key point that has yet to be spelled out by
the administration is setting a timetable for all these expectations.”
(Source: AMIN.org, June 2, 2005)
When Left and Right Are Right
by David Kimche
David Kimche, former Foreign Ministry director-general, writes, “We are all
- Left and Right - entrenched in our views, convinced we know best what is
good for Israel. But what if diehard right-wingers and diehard leftists
started listening to each other's arguments? What if sane rightists - not
the messianics - and sane leftists - not the Israel-bashers - opened
themselves up to the other point of view?” (Source: The Jerusalem Post, June
2, 2005)
Jerusalem: The Candle of Humanity
by Rami Assali
Rami Assali describes a walk through the Old City of Jerusalem. “What
makes a garden beautiful is the arrangement of various kinds of flowers in a
way that harmonizes the colours combined together. What’s a garden with only
roses, or daisies, or lilies, or trees? It’s a garden with no harmony, no
life, no spirit. Even if the roses are very beautiful, they won’t make a
beautiful garden. What makes my Jerusalem unique and special is its
diversity, not its holiness. Why did God make Jerusalem holy for all
religions in the first place? Because it is a message that Jerusalem is
nobody’s and everybody’s city.” (Source: CGNews, June 10, 2005)
Shooting for Equality – On the Soccer Field and Off
by Daniel Ben-Tal
Writer Daniel Ben-Tal chronicles the rising success of soccer team Ichud Abu
Ghosh-Mevasseret. Although Arab players on Israeli teams is nothing new,
“Ichud (United) Abu Ghosh-Mevasseret has taken coexistence one step further
by forming Israel's first combined Jewish-Arab club that is explicitly more
than just about soccer.” (Source: This is an abbreviated version of an
article that appeared in ISRAEL21c, May 15, 2005) |
