In this, Israel is not unique; any American (even the ones that voted for Barack Obama) will tell you that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector. But Israel’s government inefficiency hasn’t just been a drag on economy; over the past several weeks, the government’s difficulties in explaining its case on the Gaza flotilla has cost us big-time.

Note that I said “difficulty,” not “failure,” as many others have claimed. There are those who just hate Israel (and Jews; Helen Thomas proves they go together), and nothing we can say will make them unhate us. But there are many people who are willing to give us a fair hearing – and unfortunately, these are the people we failed in the first days after the incident. It took at least 24 hours for word to get out about the violent attack on Israeli soldiers by the “terror activists,” and only three days later did Israel’s story get mainstream publicity.

Of course, hasbara has to take a back seat to real security, and sometimes you have few options; like with the Gaza flotilla’s Mavi Marmara – where IDF soldiers had no choice but to use real bullets to save the lives of their comrades, who were savagely attacked by knife and club wielding “peace activists” – you’re damned if you do or don’t. But if we know our story is right, and we’re convinced of it, why do we seem to have such trouble selling it properly – and convincingly?

Maybe what we need is a little private-sector ingenuity for our hasbara efforts. Look at the saga of the “We Con the World” video; as you’ve probably heard by now, the video, produced by Latma, which is edited by our own Caroline Glick, was pulled from Youtube, most likely because of complaints by anti-Israel viewers who were appalled that their story – of how big bad Israel attacked the innocent “activists” – was hijacked, with the world seeing the truth of the intentions of the passengers on the Marmara, because of a parody, of all things!

Of course, Youtube claimed that the reason for the video’s ban was that it was in violation of “a copyright claim by Warner/ Chappell Music, Inc.” the owners of the rights to the original USA for Africa “We Are the World” song and video, produced in the 1980s to raise money for hunger in Africa. But that can’t be right, because U.S. copyright law provides for “fair use,” meaning that existing works of art can be freely used for parody or education purposes. Just ask Lenny Solomon and “Weird Al” Yankovic, who for decades have been rewriting top pop songs for education (Solomon) and parody (Al) purposes!

The point of the story, though, is why Youtube was moved to remove the video – because it was making an impact, thanks to the 3 million plus hits it generated in barely a week. Now the genie is out of the bottle; “We Con the World” has spread too far and too wide, and is now available on all sorts of sites. In fact, doing a search for “We Con the World” at Youtube yields dozens of copies, now dubbed in all sorts of languages!

As many have said, “We Con the World” was one of the best pro-Israel hasbara pieces to emerge in a long time – and the government had nothing to do with it! The truth is, though, the marketing people at many  Israeli companies – startups and veterans – are just as talented as the people at Latma. Why not come out with a parody a week – or some other effective video, audio, or web campaign, that can tell Israel’s side of the story in a surprising, interesting – and successful – manner?

That’s exactly the question that came up when I recently interviewed an Israeli “captain of industry” (he remains anonymous for this story, in order not to mix politics and business). We met just a day after the flotilla story took over the media. By that time, the headlines worldwide castigated the IDF for boarding the Marmara and five other ships, with the resulting nine deaths. Meanwhile, nearly no one was paying attention to Israel’s side of the story.

Commenting on the seeming lack of ability of Israel to get its point across, I told this executive that it appeared that the tepid efforts by hasbara officials to explain Israel’s position was possibly the result of the game of “musical chairs” played by politicians in this country. You have the same people running different ministries and departments in various governments, while the actual day to day work is done by the bureaucrats who remain on the job, no matter who the boss is. “The minister spends years just learning the issues, while the bureaucrats have no incentive to change their ways. While that system may be acceptable for deciding on where to build a sewage treatment plant, it just doesn’t work in day to day hasbara,” we both agreed.

Then we brainstormed an idea; why not “outsource” hasbara? I don’t mean officially; no bureaucrats will be hurt in the execution of this plan. But if every successful hi-tech company, if every successful PR firm, non-profit marketing department, university information bureau, were to donate, say, an hour a week to a specific hasbara project, imagine how well Israel’s story would be told! The executive agreed; working on such projects, utilizing the amazing talent we have in this country, could be the solution we have long sought to the problem of getting the world’s attention. If “We Con the World” proves anything, it’s that good people around the world are indeed willing to give us a fair hearing. We just need to come up with something good for them to hear! The executive’s on board; how about you?

