‘Bathers’ campaign urges consideration of conflict
HAMAS leader peers down at Israeli motorists, clad only in bathers. This is happening across Tel Aviv, as part of a new billboard campaign.
HAMAS leader peers down at Israeli motorists, clad only in bathers. This is happening across Tel Aviv, as part of a new billboard campaign.
Posters show Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh standing on the beach in a swimming costume, with suitcases of cash behind him, thanking Israel for its weak stand against his organisation.
“Enough being scared,” says the slogan. “Demand victory for Israel.” The adverts have been placed by the Middle East Forum, a US-based think tank, and its Israel Victory Project.
The campaign is an attempt to push the Israeli-Palestinian conflict onto the agenda for the upcoming election, the Middle East Forum’s director Gregg Roman told The AJN.
He said, “Whereas the last election was perhaps a referendum on leaders, we’re trying to have policy ideas debated in public,” arguing that Israeli governments are just dodging the issue.
Roman said, “In Israel government after government, with the encouragement of security establishment, prefers a conflict management paradigm, keeping the conflict on a low burn, instead of adopting strategies to end the conflict.”
He chose the swimming costume pose because it highlights that Palestinian leaders are leading luxurious lifestyles and Israel is, in his view, being too soft on them and not finding more conciliatory voices on the Palestinian side to talk peace.
In his view, Israel should be sidelining hard-line leaders and incentivising other Palestinians to accept Israel’s existence and find a solution to the conflict. He said, “Strategy is putting tactics into a frame to get from point A to point B, but at the moment, the government is not going towards point B because it doesn’t want to decide what point B looks like.”
He said that his organisation isn’t prescribing a solution, but saying that governments must do so instead of leaving the question open. “This isn’t saying one state or two states or three states as a solution,” he said. “It’s about asking the security establishment and Knesset to sit down and decide in what direction they see things going regarding the Palestinians.”
NATHAN JEFFAY
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