Yesterday, President Obama gave a speech in Jerusalem to a
mostly college-age audience. The speech
is noteworthy primarily because it is an example of the American President
bypassing direct communication with Israeli heads of government in order to
directly speak to the Israeli public.
President Obama’s terse relationship with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is widely publicized.
Despite efforts to portray a seamless alliance between their respective
nations, Obama and Netanyahu continue to clash on issues pertaining to nuclear
capabilities, Iran, Syria, and of course Palestine.
Whereas personal strife may hinder direct communication between
Netanyahu and Obama, the Israeli public is always accessible to the President
via satellite television, social media, and other technological advances. Such easy access has created the condition
that publics now expect to be
acknowledged and directly addressed.
Speaking specifically on the need for a more flexible
approach to negotiating with Palestinians, Obama said that Israeli and
Palestinian leaders “will never take risks if the people do not push them to
take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see. Ordinary
people can accomplish extraordinary things.”
In addition to exercising the full meaning of Public
Diplomacy with foreign publics, President Obama has also extended his PD
outreach to domestic publics. He has made extensive use of Twitter and other
social media outlets to get the voices of the American people heard.
As stated by Ellen Huijgh in her article Changing Tunes for Public Diplomacy:
Exploring the Domestic Dimension, “for better or worse, [Ministries of
Foreign Affairs] have learned through experiences that domestic public support
for a government’s international policy choices and positions is crucial to the
MFA’s legitimacy at home and abroad” (64).
Domestic PD efforts do not yet seem to be as institutionalized as
foreign PD, but it may prove to be a pertinent strategy in the years to come.
Heather, thanks for your post. It is true that Obama’s decision to engage Israeli youth in the conversation highlights the essence of “new” public diplomacy: that public opinion matters in shaping policy decisions. Moreover, the practice of public diplomacy today goes beyond relations between official diplomats. Along with his visits with Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is clear that the President recognizes the importance of engaging the public. His speech was interrupted by an Arab student who was offended by the President’s remarks. An interview with him is available here: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/arab-student-explains-why-he-heckled-obama-in-jerusalem/. We’ve discussed that there are times when a speech, or monologue, can be a profound means for public diplomacy, however, it is clear in this case that the audience, particularly that one student, preferred to have a dialogue, one where the President listened. Did the President’s attempt to reach out to Israeli youth really engage them in the way he intended? Would an open dialogue have been more preferable?
ReplyDelete