We Jews have a lot to be proud of. For instance, despite being only 0.2% of the world’s population—meaning just one of every 500 people walking the earth is Jewish—Jews account for about 25% of the world’s Nobel Prizes. That means Jews outperform their expected numbers by more than 100 times. The same goes for many fields—law, business, medicine, the arts—where we “punch above our weight,” as the saying goes.
But for all our supposed genius and hard work, I am convinced we’re not too bright. Actually, we’re downright dumb in many ways. In short, we overthink the simple.
The Palestinians and their many supporters reduce things to simple, catchy sayings like: “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free.” Forget that most of the protesters can’t name the river or the sea; it doesn’t matter. It’s simple. It’s catchy. It’s effective. It’s persuasive. Mission accomplished, facts be damned. They even have a hip drumbeat as protesters call for violence against Jews worldwide (“Globalize the intifada”).
And what do we Jews do in response?
We generally oscillate between two extremes—meaning we either do nothing or we write 97-page white papers with footnotes detailing how and why we’re right on the merits. However right we may be, that’s still not effective. We lose the debate by doing too little or, as is more often the case, by doing too much.
The “average Joe” has no clue about the merits, and frankly, doesn’t want to know much about them. For him, the Palestinians’ pithy soundbites and virtue-signaling are way more persuasive than our erudite position papers.
The irony is that to “win”—or at least, to somewhat even the public-relations playing field—we don’t have to work harder. We just have to be smarter. Here, that means less is more.
Cutting to the chase, the simple response to just about any “debate” on Israel should be saying no more than this:
It takes a certain kind of pathology, hate and ignorance to see a scoreboard that reads 57-1—meaning there are 57 Muslim majority countries more than 1000 times Israel’s size in our world—and conclude: “Yeah, that’s not lopsided enough. It would be ‘fairer’ and more just if it were instead 58-0. Kill Israel—the only democracy in the region—and kill the Jews, the actual indigenous people who’ve only continuously lived in Israel for more than 3,000 years, meaning Jews were living in Israel for 2000 years before Islam even began as a religion.”
I’ve been preaching this simplicity for decades, and no Jewish groups or leaders embrace it. Our signs should literally read: “57-1: Not Lopsided Enough?” or “Jews: The Original Indigenous People.”
The average person gets that 57 is a lot more than 1. They understand what being someplace 2,000 years before someone else means—what being there first is. As the acronym goes, KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Sadly, it takes a righteous, common-sense speaking Arab to make this point! Recently, Jasem Aljuraid, an Arab political refugee speaking on behalf of UN Watch, shamed the United Nations while he supported Israel. Listen to his short remarks.
Aljuraid’s prose was so straightforward that it made anyone opposing him rightly feel foolish. He understands simplicity. He understands persuasion.
Most secular American Jews don’t know these basic points. Few know that the “Zionist empire” is the size of New Jersey. Few know that Israel ranks even higher than the United States on democracy rankings, while its “neighbors” rank near the bottom. Few know that the Palestinian Liberation Organization was formed in 1964, three years before Israel supposedly “occupied” anything, begging the question: Just what was the PLO seeking to “liberate”?
Spoiler alert: The answer then is the same as today. It was seeking to “liberate” Israel, if not the world, of all Jews.
Bigger picture: Jewish efforts at hasbara (meaning, persuasion or PR) largely fail because we forget two basic points.
First, we generally target the wrong groups. Again, just 0.2% of the world is Jewish. About 20% is Muslim. That leaves 79.8% of the world that is neither Jew nor Muslim. They are the ultimate swing vote. They will ultimately determine who “wins” and who “loses.” They are the audience.
Second, you must, in turn, make it relevant to the 79.8%. Why should they care? If we’re being real, many of the 79.8% think: “Not my issue. For all I care, you two deserve each other and might as well blow each other’s brains out.”
The trick and goal is making them realize that this is not a “Jewish issue.” Rather, this is a Western civilization and humanity issue. This is their issue—an “everyman” issue. They must understand that, like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the Jews may go first, but if so, they are right behind.
The message should not be to support the Jews and Israel out of charity or altruism. Rather, the notion should be that the 79.8% should support Israel because it’s right on the merits and, even more importantly, it’s in their own self-interest to do so. In supporting Israel, you’re not supporting the Jewish state, per se. You’re actually supporting yourself.
But sadly, it takes an Arab refugee without a Nobel Prize to understand—and to apply—these simple concepts better than learned Jews.
