Hearts and Minds: Israel and the Battle for Public Opinion

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Small-scale wars, terrorism, and guerilla warfare, each characterized by low-intensity violence are the new global reality in the twenty-first century. States in general, and liberal democratic states in particular, are compelled to develop a new operational approach to deal with these phenomena. At the same time the world of diplomacy is experiencing its own upheaval, its old closed-door practices being displaced by the demand for ongoing public diplomacy. Concurrent with these developments, individuals and nongovernmental organizations harness the new media revolution to create powerful global networks to promote common causes, transcending the state and breaking its exclusive control over information.

In this book, Nachman Shai examines the case of Israel, a liberal democratic state faced with an incessant stream of diverse, low-intensity threats. Shai discusses the military, political, economic, legal, and public diplomacy fronts of the second intifada (2000-2005) and how Israel deliberated its response in an environment where the state is only one of the players in a global arena in which individuals, nongovernmental organizations, and international news corporations all operate.