Lapid the professional - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
Choice quotes from the writings of Yair Lapid, the journalist.
By Yitzhak Laor
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/lapid-the-professional.premium-1.525283?fb_action_ids=664694903557426
Ahead of the third anniversary of the assault on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship the Mavi Marmara, after Israel apologized and promised to pay reparations to the families of the victims it killed, it would be fitting to remember the incident with the help of some choice quotes written on June 4, 2010, by then Yedioth Ahronoth writer and now Finance Minister Yair Lapid under the headline “The amateurs” (Hahovevanim).
Lapid begins, “Minister Yuli Edelstein has an interesting family. He is the one minister in all of Israel’s governments over the years whose father was a priest. When Edelstein was a child, his father converted to Christianity and over time became the priest of a village in the Kostroma Oblast in central Russia. There, in the heart of darkness, surrounded by one of the world’s largest forests, the priest Yuri taught the children about Jesus and the Virgin Mary.”
The people of Israel are confused. What is better than a forest, Jesus and children? But the emotional manipulation continues:
“Yuli Edelstein isn’t to blame,” writes Lapid. “He isn’t guilty because he is an amateur. In fact, I don’t even know if he warrants this description. Amateurs in any event understand a thing or two about their hobby, in contrast to them Yuli Edelstein understands nothing of it. He lacks any training or life experience that would prepare him for this moment.”
Neither did Papa Edelstein, but one-third of Lapid’s 900 words were dedicated to venomous incitement against his son. Moving along:
“He doesn’t understand anything about the media, anything about public relations or anything about how the international press works,” writes Lapid. “He knows nothing about enlisting public opinion, nothing about television, nothing about blogs, the Internet, fast response, going on air or the dynamics of media events. He doesn’t understand anything about all this.”
That’s it, the amateurs have been eliminated, enter the professional.
If the struggle was conducted satisfactorily, “they would have arranged on tarpaulins on the beach hundreds of rockets and arms that had been taken from previous weapons ships that attempted to reach Gaza,” writes Lapid. "And you know what the foreign TV crews would do? They would film it! And these would be the only pictures that would be broadcasted in the first hours [of the event] on all the TV stations around the world! Why? Because they didn’t have anything else to broadcast, and television stations prefer to broadcast a photo - any photo - to broadcasting nothing.
“The flotilla spokespeople would pull out their hair and try to explain that these weapons weren’t from their boats but no one would pay attention to them. Millions of viewers would automatically assume that the flotilla heading to Gaza was carrying weapons. Why? Because it’s television, you bunch of amateurs, and TV isn’t a medium that people listen to but rather look at.”
Who understands this like Lapid? Therefore it’s okay to lie, and so writes Lapid: “In the first press conference there didn’t need to be Danny of the low stool,” a reference to then Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon who had previously forced the Turkish ambassador to sit on a low stool during an official meeting to embarrass him.
Lapid continues, “But instead a soldier from the Shayetet 13 [navy commandos] who speaks English well and wears a flak jacket stained with the blood of his friends.”
And maybe anyone’s blood? Who will know? It’s television, after all.
And more: “The words ’attempted lynch’ could have easily entered into the broadcast lexicon immediately after the raid on the ship,” wrote Lapid. “It doesn’t really matter if it really was this or not, the point is that in every media event two- or three-word phrases take control, and will be displayed on the upper left side of the screen during every broadcast. Every professional knows that taking control of one of these slogans influences the audience more than a dozen speeches by [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman.”
It’s worth repeating two of these sentences written by Lapid: “It doesn’t really matter if it really happened or not,” and “Television is not a medium that people listen to but rather something they look at.” Lucky for us that this is the case, otherwise we would believe his current blabbering about “an economic emergency.” But maybe he isn’t lying and simply doesn’t understand anything about economics, despite his father never having converted to Christianity.