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Is Zionist Propaganda Too Disorganized?

By MURRAY ZUCKOFF

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NEW YORK (JTA) The
Zionist movement in this coun-
try is caught between the Scylla
of Arab propaganda and the
Charybdis of its own inertia
and complacency. At a time
when effective Zionist informa-
tion is an imperative necessity
the educational and informa-
tional Zionist apparatus in this
country and in Israel is barely
in first gear. Zionist leaders and
activists concede that the appa-
ratus requires an immediate
tune-up, if not a total overhaul,
to place it on an emergency ba-
sis.
The consensus is that after
all the talk from Zionist offi-
cials about the need to engage
in high powered ideological ac-
tivity is neatly formulated,
packaged and submitted to the
various Zionist departments for
-approval and as press releases
to the media, the vast majority
of Jews still lack the requisite

information to counter anti-Is-
rael and anti-Zionist propa-
ganda.

A Zionist official ► who has
frequently travelled around
the country lecturing on Zion-
ism and Israel said glumly
that he was getting some-
what discouraged by attend-
ing Zionist leadership semi-
nars "where great ideas are
produced and refined" but
which never seem to get out of
the room in which they are
discussed.

"The worst thing about all
this," he said, "is that very little
information is getting to the
grass roots Jews in small com-
munities where it's really
needed because they're isolated
and feel the weight of pro-Arab
propaganda much more acutely
than Jews in cosmopolitan cen-
ters."
The Zionist informational
and educational apparatus in
this country and Israel is en-
cumbered by a hydra-headed
bureaucracy, competition is rife
between various Zionist groups
and spokesmen for publicity
and leverage, a welter of over-
lapping activities lead to dupli-
cated and wasteful motions, the
inability to plan long-range pro-
grams, the assumption that
some other organization is
doing the job, in-fighting be-
tween the various organizations
when they get together in um-
brella groups, and a tendency to
deprecate the day-to-day work
of those in the "field" while ov-
er-exaggerating the perform-
ances by functionaries at the
"center."
Much of this criticism was
levelled on the record by two
persons who are intimately in-
volved in the "center." One was
David Friedlander, an Israeli
who is the shaliakh of the De-
partment of Organization and
Information of the World Zion-
ist Organization to the Ameri-
can Zionist Federation; The
other was Dr. Mordecai Cher-
toff, the director of public infor-
mation of the WZO-American
Section.

"In the early days, before
statehood, we also had propa-
ganda battles with the Ar-
abs," Dr. Chertoff recalled.
"But there is a cultural lag
between then and now, an il-
lusion that once a battle was
won it was finished. We felt
we had answered all the ob-
jections to our satisfaction.
We don't realize that there is
a whole new generation
grown up asking the same
questions and we assume they
should know the answers, but
they don't."

Friedlander focussed on a
sore point: the competitiveness
between the various Zionist
groups and leaderships. "We're
not only fighting the Arabs.
We're also fighting ourselves."
Every group, Dr. Chertoff.
and Friedlander noted, has its
own special interests, func-
tions, milieu, and ideology.
"The information each puts out
focusses on its own activities,"
Friedlander said. "Zionist infor-
mation of a general nature is
secondary. One million Jews
out of six million Jews get ma-

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terial from every organization
because all are on the same
mailing list, while five million
Jews don't get anything."
Along the same lines, Dr.
Chertoff observed: "We are sire-
ply drowning in organizations.
There is no general agreement
in handling the broad problems.
We can't get any unanimity,
any unity in action. The big
problem is not the nature of in-
formation but who will get the
play, whose picture will be sent
to the press, who will control
what getS into a statement. In
short, a unified response to
Arab propaganda is virtually
impossible because there is a
basic lack of rapport between
Zionist organizations."

But if the problem is the
inability to get Zionist infor-
mation down to the grass
roots Jewish communities,
there is even a larger problem
in getting a consistent and
sustained informational and
educational message across to
the non-Jewish middle Ameri-
can population which is sym-
pathetic to Israel but buffeted
by Arab propaganda as it re-
lates to such emotional issues
as, "We have a right to return

to our homes," "We were for-
cibly expelled from our land,"
and, "If Jews from Russia,
from the United States, from
South America and other
countries can come and settle
in Israel with no questions
asked why can't we come
back?"

Some unified efforts are

being made or are on the draw-
ing boards to have the AZF and
WZO-American Section work
more closely together rather
than in parallel fashion as they
have until now. Part of the
problem is that the two groups
are structured differently and
have different constituencies
and operational methods. .

• WO IP,

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