Euro 2024 regulations stipulate that flags of non-participating countries and political propaganda are prohibited in stadiums. However, it quickly became apparent that organizers are turning a blind eye and not strictly enforcing these rules.

Turkish supporters initially exploited this leniency by waving scarves featuring the Palestinian flag. Upon realizing there was no intervention, they began hanging Palestinian flags in the stands without hindrance.

Turkish supporters initially exploited this leniency by waving scarves featuring the Palestinian flag. Upon realizing there was no intervention, they began hanging Palestinian flags in the stands without hindrance.

Israel is not participating in Euro 2024, which may explain its lack of protest against these displays. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian advocacy continues to operate and capture the hearts and minds of various national team supporters who have traveled to Germany.

Football fans in Germany distribute watermelons in a show of solidarity with Gaza ahead of the 2024 EURO games. pic.twitter.com/rWpSUn9xNf

— V PALESTINE (@V_Palestine20) June 24, 2024

In recent days, anti-Israel activists, seemingly of Turkish origin, have found a new way to promote their agenda. The trend began in Stuttgart, where, en route to matches, many fans received free white hats printed with watermelon designs from these activists.

"This is our way to increase solidarity with the Palestinian people," the activists said, explaining that the colors of the watermelon match those of the Palestinian flag.

Scottish, German, Ukrainian, French, and many other fans are accepting and proudly wearing these hats without questioning their significance. In doing so, they unknowingly become vehicles for pro-Palestinian propaganda that spreads across social media, disseminating an anti-Israel message.

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With the enormous media pressure facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over the proposed judicial reform, new Public Diplomacy Minister Galit Distel Atbaryan has her hands full. 

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The proposed overhaul of the judiciary has set off a political firestorm and prompted protests in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. 

There is intellectual degeneration and ignorance on the Left, Distel Atbaryan, who spent part of her life working in left-wing institutions, notes. The "masses" are protesting, completely convinced that democracy is dying, but they have not checked how the judiciaries work in other countries, compared to Israel, and how judges are appointed elsewhere. 

A simple 10-minute explanation of how the balance between the legislative executive and judicial has been violated in Israel for the past 30 years immediately disproves their claims, she stresses. 

Q: If that is the case, why didn't the government lay the necessary groundwork ahead of the announcement? Perhaps some of the reactions could have been prevented. 

"We thought the ground was ready as the Right had spoken of nothing but the need for a judicial reform for the past five years. The discussions did not focus on the two-state solution, nor the Palestinians, but on the reform. From the moment the elite resorted to incriminating someone who is innocent, it was a mistake to their detriment, because what was under the surface was revealed by the Netanyahu trial. 

"And if you look at social media, you will see that was the burning issue. Looking back, there is an error of perspective here, which stems from the fact that we did not take into account that there were many centrists in Israel who were unaware of the discourse. And the Left, which buys ink by the barrels, reached them before us. If I tweet, I will reach a maximum of 20,000 Israelis out of a population of 9 million. When it comes to public opinion, the Left wins. And former and current leaders of the judicial system joining the protests is actually a good thing because the truth has surfaced: that it is ultimately a war of the privileged against those who have been left behind and stepped on for years."

Q: So what part of the announced reforms is going to ultimately pass? 

"All of it. The opposition does not reflect the public, but only the privileged. Let there be no mistake: We are the ones in the right; the ones with the truly liberal values, and it's not just about bridging the gap."

Q: Another government initiative that faces strong opposition is disbanding the Kann public broadcaster. Why not propose reform – rather than shutting down – in this case as well? 

"Kann is an important resource, but there is an unfortunate element to it. Its documentaries, comedies, and other works are excellent, and I myself am a fan. In fact, I worked for the company and I know that their quality control is excellent and the employees are professional. But there is also discrimination."

Q: What do you mean? 

"Kann prides itself on diversity, but I myself have been told when working there that 'Netanyahu supporters will not have a voice here.' The last time I checked, Netanyahu supporters made up half the country. "

Q: So how will its closing help? 

"The move will bring populism, appeal to ordinary Israelis, and a free market and will open up regulations and concessions. And the people who oppose it now are good and dear people with whom I interact, but right now they are unable to listen."

