In 1988, when foreign press in Israel had less staff than they do today, our agency covered the Israeli elections for the New York Times, Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, with a staff of five reporters. This was the first time that both Benny Begin and Benjamin Netanyahu ran for the knesset, as Likud candidates, when Yitzhak Shamir was prime minister of Israel. Both Begin and Netanyahu focused their campaign message on the lethal dangers of a Palestinian state. Both candidates distributed maps of where that state might be postioned, leading to the publication of a book, Can Israel Survive a Palestinian State, which was authored by journalist Michael Widlanski and initially published by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

One of the memorable moments of the 1988 campaign was the constant presentation by Netanyahu of shoulder missiles that any Palestinian could use to shoot down civilian aircraft near the Ben Gurion Airport, which would be contiguous to the proposed Palestinian state.

The 2015 Israeli election campaign once again featured Netanyahu and Begin as the high profile candidates of the Likud.

Once again, both Netanyahu and Begin attacked the idea of a Palestinian state during the campaign, yet neither of them provided clear maps for the public to understand that  low intensity missiles from a Palestinians would pose a threat to every resident of Israel.

Les than seven months after 60% of Israel came under missile attack from Gaza, which Israel had retreated from in 2005, the Likud lost an opportunity to make its case to the people of Israel.

Th​ese are ​the ​ maps that Netanyahu and Begin  could have shown during the campaign:

You might say that  a picture is worth a thousand missiles.

1 COMMENT

  1. Why you ask – they have become confused as to right and wrong. Nationalism has gone out the window as far as they are concerned and the lefti media would ignore what they say. This is all due to the inability of the right nationalists to stand united on the slogan Eretz Yisrael Shalma l’Am Yisrael.

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David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.