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That’s the part that concerns us today. For many people, the weather is the most important part of the news; notice how TV stations, even here in Israel, build a cult of celebrity around their weather presenters. The weather person is expected to have a bubbly personality, an ability to josh and banter, a nice, big smile – and the capacity to completely ignore the rest of the news, no matter how bad it is.

In other words, the weather exists in its own little bubble – unaffected by politics or world events. The same rule should apply on the internet, too – but unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the folks at Yahoo that you’re supposed to keep politics out of the weather forecast! And while we wouldn’t venture to argue with professional weather forecasters about troughs, inversions, and cold fronts, we do have some thoughts on the inappropriateness of dividing Jerusalem – not just the city, but the weather forecast! And, to add insult to Yahoo’s injury, even the part of Jerusalem that one would expect to be part of Israel – isn’t!

Hard to believe, but true. If you search for Jerusalem on the Yahoo weather pages, you get two choices – “Jerusalem, Yerushalayim” and “Jerusalem, West Bank.” Not a word about “Israel,” where the city, of course, is really located! That this differentiation is strictly political is evident from the contents of the pages. The weather forecast for both Jerusalems are identical – as one would expect. Meaning that there’s no reason – other than making a political statement – to have two separate pages. I can understand making a political statement, but via the weather? Two words come to mind – “petty” and “ridiculous.”

To be fair, I should point out that the “Jerusalem, Yerushalayim” entry is listed under “IL,” the international abbreviation for Israel. And where is “Jerusalem, West Bank” located? In PS, which one assumes to be the international abbreviation for “Palestine,” an entity that does not legally exist. Whether one likes it or not, the only legal entity in the areas beyond the green line are the IDF and the Palestinian Authority, as stipulated in the Oslo Accords.

Strangely, Yahoo isn’t even consistent with its politics. Both Jerusalem pages list the nearest weather station as being in “Jerusalem, Israel!” Wait, I’m confused; I thought it was “Jerusalem, Yerushalayim.” Does this mean there’s a third Jerusalem, the one with the weather station located in Israel? And those so inclined should not rejoice that Yahoo’s “PS” seems to be a tacit recognition of “Palestine,” a political entity that, for now at least, does not exist at all; according to the category menu, “Jerusalem, West Bank” is located in the “Palestinian Occupied Territories” – another legal fiction, and certainly a step down from “PS!” The inconsistencies just makes Yahoo look all the more foolish.

Unfortunately, the problem goes beyond Yahoo; it turns out that Yahoo’s politicized weather is the default forecast application for iPhones and iPod Touch devices (although I haven’t had the opportunity to check, on iPads, I would imagine that the same application is used). So, if you use an iPhone, as so many people do, you’re stuck with Yahoo’s silly, artificial – and foolishly inconsistent (they can’t even make up their minds!) weather pages.

Perhaps even more interestingly, the professional weather service that provides Yahoo with the forecasts – The Weather Channel – knows better than to play politics. On their site, and on their cellphone applications, Jerusalem – one, single united city – shows up in Israel; there are no political choices here. The Weather Channel itself is actually somewhat right-wing in its weather views, but not “radically” so; you can get the weather for Ariel, Israel, as well as Ramallah, West Bank. At least it makes sense! So it’s clear at whom the finger of blame points for the two Jerusalems; at Yahoo, and Yahoo alone.

Most other weather sites give readers what they came for, without any political baggage. Accuweather lists Jerusalem, Israel (no Ariel, though); so does AOL Weather, and Weather.org, home of the “Weather Underground.” Even the BBC – a news organization we might expect to take as left a view of the Middle East conflict as possible – avoids this problem, by eliminating country names altogether, for many places, not just in Israel, either (I couldn’t figure out the pattern, but it doesn’t appear to be political). So Jerusalem is just that – a stateless city, but a single stateless city. I suppose it’s the best we could expect from them.

Which brings us back to Yahoo. Out of all the major weather sites, Yahoo – and it’s adopted son, the iPhone – is the only one that makes political hay out of the weather forecast. Clearly, the staff at Yahoo needs to be re-educated on a couple of points; the political situation in the Middle East, the legal status of the entities in question, the meaning of the word “consistency” – and the inappropriateness of ruining the one part of the news everyone can enjoy without the headaches of politics butting in, Perhaps a few well-placed letters to the Yahoo folks to help them realize the error of their ways may help?