Q: But as of now, there is no possibility to open another channel, much less a right-wing one. 

"Well, if Channel 14 News, which identifies as right-wing, reaches a 30% rating, half of Netanyahu's opponents will become his supporters. But it just doesn't have the budget for it. I used to work at Channel 13 News, which is problematic, and Channel 14 News at the same time. I can say that Channel 14 News' entire weekly budget was what Channel 13 News spent on breakfast."

Q: Then why don't you and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi go instead to the people who run Kann and demand diversity? 

"It was already tried in the past, including when I worked there. When there was oversight, there were changes, but as soon as the oversight ceased, it went back to its old ways. Why would it be different this time?"

The appointment of Distel Atbaryan, one of few female members of the Netanyahu government, was a long and tumultuous road. She was first expected to be appointed deputy minister, then a minister at the Prime Minister's Office, and only later was announced to have received the public diplomacy portfolio. Despite being new to politics, during the Likud primaries for the Knesset candidate list she ended up high up, reaching the 10th slot. 

"I did really well in the primaries, she said. "I am the first in the history of the Likud to have succeeded in the primaries after Netanyahu's list was finalized. Usually, people crash. I only had a year and a bit to prove myself, and yet I got a good place on the list that had no earmarked slots, neither regional nor national."

Q: You are becoming the most powerful woman of the Likud. 

"For many years now, I have been writing opinion pieces and over time, tens of thousands of people felt that they had a voice, and I translated that voice to the electorate."

Q: Why do you think there aren't more women in the new government? 

"This time, the Likud decided to adopt part of former Transportation Minister and Labor chief Merav Michaeli's method and earmark places for women in the party. But all it did was create camps, remove free choice – regardless of gender – and turn women against women. As usual, identity politics only made things worse, rather than helping. Otherwise, some excellent women would have made it in. And in general, perhaps instead of hyper-focusing on the number of women in the government, we should look at how many Israelis of Sephardi origin are on the Supreme Court."

Q: And how do you plan to run the Public Diplomacy Ministry?

"I see the Public Diplomacy Ministry as a chocolate factory for everyone involved. I will produce content both for Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli's war against the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement and for Ron Dermer for his campaigns in the Strategic Affairs Ministry. 

"In addition, there are about 2,000 civil public diplomacy groups in Israel and the world that are not in contact with each other, and we need to create a uniform language. The Public Diplomacy Ministry will be the connecting thread. I'm recruiting the best Israeli minds to build a factory that takes people from the national service and schools and produces a headquarters with TikTokers and Instagramers in Israel and around the world."

Distel Atbaryan is the fourth lawmaker – and first woman – to head an independent Public Diplomacy Ministry. Back when it was part of the Foreign Ministry, it was also headed by such famous figures as Aharon Yariv, Shimon Peres, and Yisrael Galili. Today, it works closely with the Strategic Affairs and Diaspora Affairs ministries. 

Traditionally, prime ministers preferred to keep the Public Diplomacy Ministry part of the Foreign Affairs or Strategic Affairs ministries. During the Bennett-Lapid government, for example, it was not independent. As such, certain aspects of it are yet to be organized, even such basics as office space. 

Q: How will public diplomacy be different from what we've known until now? 

"I will not be trying to sell the idea of "fun Israel" with sunny beaches or a place where cherry tomatoes and thumb drives came from because when selling such "goods," the world hits back with accusations of occupation and enjoyment at the expense of another nation. 

"Public diplomacy is supposed to be the exact opposite: first of all, to explain that this is our home, that the Arabs of the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria succeeded in creating a false narrative. There are people today who have made conservatism sexy, like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and others. The pro-Israel and pro-Zionist sentiment is huge. When they do a podcast, a million people listen. Young people, in particular, crave knowledge. 

"Hasbara, as public diplomacy is known in Hebrew, is – first and foremost – a battle against ignorance, because many people in the world have no idea what is happening here and how Palestinian leaders treat their people. I want progressive students in the United States to understand that if they support LGBTQ and women's rights, then their support for the Palestinians is contradictory. I want them to know that the Palestinians are only oppressed by Palestinians."

