A nice follow-up to my earlier post about Israel's new high-tech public diplomacy push. I just got off a bloggers' conference call organized by America's Voices. The speakers included the Deputy Chief of Mission from Israel's DC Embassy and Brigadier General (Res.) Relik Shafir from the IAF. They were both exceptionally good - straightforward answers, new information, an overall ethos of confidence, etc.

I do have a small concern that's the seed of a bigger concern though. These calls inevitably start out a little slow. Often that's because speakers assume they're speaking to a general audience as opposed to a bunch of news junkies. It's a little off-putting when this happens because it's a pity to waste time that could be spent on questions. Example: the very first thing mentioned was Israel's new public diplomacy push and how there are now videos on YouTube. First, we know, and second, blog pace has already made that outdated. The minute and a half recitation about how Israel tries to avoid collateral damage and has sent almost 200 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza? On it. The talking points about Hamas's intentionally created humanitarian crisis or about Iran's involvement and about how Egypt is blaming Hamas. Yes and yes and yes. But still - safely assumed to be background knowledge.

But I'm actually more worried that it reflects a deeper message-level problem. It could be that Israeli spokespeople are spending time on context and background with bloggers because they think they lose media wars when "the truth" doesn't "get posted." That's not the problem. Now that Israel is investing heavily in public diplomacy, the mistake to be avoided is the one that assumes that the blogosphere is this flat space where what's true naturally bubbles to the surface. That's never true even in general - it's the mistake that pro-Israel campus advocates make when they try reason people out of ideologies they haven't been reasoned into. But even if you could persuade people that way you couldn't do it on the blogosphere. There are infrastructure issues, networking issues, preexisting links - plus these tools to contend with. Now it could be that all of these problems are symptoms of deeper issues involving the role of new communications technologies in public deliberation. And it could even be that reason and argument just doesn't do much persuasive work in an era of low-information voting insulated by myopic self-esteem. But in any case - less time in general reminding pro-Israel bloggers that Israel unilaterally left the Gaza Strip and was rewarded with rockets.

But nonetheless - and genuinely - very helpful. Here's some stuff you're interested in:

(1) Dismantling Hamas - General Shafir was unequivocal that no target ever gets hit if there is a significant risk of collateral damage. The IAF is apparently circling jets and drones over the apartment buildings where Hamas has stored weapons. They don't level the buildings until they get visual confirmation that the residents have left in response to Israeli warnings about impending attacks - which of course Hamas sometimes exploits to move the weapons. Since human shields are the limiting factor right now I'm assuming that means that Israel will start seeing diminishing returns from IAF sorties. Although they certainly seem to be keeping busy right now.

(2) Artificially imposed deadlines - Given the last 12 hours I think there are good reasons to worry but the embassy rep was very confident that Israel is making its case to the right people in the right capitals.

(3) Evaluating Hezbollah - The consensus seem to be that they won't attack lest the IAF flatten southern Lebanon. There were several mentions about the noticeable lack of activity in the south. Hmm.

References and previously after the jump...