Palestinian officials speaking in English to an Israeli audience in an American- and European-sponsored campaign are unlikely to convince the average Israeli that a real peace between peoples is in the offing.
Thus, the USAID alliance with the Geneva Initiative and the funding for a slick advertising campaign are unlikely to have the intended impact. In politics, Israelis are wary consumers, particularly after the Oslo process. And while the partial transparency is an improvement over the European practice, this is not enough to justify this political experiment in an already overloaded framework. (JTA)
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Asher Fredman is a research fellow and Knesset liaison at NGO Monitor.
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