Q: What would you say is the hardest part of public diplomacy? 

"Accusations by our best journalists and politicians that Israel has apartheid policies and is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Claims that Israeli democracy is coming to an end. The situation is much more complex because not only am I dealing with antisemitism from the outside but rejectionism on the inside. 

"Take the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, for instance. It informs us of strikes and bombings, but the Public Diplomacy Ministry is the one that has to fill in the gaps: that these are terror targets and that Israel is never the oppressor, but extends its hand in peace, from the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan until the 2000s." 

Distel Atbaryan is also planning to focus on Israel's ties with other nations. 

She explained, "Israel's foreign affairs deteriorated during the premiership of Yair Lapid. Look at the harming of ties with Poland."

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"Look at the situation with Russia and Ukraine. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett thought of mediating and ruined things with both Moscow and Kyiv. The United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and other countries of the Abraham Accords, on the other hand, support Netanyahu and are happy with the economic and social cooperation with Israel. 

"When there is a reality of prosperous agreements, there is no need for forced explanation. I recommend to Israelis whose confidence in their country has dropped travel to Dubai or certain cities in the US and say that they are from Israel. They will be welcomed with open arms and told that they love the IDF and Netanyahu." 

Q: You asked the prime minister to establish a war room to help pass the judicial reform. How will that work? 

"I have no interest in acting as a spokeswoman for the government, on the contrary. The reform comes to create transparency. I want to present the systems of other countries versus the ones in Israel. To create digital public discussions. I want to do away with the propaganda, not create it."

Q: In your opinion, what is the essence of the reform? 

"That the voter decides what his or her life will look like, because nine million Israelis know better what's best for them, and not a panel of nine judges."

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The report, which is based on hundreds of reports relayed by Israeli embassies in recent weeks, indicates that coverage of Israel has undergone a transformation during that time period.

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When the coronavirus pandemic first hit in late January 2020, "Israel's [approach] was viewed with hostility, mainly due to its decisions to cancel flights, close borders and remove foreign nationals in the first stage, and later on for its implementation of cellular location technologies that Israeli security agencies were using in the fight against terror," the report said.

This line of reasoning, however, quickly changed course. Once the scope of the pandemic became more apparent in the West, articles involving Israel began praising the country's life-saving policies.

"In the second stage, Israel was portrayed as a model of a country successfully coping with the medical crisis, precisely due to all the reasons for which it was previously criticized," the report said. Israel also received recognition for its immense efforts on behalf of its citizens stranded across the globe during the crisis.  

'A diplomatic opportunity'

The report went on to say that the global media's extensive coverage of the coronavirus crisis greatly reduced its coverage of international affairs, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is beneficial to Israel. The report also noted that interfaith cooperation in Israel during the pandemic received attention as well, for example, the famous photo of the Magen David Adom paramedic, one a Muslim and the other an orthodox Jew, praying alongside one another 

Noam Katz, the deputy director of media and public affairs at the Foreign Ministry, told Israel Hayom that "from a media representation standpoint, we can say the coronavirus was beneficial for Israel twice. The international discourse moved to the digital media, where Israel operates no less than 850 channels in different languages – such that we had a comfortable starting position.

"Secondly, the coronavirus helped focus the discourse on Israel's advantages, in science and high-tech, and also from the perspective of interfaith relations."

Foreign Minister Israel Katz added that "the coronavirus crisis created an opportunity for Israel to present our immense contribution to science and innovation in the world."

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After Barakat, his wife, Charlotte Kates, who is proud of being "the international coordinator for the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network," speaks. Kates told the EU Parliament that "the attack on Khaled we witnessed is only the latest in a series of consistent attacks." She then proceeded to detail each one.

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"The campaign ultimately seeks to criminalize Palestinian writers, journalists, human rights defenders, social activists, and leaders of corporations, who are being accused one after the other of being 'terrorists in suits.' But we know that the true 'terrorists in suits' are sitting in the White House, in Tel Aviv, and in effect, here in Europe," Kates says.

