Who’s Winning the PR War?

I’m publishing this series of articles to share and discuss my ruminations on coping with a troubled and messy world. You can “follow” me to never miss an article.

In his latest Op-Ed, Nicholas Kristof cites his late friend Roy Grow, an International Relations Specialist, who said that “a crucial goal of terror [sic] organizations was getting the adversary to overreact”[i].

In Kristof’s words,

“I’m afraid that the ferocity and lack of precision in Israel’s attack has fulfilled Hamas’s goal of escalating the Palestinian issue and changing the Middle East dynamic (and Hamas is indifferent to Palestinian causalities).

“In that sense, Hamas may be winning.”

In a crucial part of his analysis, Kristof elucidates Three Myths that not only underlie, but thereby inflame the entire conflict.

The first Myth is that there’s Right on one side and Wrong on the other, and of course depending on which side you’re on, you’re in the Right.

As Kristof is quick to point out that “Life isn’t that neat.” Indeed,

“The tragedy of the Middle East is that this is a clash of right versus right. This doesn’t excuse Hamas’s massacre or Israel’s leveling of entire neighborhoods in Gaza, but underlying the conflict are certain legitimate aspirations…