As the current violent conflict with the Palestinians persisted and intensified, it became painfully clear that Israel was unable to portray its position effectively in the international media. For whatever reason, messages coming from government and military spokespeople were confused; briefings for the press were erratic and the information given there was treated with suspicion. While the acts of violence perpetrated against Israel were reported, these were quickly overshadowed by the extensive coverage of Israel’s counter-responses.

The Palestinians realized soon after the violence began in September 2000 that other than suicide bombing, the media was the most important strategic weapon...

Operation Defensive Shield was a response to the wave of terror that peaked in March 2002 with 127 Israeli fatalities. The aim of Defensive Shield was to destroy the terrorism infrastructure: the explosives labs, weapons, and personnel. One measure of the operation’s success was the reduction in Israeli fatalities in April. Success was also contingent on minimal loss of life to our forces and to the Palestinian civilian population.

Defensive Shield was primarily an infantry operation, a decision that surprised even the Palestinians. The method initially chosen, breaking holes through adjacent interior walls of houses so that the troops could...

The focus of BBC coverage of Operation Defensive Shield moved from Bethlehem to Jenin on April 7, when reports of intense fighting began to surface. A team was established on the outskirts of the town, since there was no access to the area in which the fighting was taking place. Correspondents understood that the area was a closed military zone, even though they would have liked the opportunity to cover the story from close up.

For three days the BBC crew was based at the Salem IDF post, and relied on phone contact with the IDF and with Palestinian sources...

There are three areas in which the IDF operations in Jenin produced negative results for Israel:

In the Palestinian mindset, Jenin is now associated with massacre, despite those reports having been partially corrected in the West. Even informed Palestinians express no doubt that there was indeed a massacre, just as there is a collective memory of 10,000 Palestinians massacred in “Black September” 1970, though the real number was closer to 1,000.

Although the rumors of a massacre were largely dismissed as baseless in Europe, they provided grounds there for allegations of war crimes and justifications of Palestinian terror. They also...

There is widespread agreement that planning policy on a national level must take the media into account. The first step in planning strategy is to establish the strategic environment in which we operate to identify both limitations and opportunities. In particular, it is important to understand the norms of international behavior, since deviation from the norms will require a more vigorous public diplomacy effort. It is also important to note that these norms are not fixed.

Some of today’s critical norms are:

In the post-colonial era, occupation of one people by another is unacceptable.

There is increasing pressure to protect...

In an attempt to take a step back from Jenin, Martin Howard, Director-General for Corporate Communications at the UK Ministry of Defence, looked at the United Kingdom’s experience in devising a strategy to deal with media management. While the issues that the UK defense establishment has confronted differ from Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, Howard argued that the rules of the game are simple and transferable.

Strategy is an overused word but an underused concept. Media management actually often ends up reacting to the day’s events rather than pursuing a long-term course of action. The UK has nevertheless devised a...