Kates and Barakat, of course, are far from being noble human rights activists. He is a member of the steering committee for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization that is responsible for – among other things – the murder of the late minister Rehavam Zeevi. The Samidoun organization that Kates heads unites terrorists who have served prison time in Israel for proven terrorist activity. So they, like the rest of the BDS industry, are under new pressure now that the truth about them is being exposed.

Threats are no longer scary

Six months ago, the Strategic Affairs Ministry, which is leading Israel's fight against the BDS movement, launched a campaign called "Terrorists in Suits," which includes detailed information about BDS activists' direct ties to terrorist groups. Journalists, legal scholars, diplomats, and lawmakers have been provided with material that shows "how terrorist operatives have become legitimate operatives in civil society organizations worldwide." The Israeli pressure, which is mainly directed at Western Europe, has produced results, as Barakat and Kates' words show. Salah Hawajeh – another terrorist freed from prison in Israel – said that "the biggest threat to the boycott campaign against Israel is the 'Terrorists in Suits' report."

At the Strategic Affairs Ministry, people were rubbing their hands in satisfaction. The remarks above showed the pressure the BDS movement is under. After four years of the ministry's activity, which including learning while doing and making adjustments along the way, BDS is on the defensive, and Israel and its supporters are taking the offense.

BDS activists are being deported. Bank accounts ties to the movement are being shut down. A harshly-worded resolution against BDS passed in the US House of Representatives by a huge majority. Most US states have already approved sanctions against BDS. The German Bundestag has outlawed it. Two years ago, the Swiss Parliament passed an identical resolution. The leaders of Canada and Britain have decided that BDS is anti-Semitic. International companies are expanding their activity in Israel and are uncowed by BDS threats. The same goes for performing artists. The Eurovision pop music competition took place in Tel Aviv despite an enormous push by Palestinians to interfere.

Professor Gerald Steinberg, president of the NGO Monitor watchdog group, who was one of the first to identify the dangerous movement, says, "I agree that in the complex picture of the fight against the boycott movement there are more bright spots than dark ones lately. They [BDS] have suffered a number of serious blows."

For 20 years, NGO Monitor has been at the vanguard of the fight against BDS but is careful not to use any government money.

"There still isn't a decisive victory, but in the big picture, today we're in the best place we've been in since the boycott movement started. Things are definitely turning around. For example, Airbnb reversed its decision not to advertise properties in Judea and Samaria. The BDS movement has invested years, a lot of money, and enormous effort in this project, and for them, it all went to waste. In effect, their situation is worse now because now everyone knows that a big international firm didn't give into their threats, but accepted the position of Israel and its supporters."

Eradicating the industry of lies

The generally accepted view is that the anti-Israel boycott movement was born at the First Durban Conference in 2001. The UN-organized conference on fighting racism was hijacked by haters of Israel, and marked Israel as a "racist, apartheid state." Massive amounts of European money made its way to organizations that initiated and promoted the idea of boycotting Israel. But it took Israel years to realize the significance of this and come up with ways to fight it.

"In the first decade [of the boycott movement], no one here realized the danger and boycott activists had a free hand. In 2009, after the Goldstone Report, [we] realized that this activity put national security at risk and we went on the defensive about specific things. The change in tactics, particularly the realization that we needed to move from defense to offense, came about five years ago," Steinberg says.

For years, the Strategic Affairs Ministry hesitated about how to confront the problem. Only one person in the ministry was in charge of the matter, and here and there various embassies would manage to thwart BDS initiatives. But there wasn't any battle plan against the movement itself. Many in the ministry believed, and some still do, that the boycott movement's bark is worse than its bite, because for the years it has been active, it has caused negligible economic harm to Israel. They think it would be better for Israel to ignore it. Of course, ignoring it did not cause the enemy to disappear. The boycott movement gained strength and marked its biggest success to date when France's Orange telecommunications company decided to move up the date of its split with the Israeli Partner company.