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Honestly, are there really any luxuries any more? Cellphones used to be in that category, but since the powers that be have more or less eliminated pay phones, they’ve become a necessity for anyone who has to contact work or home on the road. Cars are a luxury only if you live in the center of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, and have enough money to take taxis when you need to. Your annual vacation? Absolute necessity – if you want to retain your sanity, that is!

If cutting is out of the question, then maybe “downmarketing” can be an option – for example, using a cheaper product or “house brand.” In some cases, cheaper products are perfectly acceptable substitutes, but in others, the switch isn’t as successful. For example, for gas from discount stations vs. gas from full price stations, substituting works. When it comes to “fake” vs. “real” Bissli, however, it doesn’t.

One area where the cheap – as in free – alternative works as well, or even better, than the full price version, is in the area of satellite/cable TV. Because of the broadcasting and pricing policies of both YES and HOT, and the geopolitics of opinion-making in the Arab world, Israeli consumers can get broadcasts at least as good (some would say better) using a satellite dish and a digital receiver.

As it turns out, the age of terrestrial analog TV broadcasting – where you attach “rabbit ears” to your TV and turn on the set – is almost over anyway. Sometime next year, analog broadcasts of Channels 1, 2, and 10 will be ending, and in order to watch any TV, you will have to shell out for a Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) decoder. Experimental DTT broadcasts began in August, and you can buy decoders (they run between NIS 300 and up, depending on features) in many electronic stores already. Note that as the time for DTT broadcasts to take effect draws near, the price of the decoders is likely to drop.

But if you’re a TV “maven,” you’ve probably subscribed to either YES or HOT, paying upwards of NIS 200 a month for the various “channel packages” the companies are so good at marketing. But what are you getting for your money? Last year’s sitcoms (and a very poor selection of them); endless repeats of B movies (except for a very occasional blockbuster); and, worst of all, endless “promos” for the most tasteless programs that air during prime adult time – broadcast during the hours kids are watching, and even on the channels geared to them! As a (now former) YES subscriber, this was my biggest beef with the company, and it seems to be a concern of many YES customers, based on what people tell me. Since YES and HOT are not allowed to accept ads (yet), I suppose this is their way of “breaking up” their programming. But couldn’t they find a better way?

As it turns out, those same last year’s sitcoms and B movies with the occasional blockbuster – sans the tasteless promos – are available for free to owners of satellite dishes and a satellite receiver, pointed at the southern sky and aimed at the Amos and Nilesat satellites. Amos, Israel’s own communications satellite, carries the satellite broadcasts of Channels 1, 2, 10, the Knesset channel, Middle East TV, and a Russian English language news channel – all free to air (FTA) – while Nilesat carries about 550 FTA channels. Most of them are in Arabic, of course, but about a dozen or so entertainment channels “speak English,” broadcasting the same mix of movies and TV series that you get on the YES and HOT entertainment channels. For free – meaning that there are no subscription fees to pay to anyone; once you pay for the satellite receiver and/or satellite dish, you don’t have to shell out another shekel!

Dubai provides no fewer than six channels with consistent English language programming, including some series available on the YES and HOT channels, and including three movie channels, which to me are indistinguishable from the YES movie channels. In addition to the Dubai FTA channels (their schedules can be seen at http://www.dmi.ae/dubaione/ and http://www.mbc.net), the Fox people provide an entertainment and movie channel (see http://www.foxme.tv/ and http://www.foxmoviestv.com/, click on the “English” button). And, there are a couple of others available as well (see http://www.city7tv.com and http://kuwaitlink.localweb.com/ktv2/).

Along with CNN, Euronews (broadcasting in five languages), several other news stations, and even a couple of sports and children’s channels with partial English language programming – supplementing the regular Israeli TV channels – you’ve got a full and complete TV package, quite similar to what you get with YES and HOT. Minus the tasteless promos (replaced by Arabic language commercials for things like Cadillacs, Doritos, and Kentucky Fried Chicken!), and the price, that is!

The FTA stations broadcasting to the Arab world even include stations that you would have to subscribe to in other parts of the world, like Nickelodeon and MTV Arabia (the latter broadcasting exclusively in English, and a lot less “racy” than other MTV channels). I suppose it’s part of the efforts to “win the hearts and minds” of Arab populations of less than friendly countries – MBC Persia, for example, is designed specifically to deliver Hollywood blockbusters with Farsi subtitles to Iranians. You can certainly see plenty of examples of the radicalism taking hold in Muslim countries on some of the other 525 Arabic language stations (if you’ve ever wanted to watch Hizbullah, Hamas, or Fatah TV, here’s your chance).

