“Israeli officials confirmed to the ‘New York Times’: Israel attacked Iran”; “An Israeli source to the ‘Washington Post’: the attack – to signal that we have the ability to do this inside Iran”; “Intelligence source for CNN: It is estimated that Iran will not respond to the Israeli attack” – from the early hours of the morning, senior Israeli officials appear in the American media to brief on the attack in Iran. Why does Israel consider this extremely important and is there a preference among the media?
Yaki Dayan, former consul general in Los Angeles, political advisor in Washington and chief of staff to two foreign ministers, tells Globes that “the American media is a very central player in the Middle East, both in information and disinformation. The question is who do they want to put the pressure on. When the Americans They want to convey messages to us or when we want to convey messages to them, they do so through the American media. In addition to the transfer of huge amounts of information, there is also a game of disinformation, for example – whether they will attack or not after Passover. The American media is a very significant tool in the Middle East arena “.
Like any work with communication, here too, there is a difference between active communication and passive communication. “There are sources that the journalist actively turns to, and the journalist maps for himself which source is reliable, which source knows less, and so on. In contrast to this, there is the passive communication, in which the various parties or actors make use of the journalist and take advantage of his platform to convey knowledge. This happens when there is relations between the journalists and want to take advantage of the power he has.”
The transmission of the messages: “So that the immediate suspect will not be recognized”
According to Dayan, “The American media is seen as very reliable. There are about three major media outlets in the press that Israel works with – the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. In terms of television, there is CNN and Fox News, sometimes even ABC and NBC.” . Dayan Mahdad: “You have to understand, sometimes if you want to convey a message to the American right, you won’t do it in the Wall Street Journal, which is identified as more right-wing. Instead, you will deliberately go to a body from the American left, so that they don’t recognize the immediate suspect.”
Moreover, according to Dayan, the question is not “who is more reliable, but who is more sympathetic. For example, the Wall Street Journal is more sympathetic to Israel than the New York Times. So there are situations in which it would be preferable to turn to them in certain cases.” In addition to that, according to him, “there are also test balloons – you want to throw something and want to see what the reaction is. For example: an Israeli official says that if there are significant sanctions against Iran there will not be a broad attack. So the Americans come to examine what was said.”
What is certain according to Dayan, “you have to work with all the media, sometimes it doesn’t necessarily mean that someone is better for you, it’s just that you want to be the important factor when you convey the messages. A vivid example of this is Prime Minister Netanyahu. He prefers to be briefed there. It is possible Seeing the amount of interviews he did in the American media and how many he did in the Israeli media at the time. There he speaks directly to the Americans, maybe he is more comfortable there and maybe he will be asked less questions about the situation in Israel in a more accurate way.”
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