The seeds of a turnaround were planted in 2015 when Erdan demanded that he be put in charge of the matter at the Strategic Affairs Ministry. He got Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to approve additional jobs and budgets and appointed Col. Sima Vaknin Gil director general of the ministry. Later on, the cabinet passed a secret decision that defined in detail the goals of the ministry, in accordance with the prime minister's intention of "boycotting the boycotters and delegitimizing the slanderers."

But that generalized declaration needed to be translated into concrete policy. The boycott movement was never a hierarchical entity with a well-ordered chain of command and actual bases of activity. It was a network, one that mainly operates online, with hundreds of cells that all work independently and in a localized fashion all over the world. This amorphous entity had to be identified and mapped, and then effective countermeasures had to be conceived. It wasn't easy.

When the battle began, BDS activists enjoyed the image of human rights activists as they portrayed Israel as a racist, oppressive, apartheid state. This industry of lies was funded by European countries. Israel had to reverse the image of it that had been created with so much effort over the course of 15 years.

The Strategic Affairs Ministry searched for the right method. At first, it concentrated on collecting information so that it could understand who its opponents were and find their weaknesses. That was the first time that the Israeli government, as opposed to NGOs, had profiled who it was dealing with.

Tzachi Gabrieli, acting director general of the ministry since Vaknin Gil left, says, "In recent years, we've been working on a three-pronged approach, and we're aggressive – not diplomatic, and not nice."

"The first prong is to expose the links between terrorism and the BDS movement, where many of the leaders are former active terrorists. This is no coincidence. This is the new face of the old Palestinian terrorism, and this is where the name 'Terrorists in Suits' comes from," Gabrieli says.

"The second prong is to expose the anti-Semitic elements of the boycott movement, and the third is reducing its funding," he says.

Additional actions include the launch of a ministry website dedicated to fighting BDS called IL4 – Defending Israel. The site contains all available information on BDS activists. The ministry has also bolstered the digital and physical pro-Israel network throughout the world. Much of that network's activity is still conducted off the radar.

Bit by bit, together with pro-Israel civil society organizations, a network was established to counter the BDS movement. Every time BDS activists tried to cause an artist scheduled to perform in Israel to cancel their show, pro-Israeli activists were sent to back them up and attack the attackers. The boycott actions taken by the Palestinian Authority, such as an attempt by PA sports minister Jibril Rajoub to have Israel ousted from various international sports federations, met with a fight. More and more countries and leaders passed resolutions against or spoke out against, BDS, delegitimizing it while comparing it to anti-Semitism.

In January 2019, the ministry published a document titled "The Money Trail: The 2^nd Edition." In February, it put out the "Terrorists in Suits" report, which tore the human rights disguise off the BDS leaders and labeled them terrorists. In April, the ministry exposed the false network of bots that was behind attempts to keep Eurovision from being held in Israel under the hashtag #BoycottEurovision2019. After the ministry reached out to Twitter, most of them were shut down. In June, the Social Economic Bank in Germany closed the account of one of the best-known BDS groups. Other accounts belonging to other groups had already been closed.

"Another important tool was the decision by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which determined that anti-Semitism applied not only to Jews but also to the State of Israel and that a double standard could not be applied to Israel in which it was compared to other conflicts in the world. That definition helped point out BDS as anti-Semitic and strengthened a consensus about it in 20 Western democracies. Among moral people, an understanding is starting to seep in that it is impossible to oppose anti-Semitism while also supporting BDS. It doesn't go together," Steinberg says.

Steinberg opposed moving the responsibility for battling BDS from the Foreign Ministry to a different government body. He also thinks that the years the two ministries spent bickering over who was responsible for what caused damage. Nevertheless, he agrees that Israel has benefitted from having a senior minister oversee the subject.

"The budget funds he secured helped. They could have been used more efficiently if they had stayed in the Foreign Ministry, but it's important that a senior minister in the Israeli government like Erdan be handling this issue on a day to day basis. He reaches out, demands explanations, and issues reports that European leaders can't ignore. With all due respect to ourselves [NGO Monitor], the EU foreign minister or European governments can ignore us. But if the Israeli government reaches out, they have to respond," Steinberg explains.