You can buy satellite receivers from a number of suppliers, both online and off (http://www.thm.co.il/ sells various models for between NIS 255 and NIS 725). Depending on where you live and how the dish is positioned, you may be able to pick up many Nilesat stations using an 80 centimeter YES dish (if you’re a current customer); YES tends not to remove the dishes when you cancel the service. For guaranteed reception, install a one meter dish (a do-it-yourself kit is NIS 525 at http://www.thm.co.il/; and in any case, you can get the Israeli stations without upgrading the dish). Or for a bit more, you could have a pro put together the system for you. Either way, your ROI (return on investment) will be no more than a few months, taking into account the money you’ll be saving on your cable or satellite subscription. It’s like cutting out a luxury – but getting an even better substitute!

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Of course, there’s a good reason for that, says Knesset Member Robert Ilatov of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. “Until now, the hi-tech industry was able to hold its own. But with the recent worldwide recession, investment money has almost dried up.” With hi-tech such an integral part of the economy – constituting as much as half of the country’s exports – the government really has no choice but to get involved, at least temporarily, in order to keep the industry alive to fight another day.

Of course, nothing comes for free – and with the government set to become an investor in Israeli hi-tech, entrepreneurs should prepare for at least some strings, if they take the cash, says Ilatov. “Obviously there must be a balance – a comfort level that both the government and private investors and owners will feel comfortable with.” But, he adds, “Like any other investor, the government has a right to ask for conditions from those who benefit from the taxpayer’s money,” he says.

There is a difference between the government and private investors, though; while an angel or VC looks at the bottom line, the government is likely to look at the “greater good” its money can bring about. “It’s not just about the developers and engineers,” Ilatov says. “For every worker in hi-tech there are six or seven supporting workers – the waitresses in the restaurants where they eat lunch, the cleaning staff who prepare the office for the workers, the taxi drivers who take the software people home at night.” If 7,000 hi-tech workers lost their jobs this year, that means some 50,000 other workers  are out of a job, too. Any help the government proffers to the hi-tech industry must go to help those support workers, as well as the elite tech workers, the MK says.

Clearly, Ilatov has done some thinking about the troubles Israel’s hi-tech industry faces – and he has decided to do something about it. Ilatov has established the Knesset’s first Hi-tech Lobby group, which he hopes will bring together government officials, leaders of varied hi-tech industries, university administrators, and members of Israel’s financial community, in order to give Israeli hi-tech a boost in the arm during troubled times.

The first meeting of the lobby saw well over 100 people get together at the Knesset to try and put together an agenda for a plan of action. Amazingly, this was the first time the Knesset saw such a comprehensive discussion of the problems and plusses of Israel’s hi-tech industry, Ilatov told me in an interview later. And, he added, by “hi-tech” he means all the advanced industries Israel is known for – computer networking and security, Web 2.0, biotech, medical devices, cleantech, etc. Representatives of those industries were present at the first lobby meeting, with speakers summing up what their businesses were facing as the recession continues.

Startups and established companies are, of course, just one aspect of the industry, he adds; it all starts in the universities, and maybe even earlier, at the high school level. So, there were also a number of top university officials at the meeting as well, discussing the difficulties faced by computer and science departments in the schools. Fact: The student to lecturer ratio in the country’s computer science departments are among the worst of any department, hovering at about 40:1.

With so many diverse ideas and interests represented, more than an initial exploration of the issues could not have been expected, says Ilatov. “The meeting was very helpful in clarifying a possible agenda, to help us decide what, if any steps to take or legislation to pursue in order to help the industries survive and thrive.”

One of those pieces of legislation is likely to be a rule that will require Israeli pension funds to invest at least some of their money in Israeli hi-tech. “Much, if not most, of the investment and VC money in Israeli hi-tech comes from abroad,” says Ilatov. But pension funds, arguably the Israeli investors with the biggest pockets, have barely given a shekel to local hi-tech, preferring to invest their money in far-flung places, says the MK. If it’s good enough for American VC’s to sink their money into an Israeli startup, Ilatov says, it’s good enough for a huge pension fund to allocate at least some of their funds to the same purpose. “It’s not like it’s any riskier than some of the other things they’ve invested in,” like Central European real estate, Ilatov says. “Americans who invest in Israeli hi-tech get excellent returns, and pension fund investors will as well. We intend to bring up the issue with the heads of the pension funds and try to persuade them that it’s in their, and the country’s, best interests to invest locally. If they agree, that’s fine. But if not, legislation of some sort may be necessary.”

