GETTING THE WORDS OUT

Mulling over that extremely heated on-line argument about America's poor international image, I suddenly remembered that Melanie Phillips had been just as critical of Israel's PR machine when I interviewed her a few years ago.  Is there  some connection here?

This is what I wrote at the time:

Back in the era of the Six-Day War, the world used to marvel at the eloquence of foreign minister Abba Eban (although Michael Oren's recently published history of the 1967 conflict notes that Eban's reputation at home was much more mixed. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol called him "the learned fool.") On a recent trip to Israel, Miss Phillips was depressed by the government's heavy-handed approach to the fundamentals of public relations.

"They have no idea of the extent of the professionalism of the Palestinian propaganda machine. It's chaos, absolute chaos. They have absolutely no idea what is going on in Britain, and they're not interested. Why? First of all, they think Britain and Europe are incorrigibly anti-Semitic. Who can fight it? Secondly, they think that Israel can always expect to be on its own. Thirdly, having said they're on their own, they still take America for granted. They think that because Bush is now completely on-side they have no problem."