While Erdan is still mainly known to the Israeli public as the public security minister, the fight against BDS keeps him no less busy. In a series of letters, he confronted outgoing EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini about the funding and platform that EU agencies give to BDS activists. He lays out the ministry's findings in political meetings and briefings. Not by chance do terrorists released from prison name him as the man who is leading the battle.

According to data the ministry has collected, from 2014 to 2017, EU countries and European foundations donated some $100 million to organizations that promoted a boycott of Israel. The ministry assesses that in the past year, that amount has dropped by 25%. BDS activists have been recorded at closed meetings speaking about financial distress.

Optimism notwithstanding, it's clear to everyone that the battle is far from over. Three former Israeli diplomats – Ilan Baruch, Alon Liel, and Eli Bar Navi – have expressed sympathy for the movement, and others are working to roll back anti-BDS decisions. The anti-BDS achievements of the past few years have stemmed mainly from the fact that finally, Israel was putting up a fight. If Israel considers abandoning the field, the boycotters will move from defense to offense.

"These are dark days for the boycott movement," Erdan's ministry staff is saying. Israel should work to keep them in the dark.

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Israel has racked up a long list of public diplomacy failures in its 71 years of existence. After one of them – the 2006 Second Lebanon War, which was characterized by chaos not only on the battlefield but also in the battle for public opinion – a decision was made to do something about it and establish the National Information Directorate for public diplomacy in the Prime Minister's Office. The directorate would decide strategy, coordinate between various players, and act as the national leadership's professional arm in the effort to sway opinions in Israel and throughout the world.

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The person chosen to head the office was Yarden Vatikay. Vatikay had served in the Prime Minister's Office under Yitzhak Rabin, as IDF Spokesperson, as media adviser to the defense minister and COGAT, and as spokesman for the Jewish Agency. He took up the position when Ehud Olmert was still prime minister, and he stayed when Benjamin Netanyahu was elected, becoming one the professional staffers who was closest to the prime minister. He is a classic civil servant – careful, non-critical of managers and colleagues, and very loyal to Israel and its goals. This week, he resigned after 11 and a half years in the role.

"The messages Israel sends out are complicated: on one hand, we project that we're strong, that it's worthwhile to do business with us and make aliyah. On the other, we broadcast that we're under attack, a jungle clearing that needs help. That's complicated to explain," Vatikay says.

"The Palestinians' message is much simpler. They say, 'We're wretched, save us,' and that's it. Our lives are much more complex, and that makes public diplomacy work difficult," he says.

In the past, Israel spoke in a single voice. What was being said at home in Hebrew was what was said abroad in English. Today, the reality is different. Often, there is a need to send out conflicting messages. When it comes to military actions, for example, the message in Israel is that the IDF is pummeling the enemy, whereas the message for the rest of the world is that Israel is acting proportionally and with surgical precision. The need to say both of those things, without coming off as unreliable, demands skill and coordination. This combination lies at the core of the headquarters' work.

"The current age of social media allow us to take action much more easily. But it also demands more professionalism and especially the ability to turn on a dime," Vatikay explains.

"We often need to do both things at once, in different ways – reach public opinion in some country and the leadership of that same country, and sometimes we have to change what we're saying while we're saying it. For example, when a new government was voted into Washington, it was clear that the US under Trump would not be the same as it was under Obama."

The Goldstone Effect

The first crisis Vatikay encountered was Operation Cast Lead in the winter of 2008-2009. Having learned the lessons of the Second Lebanon War, the various PR engines were tested, even up until the night before the operation. In real time, everything went smoothly. The operation was seen as a success, and the IDF restored its own faith and the faith of the Israeli public in its ability to operate.

"The Second Lebanon War left scars, and not only with us. All throughout the region there were those who saw what happened there and started to think that Israel, unlike its image, doesn't always succeed. Cast Lead changed that," he says.

But after Cast Lead came the Goldstone Report. Israel found itself fighting on a new front – facing harsh international criticism and a sharp rise in efforts to delegitimize it.

"That was a crisis. The first decision was to not cooperate with Goldstone, but it was clear that we couldn't ignore him. It took years to handle. Slowly, we changed minds. Even Goldstone himself eventually retracted most of the claims in his report in an article in The Washington Post."

