The Conference’s visit to Doha as official guests of the Emir, for example, facilitated the visit of the first Israeli leader to Qatar, Shimon Peres, and the opening of an interest office in the capital city of Doha. Similarly, the Conference visit to Uzbekistan led to a visit by the prime minister of Israel.
“We have sought to establish ties with moderate Muslim countries,” says Hoenlein, “and have maintained relations with them over the years after our visits.
“We continue to reach out to other Muslim countries. You cannot look at the Muslim world as a monolith. There are real friends, truly moderate people, who want to have relations with Israel, the U.S. and the Jewish community. Some of these countries were models of toleration in their treatment of their Jewish communities. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan welcomed hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees during World War II. Jews have lived in Central Asian countries for more than 2,500 years and rarely experienced anti-Semitism.”
The Conference’s annual leadership missions provide regularly opportunities to build new or strengthen existing networks. For decades, the leadership of the Conference of Presidents has convened every year in Israel. The missions give Conference leaders a timely opportunity to closely examine the current state of affairs in Israel and global events and trends as they influence Israel and the region.
The delegations representing the leaders of the Conference’s member organizations meet with Israel’s top leaders from the highest levels of government, military and academia regarding the direction and implementation of Israeli domestic, foreign and military policy. The delegations also visit key strategic sites and meet with business leaders, experts, and opinion makers from various sectors of society.
The missions are preceded by a visit to a country of special importance. These visits have taken Conference officials to Britain, Germany, Brussels, The Hague, Greece, Morocco, Georgia, Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Jordan, Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic and South Africa, in addition to the Vatican.
Conference leaders have been working with Iran’s neighbors, including Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, to bolster their positions. They also meet privately in Europe and elsewhere with leaders of western-oriented Syrian and Iranian opposition groups and other regional dissident leaders to discuss cooperation on issues of mutual concern.
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The Conference regards the need to respond to attacks against Israel and the Jewish people as a moral imperative. When Jews do not react to lies and distortions, the assumption is that there are no answers.
The Conference has pioneered creative innovative ways to improve Israel’s image in the U.S. One highly effective method is the Conference’s Daily Alert, an online compendium of essential news about Israel, the Middle East, Iran and other key issues, launched in 2002. It’s distributed by e-mail to tens of thousands of direct subscribers. Many government agencies, think tanks, national and community organizations resend the Daily Alert to their e-mail lists, as do some public officials, church groups, schools and media, resulting in the e-mail being read by hundreds of thousands of people.
In 2012, the Strategic Communications Center created two vehicles to enhance Israel’s image in the U.S. in partnership with the Presidents Conference: The Leadership Action Network (LAN) and the reThink Israel social media campaign. LAN provides news, data and context about issues affecting Israel’s security to more than 350 organizations in the Jewish and non-Jewish pro-Israel community with a distribution network of over seven million. LAN information appeared in Google search results more than 20,000 times in just the first few months of operation.
Whenever there is a crisis or war in Israel, Conference leaders are interviewed by a wide range of international media outlets including BBC World, Al-Jazeera and others, in addition to U.S. networks. Member organizations are provided with concise arguments to use when writing op-eds or calling in to talk shows to discuss Israel’s right to self-defense, the aggression of the enemy, the “disproportionate force” argument, and the necessity of denying the enemy a victory.
