I’m finally back in One Jerusalem Radio’s Los Angeles studios, which you’d think would enhance the technical side of tonight’s broadcast. Unfortunately there’s a gigantic storm tearing apart the city – editing out the thunderclaps from the prerecorded interview with Lee Smith was a singular pleasure – so the studio might well be blacked out. If we do have electricity the show will go live as planned at 6:30pm PST / 9:30pm EST. You can tune in live to call in, hang out in the chat room, or just listen.
Huge show today. Lee Smith shows up to talk about his new book The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations. About halfway through I ask him about why liberal foreign policy experts get to just imagine the Middle East as they’d want it to be rather than as the cluster of warring tribes that it actually is. The conversation before and after goes into the precise level of disaster that can be expected, given that the WH seems bent on indulging in exactly those kinds of pseudo-sophisticated fantasies.
Dan Diker will be calling in from Israel to talk about Israel’s efforts in Haiti, making the case that Israel’s global leadership on disaster relief – coupled with a public diplomacy push on Twitter and YouTube – can’t help but bolster the Jewish State’s image. I’ll be making my usual point that antisemites are simply too antisemitic – and have too many media enablers – for public diplomacy to make much of a dent. I obviously think I’m on the right side of that debate but Dan has “data” and “arguments,” so take from that what you will.
References:
* The Pseudo-Sophisticated Horse – Lee Smith, Dan Diker [Omri Ceren Show]
* The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations by Lee Smith [Amazon]
* What Is the Arab World’s Problem? [Lee Smith]
* ISRAEL: Sending soldiers of peace to Haiti [LAT]
* Israel builds a field hospital in Haiti. Anti-Zionists not fooled! [Gutmann / Telegraph]
* Haiti: An Israeli Public Relations Moment? [MediaLine]
Related Mere Rhetoric Categories:
* The Omri Ceren Show
* Public Diplomacy
* Foreign Policy Experts