That event highlighted the need for Israel to fight against international organizations that are supposedly neutral but actually extremely hostile. The national public diplomacy headquarters brought all the actors – the IDF and Defense Ministry, the Mossad and the Shin Bet security agency, the foreign, justice, and finance ministries – into line as part of its attempt to present such international groups as biased.

"That battle isn't over. It will go on, but we've achieved plenty of victories," Vatikay says. "Today, what these organizations say isn't accepted as the gospel. People are suspicious of them, dig into their activity."

The next major crisis was the Mavi Marmara flotilla, in which Turkish activists aboard a ship sailing to Gaza to break the siege was raided by IDF naval commandos, and the botched mission resulted in the deaths of several of the Palestinian sympathizers on board. Here, too, groundwork had been laid – but for the wrong event.

"We were prepared for the flotilla a few weeks ahead of time. We held meetings and got tactics ready. We were prepared for a riot, and we got a terrorist incident. We failed: from the prime minister, who was abroad; to the commandos, who hadn't prepared for a fight; and ourselves – material went out too late and it took us hours to respond properly. That led us to make changes."

Q: Such as?

"From how we prepare, to new procedures and allocation of resources, to professional questions such as setting up a special department in the IDF Intelligence Corps that is devoted to tracking organizations and activities like these."

To a large extent, the lessons learned from the Goldstone Report and the Marmara fiasco were implemented in Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. "From the very start we realized that we needed to take action to bolster the legitimacy of the operation, both at home and abroad. We brought the prime minister to southern Israel along with foreign ambassadors, and we showed them a display of Hamas weapons, so they would know what was being used against us and understand that we had no choice."

Q: That didn't prevent the ongoing campaign of delegitimization.

"True, but the world was more sympathetic to our needs, and remember – that was an operation in which 2,000 Palestinians were killed. Anyone who expected that international opinion would stand up and salute us is welcome to wake up [to reality], but we managed to do damage control and push back on a number of bad decisions by international institutions."

Part of that was a result of moving to more sophisticated mechanisms for use in public diplomacy, mostly in the battle against inaccurate information put out by the other side.

"In one instance, the Palestinians claimed that a tank shell killed 40 civilians. The rest of the world started to run headlines damaging to us. We shut it down quickly with information from the Shin Bet that indicated that not only had we fired at a location used to launch mortars [at Israel] – including the names of the Palestinians who had been doing the shooting – no civilians had been killed there at all. That information didn't bring opinion around to our side, but it balanced things. It stopped that incident from blowing up into a PR catastrophe like the cases of Mohammed a-Dura or Kafr Kana."

The limits of what is allowed

As head of the public diplomacy office, Vatikay took part in every major development, certainly in the diplomatic-security arena. There were few meetings in which he wasn't present.

"Netanyahu has a deep understanding of public diplomacy. I've worked with four prime minister. Each one was different, and Netanyahu is definitely a statesman – a leader who is well-known and admired in the world, a man with a deep understanding of a variety of subjects that allows him to handle the difficult challenge that is the state of Israel."

Vatikay says that Netanyahu is very meticulous and goes into the details. He understands that his personal involvement is critical to achieving PR goals.

"Nothing happens for no reason. There are preliminary steps, deep thought, meetings about how and what we want to achieve with every move. We talk about what we hope to achieve and the potential harm. No matter the field – diplomacy, security, economics, or anything else – public opinion is critical, and we need to address it. It's not just a matter of PR so people will like us; it's a significant part of deterrence, of our power, and sometimes our legitimacy to act. That doesn't mean everyone will be happy about it, but our goal is for them to let us operate."

Under that framework, the PR office put together the campaign Israel is waging against Iran. That activity is carried out through a number of tools and methods, both open and secret. The campaign has four goals: to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons; to oppose the JCPOA nuclear deal in its 2015 form; to act against Iran and its satellites when it comes to missiles and terrorism; and to limit Iran's regional influence.

That activity required Vatikay to coordinate closely with many different officials, including some that are less public, like the Mossad and the Israel Atomic Energy Commission. The nuclear archive the Mossad brought back from Tehran was secured in a field operation, but the PR aspects were just as important.