Several other issues were brought up at the meeting: A number of speakers derided a new law that is to be passed as part of the “package deal” between the government and the Histadrut, which gives the union the right to organize among workers in any workplace, including in hi-tech companies (Ilatov thinks this is a bad law, because it will only scare off investors, and won’t help workers, who make far more than the average wage anyway). The names “India” and “China” were mentioned by more than one speaker, the latter for the potential business opportunities available, and the former in the context of the formidable challenge Israel faces in maintaining its position as a hi-tech power. And, there were calls to simplify the investment process, eliminate red tape, and generally do everything possible to encourage foreign investment.

One would have thought that many of these issues would have been hammered out, considering the importance of hi-tech to the country’s economy. But they haven’t, and that’s worrying. Where does one begin? With the universities? Helping existing companies stay in business? Helping fledging startups with great ideas to survive long enough to turn a profit, instead of selling their technology to multinationals for a relative pittance? Do we start with the universities, helping them produce more qualified personnel to fill the great need for top quality people? Or do we try and encourage a love of the sciences in high school and even elementary school students – many of whom, according to one speaker at the meeting, don’t know their multiplication tables as late as sixth grade? Yes, MK Ilatov says. All these areas are important, and we are just going to have to find a way to fund programs to work on all these levels. A tall order indeed, it would appear.

To all those who think being a Knesset member is a cushy job: Take an example from MK Ilatov. I’m sure he didn’t think setting Israel’s hi-tech policy right would be easy, but I’d guess he didn’t realize it would be this complicated. Like Charlie Brown, he has a chance to be a hero, if he succeeds. Let’s not think about the alternative.

Facebook and Youtube have been playing an important role in this too, with the former hosting longer manifestoes and idea exchanges, and the latter hosting grainy film of protests and police attacks  captured on cell phone cameras. But for “front line” news bulletins, Twitter has emerged as the preferred mode of clandestine communication. The “Twitter Revolution,” as some are calling it, is apparently giving the Iranian government conniptions, to the extent that the U.S. State Department supposedly asked the Twitter people to postpone scheduled maintenance that would have shut down the service during the elections – the better to enable Iranians to communicate news abroad.

As events have developed, many members of the “chattering classes” have commented on the emergence of social network applications as agents of social change etc., to the extent that the concept has turned into a media cliché almost overnight! Note that Twitter has played a role in several social upheavals already – it helped get a college kid out of jail in Egypt last year, and students in Moldova used it to organize anti-government protests earlier this year. The Twitter Revolution in Iran was the first one to be recognized in a big way, however – possibly because many mainstream journalists have started using Twitter themselves only recently!

On the other hand, Twitter can be used for “evil,” as well – to disseminate disinformation, for example, like a Twitterer called Bamos did, when he got conservatives up in arms about phony spending proposals in the U.S. Federal Budget. Bottom line – Twitter is a tool – like e-mail or the telephone. There are lots of ways to communicate, and Twitter is one more. What’s “revolutionary” about social media’s role in the Iranian uprising is that the authorities have been unable to shut it down completely, as they have other methods of communication; and that Iranians and Westerners have developed numerous methods to beat the internet suppression. But chances are that if the phones worked,  protesters would use that tool instead. I certainly would.

Never one to chatter, I won’t bore you with media cliches; you can see for yourself just how important  Twitter has been in Iran by surfing to the Twitter search site and typing in “Iran.” But there are a few other things I take away from the Twitter Revolution, specifically relevant to us here in Israel:

1) The internet doesn’t (always) hate us: Somehow, when there’s a problem anywhere in the Mideast, it’s at least partially the Jews’/Israel’s fault. Israel is to blame for Iraq, Lebanon, and other trouble spots, according to most of the region’s residents, the “voices of balance” in the blogosphere, and even the mainstream media. Indeed, as things heated up in Tehran last week, the government “discovered” an Election Day plot to bomb crowded sites in the city, organized by you-know-who. In fact, some in the anti-Israel blogging crowd (some of whom I wrote about recently) have blamed the whole Twitter Revolution thing on us as well; it’s an attempt on Israel’s part to destabilize Iran, and when things are destabilized enough, we will attack them. According to this theory, somehow three or four Israelis are disseminating all the Iran uprising tweets, thus causing gullible Iranians to resist Ahmenijadad. It’s very complicated!

