Israelis believe Nasrallah over Israeli leaders
In a fascinating report, an Israeli study had people watch videos of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Israeli leaders. They chose Nasrallah as being more believable and authentic.
During the poll, entitled “the management of Israeli PR during the second Lebanon war,” members of six groups were asked to watch video recordings of Israeli PR in Israel and abroad, and to answer questions…. The result of his latest poll show that Israeli PR was so lacking, that in my cases the public was forced to rely on the reports of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Lebel says a good media leader relies on three points – gripping the audience, being watchable, and giving the feeling of certainty.
The participants of the poll were asked who gave the a sense of certainty regarding the continuance of the war, and who was most authentic. The results were unequivocal: The Israeli public chose Nasrallah’s speeches as giving it both.
“We reached a really crazy situation,” says Lebel. “A psychological situation which seems inconceivable: Instead of the Israeli public watching our national spokesman who tells it what is happening every day, who will minimize the chaos and who will be seen as believable, something unprecedented happened: The public perceived the enemy leader against whom we fought as having those characteristics, and waited impatiently for his speeches. Nasrallah contradicted the Israeli spokespeople more than once, many times contradicting the minister of defense – he was the first to announce the deaths of Israeli soldiers and the sad circumstances which led to them.”
I’m not sure if these results speak more to the quality of Israeli leadership or reflect an ambivalence in the public about the recent war, an ambivalence, perhaps, that wasn’t picked up by simple opinion polling on the war. In any case, in Nasrallah both Lebanese and Israelis, indeed, many Arabs, seem to perceive a true leader. Could this be the basis for future negotiations???
1 comment September 4th, 2006