"For months, we worked as a small, secret team on how we would put it out and market it. It wasn't easy to decide what we wanted to make public – there were 50,000 documents and 50,000 CDs [in the archive] and we needed to maintain secrecy for fear things would leak and cause damage." According to Vatikay, the operation was a great success: "It's a fact that even President Trump cited [the operation] as one of the main reasons why he decided to withdraw from the nuclear deal."

This work demands close coordination between two worlds that generally don't coexist well: intelligence and PR.

"In the past, the intelligence agencies saw us as the enemy, or at least a threat. As the years went by, they learned that the information they collect can, and often should, serve the PR effort."

"The Iran nuclear archive was an example of that, and the Hezbollah missile infrastructure in Lebanon, which the prime minister exposed in a speech to the UN General Assembly, is another. Both these reports were preceded by plenty of arguments between the intelligence people and the PR people about what, if anything, should be made public."

Q: In the past, the intelligence people usually won.

"It led us to work together. Every time the prime minister takes part in a diplomatic visit in Israel or abroad, there is a computer presentation that includes an overview of the area that we prepare with the intelligence folks. The idea is to send these messages in a clear, simple way, without putting sources in danger. When you show a foreign leader a presentation like that, and he understands it, that's a diplomatic coup that affects our image in the world."

Q: Nevertheless, there are areas in which Israel is less successful. The fight against BDS, for example.

"That's a main focus of the entire system. Personally, I think it [BDS] is a real threat with potential for major damage, mostly in terms of economics and image. We need to fight it with all our might, but in a smart way, because there's a thin line between legitimate criticism of Israel in the world, even if we aren't crazy about it, and what is out of bounds. Our challenge is how to explain to the liberal world that we see ourselves as part of it, that what is happening here is not black and white."

Part of that is understanding that every incident could potentially harm Israel's image, and so every incident must be handled, preferably ahead of time. Years ago, Vatikay woke up to a news report that said the Defense Ministry had completed a lengthy project that was designed to institutionalize separate transport for Jews and Palestinians in Judea and Samaria. The international media exploded. Israel was embarrassed. "The idea was reasonable, to prevent terrorist attacks, but the execution was a failure, especially because there was no forethought about the PR damage it would cause. We took it to the prime minister, who cancelled the plan."

On the other hand, the home demolitions in Tzur Baher in east Jerusalem last week went quietly. "We were careful to present them as a civil matter, not a defense one. The spokespeople were selected accordingly, mostly from the Foreign Ministry, and a few officials from COGAT," Vatikay explains. "In general, we've learned that unlike Israel – the world does not like military people. For big events, you need to use few spokespeople, different languages, and preferably women, as well."

Image is everything

The demolitions were the last event Vatikay handled. He stayed in the office until late that night, and the next day, left for the private sector, without fanfare.

Q: This job must have had plenty of frustrations.

"When the country is in a complicated but justified situation, and there are large audiences you can't reach, and worse – when you see the actions being taken against us."

The solution, he says, is to invest a lot more in public diplomacy: not only in terms of budget, but also the best personnel, and make them part of the decision-making process.

"We must be aware of what is happening in the world and take action to be influential players. There are entire systems operating against us that have hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, and anyone who wants to oppose that influence needs to act. Image isn't just when someone is talking – if the Foreign Ministry invests in an agricultural project in Africa, or if the Homefront Command sends a delegation to a disaster area somewhere in the world, it improves our image. The problem is that costs money, but it's an excellent investment: we get much more back than we put in."

"In recent years, we've managed to create a better image for Israel in the world. Take the Palestinian issue: until a few years ago, it was clear that they were the good guys and we were the bad guys, the recalcitrant ones who didn't want peace. Today, the picture is balanced. It's not that we're seen as peaceful, but it's clear to everyone that there are two sides to the coin. The Trump administration has played a big part in that, but so has our work here. The result is not only the number of countries who have diplomatic ties with us or who cooperated with us without formal diplomatic ties, but mainly that the world realized that the situation is complicated, and that not only is Israel not the problem, it's often part of the solution."

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