Needless to say, ridiculous conspiracy theories like these are being totally ignored by Twitter users, and even by the blogosphere, for the most part. The fact that Iranians are able to tweet out what’s going on as it happens makes it clear that this is an organic uprising, and that Israel, while it may or may not be happy about what’s going on, has nothing to do with it. It’s a nice change of pace, not being “responsible” for a Middle East mess!

2) Israel isn’t all that bad, even for Palestinians: As I mentioned earlier, the reason Iranians are being forced to rely on Twitter and other social media to get the word out is because the “traditional” methods of communication – international phone service, worldwide media reporting – has been cut off by the authorities. Would Iranians choose to use these services if the traditional alternatives were available? There’s no way to know, of course, but Iranians – and the rest of us – are fortunate that we live in a time when alternatives are available.

However, note that the Palestinians, whose “struggle” has gotten far more publicity than the Iranians’, are not big social media users (until a month ago, the common wisdom said that Iranians were on board with the mullah system and were big Ahmenijadad fans; clearly this uprising didn’t come out of nowhere). There’s plenty of internet in Palestinian Authority controlled areas, and PA residents are just as big cellphone fanatics as Israelis. Yet Hamas and Fatah haven’t resorted to “underground” reports from the field in order to get the news out. That’s because they don’t have to! For a speck on the map, geographically and numerically – Israel – and the Palestinians – get far more media coverage than they should. Palestinians don’t use alternative communications tools to promote their “uprisings” – because the traditional methods work just fine, thanks to Israel’s liberal policies.

3) The Middle East “blog balance” has changed once again: One reason the anti-Israel internet crowd is trying to delegitimize the Iranian uprising is because of the impact it will have on U.S. policy in the Mideast. While President Obama hasn’t taken sides on the election yet, he has demanded that the Iranian government stop beating up its citizens (each subsequent statement that he has made has been stronger than the previous one). So it would appear that  U.S. will have no choice but to back away from the “dialogue” it had been planning with the Ahmenijadad regime, at least temporarily – and maybe permanently, if  Ahmenijadad loses his job.

You have to imagine that Obama is doing some thinking about his whole Middle East stance – and that maybe there is something to the idea that democracy does make a difference. Israel isn’t perfect, but it’s a whole lot more democratic than Iran, Egypt, Syria, and the other dictatorships, kingdoms, and sheikhdoms in the neighborhood. Obama was supposed to be different, the anti-Israel bloggers believed; he was finally, after all these years, going to “stick it” to Israel. But reality has apparently bitten, and now the rest of the world might take what Israel says about Iran – and maybe even other issues – a little more seriously. It’s a blow to the anti-Israel forces on the internet – and it’s all thanks to social media, and especially Twitter.

There are plenty of people out there who hate Israel – and Jews. Many people have provided advice on how to deal with them (we won’t go into it here), and we Jews and Israelis are used to people disliking us. And we ourselves have plenty of complaints about the state of things. But these hypocrites have no business complaining about us, when they are so transparently full of hate. For example, it could be that the Hawaiian settler described below pays lip service to the Free Hawaii movement. But as they say, “haki balash” – talk is cheap. The bottom line is that he is living a hypocritical life, as a white settler, stealing the land and resources of the indigenous peoples of Hawaii – the exact thing he accuses Israelis of doing.

Any Israeli attempt at making peace is just a ruse to occupy more land – in other words, Israelis are bad by definition, and the only “right” thing they can do is disappear, ie leave “Palestine,” roll up their tents and move to the moon (maybe). There can be no good Israelis – even the Jews whose families have been here for generations are “settlers,” and must leave for their “countries of origin,” where of course the Holocaust-denying Hawaiian settlers of the world will “welcome” them. But about their own hypocritical lifestyle we hear nothing. From them, that is – but I intend to make sure as many people see this as possible. In my opinion, this is an excellent way to deal with internet anti-Semites – expose them for what they are and keep them on the defensive. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” as someone from another religion once said. If you have any comments, please drop me a line at the e-mail address on the main page.

I apologize for the lengthy preamble; now for the “main event.”

