Study finds first wave of COVID-19 positively boosted Israel’s image
A new study conducted for Vibe Israel found that the Jewish state’s image in the international community was seen in a positive light during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.Legal Insurrection: I’m helping to launch a new, millennial-run Israel advocacy watchdog group
The study, based on data from research done by Bloom Consulting from March 30-April 2 and utilizing a new type of measurement called Brand-Nought, analyzed how a country was perceived internationally based on its government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. This analysis focused on image impact in four specific areas: Whether people would want to visit the country (Tourism), whether people would want to work in or live in the country, whether people would want to study in the country and whether people would want to buy products from the country.
When compared to over 140 countries, Israel was found to have a positive image, especially compared to countries like Italy and the United States.
“Israel being one of the first to close its borders and being quick to react was an indication on how positively it handled the virus,” CEO and founder of Vibe Israel Joanna Landau told The Jerusalem Post.
“During the first wave, countries like the US were reluctant to quarantine, Italy was in a terrible state and Israel was two weeks into its full on quarantine… While New Zealand literally crushed the curve, we were able to flatten it, while others were still struggling with it.”
Landau believes that there were three aspects that contributed to Israel having such a positive image: reacting quickly, keeping quarantine seriously and being one of the countries involved in the race to develop a vaccine.
However, not all specific areas studied were impacted to the same degree, with some, most notably tourism, being surprisingly unaffected.
Against the backdrop of a rising tide of anti-Semitic incidents across the country and the failure of many mainstream Jewish organizations to condemn anti-Semitism emanating from the left, communities of color, or Islamists, I’ve joined a group of Jewish-American millennials in founding a brand-new non-profit organization called HaShevet.Jonathan S. Tobin: Why Should We Give a Pass to Those Who Tweet Antisemitism?
It is my honor to serve on HaShevet’s founding board of directors with a cadre of brilliant, ambitious, and passionate Jewish leaders.
HaShevet is not a part of or affiliated with the Legal Insurrection Foundation.
On Monday, June 30, we published our first press release, announcing HaShevet’s launch and explaining our mission. JNS reported on our project:
Amid dissatisfaction with mainstream Jewish advocacy organizations, a new alliance of young Jewish American leaders was launched on Monday: HaShevet (Hebrew for “The Tribe,” which is also a nickname for the Jewish faith and people).
The organization seeks to “represent a diversity of political opinions and professional backgrounds” and “come together, united in our dedication to promote moral clarity within the Jewish advocacy sector, strengthen and mobilize young Jewish professionals to publicly oppose all forms of anti-Semitism (including anti-Zionism), and take up the mantle of Jewish community leadership to safeguard the future of the Jewish people,” said the organization in an announcement.
We believe so strongly in our mission that all of us on the founding board are volunteers, working on this project in our spare time:
Ours is a time when antisemitism is surging and the popularity of intersectional politics has given new credibility to radical groups that are keen to link the war on Israel to the culture wars being waged in the United States. At such a moment it is the duty of those who speak up against this prejudice to be ever more vigilant rather than to relax our efforts. Yet when a person who has associated herself with some of these smears and was an editor at a publication that habitually trafficked in them rises to a position of eminence at the country’s most important newspaper, the advice from some quarters is to not be too hasty in expressing alarm.
That is the conceit of a piece published by The Algemeiner that alleges that I have done an injustice to Charlotte Greensit, an incoming managing editor at The New York Times because I called her to account for tweets in which she promoted an antisemitic blood libel about Israel training American police to kill African-Americans.
Greensit scrubbed her Twitter account of this and other outrageous tweets that she posted during her time at The Intercept. We are now told that promoting such awful articles was just part of her job and, according to the author of The Algemeiner article, since jobs are hard to find in journalism, we shouldn’t judge her. Her half-hearted non-apology for her past actions notwithstanding, that is, of course, a very low standard. Nor do I think it is likely that she, or anyone else at the Times, would be as charitable to those who retweet hateful views that they opposed.
Instead, we are told we should listen to Greensit’s friends, who all vouch for her virtue and opposition to antisemitism. One such friend cited in The Algemeiner repeated the discredited argument that she is merely guilty of holding “an unauthorized view” about Israel even if those views aren’t legitimate criticism but actually in accord with smears promoted by antisemites.
The point here is that actions and associations that would result in a person being “canceled” if they testified to links to racism never seem to apply to antisemitism. Since Greensit is a member in good standing of the elite chattering classes, we are told to judge her kindly. Had she categorically renounced the content of the antisemitic story and other awful tweets, that would buttress her defenders’ arguments. But she has not done so.