You know how during the spring, when you start working in your garden again, you have to get rid of the detritus – the leaves, rocks, etc. – that have piled up in the winter? And you know how sometimes when you move a rock or a pile of old leaves, you uncover a community of very strange and icky looking bugs? And you know how gross you feel when you see those bugs?

That’s how I felt when I prepared this column. I’ve been turning over rocks around the internet, trying to dig up dirt on some of the most prolific anti-Israel and anti-Jewish writers out there. Actually, “dirt” isn’t the right word – they’re already covered up in muck and mire, and even a long, hot bath with their mommy washing their mouths out with soap won’t fix things.

You may not be aware of it, but there’s a burgeoning (and growing) mini-industry on the internet, consisting of blogs that truck in the most despicable anti-Jewish lies out there. Of course, the authors of these sites take great pains to point out that they’re merely “anti-Zionist,” or that “it’s a minority of the Jews who are responsible.” But their writings are straight out of the Dark Ages, with references to Jewish mass murder, well-poisoning (’“Jews poison wells in the West Bank with the condoning of the Israeli government,” says one blog written by a well-known American anti-Semite), and worse – with even the medieval blood libel charge being revived. Well-meaning rational people – both Jewish and otherwise – sometimes attempt to argue back or present facts in the talkback forums on these blogs, only to be shot down or censored, so the only point of view permitted by commenters is the one that confirms the sick views of the blog author.

Why get myself in a tizzy over this? That’s the obvious question, especially since this isn’t anything new. I could answer that in several ways – that in the past, ignoring this kind of thing did not prove beneficial to Jews – quite the opposite. Or I could say that it’s important that we as a community be aware of the how the other side is using internet technology to convert hearts and minds to their hate cause. That’s certainly something we need to understand. The real reason? It just makes me mad to see these people getting away with this crap.

As I mentioned, you can’t “prove” anything to these people; it’s impossible to have a conversation with them. What’s the point of trying to “convince” them of anything? They’ve got their agenda, and that’s it. The best way to fight them, I believe, is to discredit them – to show them up for the liars and hypocrites they really are. In all likelihood, the “true believers” won’t be negatively affected when they see that their heroes have feet of clay; but it may sow the seeds of doubt, and since their beliefs already rest on a termite-ridden foundation of hate, that extra little doubt may be enough to topple them altogether!

So, what I’ve done is gather information – freely available on the internet – on several of the more prominent internet anti-Semitic “personalities.” I’ve brought as many examples as space allows, and I have many others. But in the vast majority of cases, these internet Jew haters are living hypocritical lifestyles, often guilty of exactly the same thing they accuse “the Zionists” of doing!

For example, one of the premier internet anti-Semites runs his site (and home business) from the suburbs of Honolulu, Hawaii. This blogger, who claims to know “what really is happening” in the world, is a radical leftist/liberal type, whose site gets a fair amount of traffic, and seems to be a source of material for many other anti-Semitic blogs. Most of his content consists of links to “legitimate” news sites, with his commentary.

Of course, one of his favorite targets is “the Occupation” by Israel of Judea and Samaria/the West Bank (I put both terms in to ensure that the focus is on the subject, not the politics). “The settlers” are this, the settlers are that, the settlers are worse than Nazis – anyone whose perused any of these sites will get the idea. An opinion and a token will get you a subway ride, as the saying goes – meaning that everyone is entitled to one. But reading his site, I’ve never seen this fellow address his own sins of occupation – the one where he is part of the horde of mainland Americans who have occupied Hawaii, breaking treaties signed with the sovereign Kingdom of Hawaii (http://www.freehawaii.org/). Now, that may sound a bit far-fetched, especially to those of us who grew up in the U.S. – but apparently, there are a fair number of Hawaiians who don’t think so. The main point, however, is that it would appear that someone who is guilty of occupying someone else’s land (both the blogger and his wife are definitely not of Polynesian or other South Pacific stock) is the last person who should be wagging his finger at Israelis!

Interestingly, further Googling shows that this person apparently worked in Hollywood, as a visual effects producer, on several TV series and movies. Did he do something to get himself thrown out of “Jewish Hollywood?” Note, incidentally, that I haven’t mentioned this person’s name, or site; the reason is that Wikipedia recently banned a biography page on this guy, because he’s famous only among conspiracy theory nuts. He hasn’t been mentioned in the real media enough, and I don’t intend to help him (if you want details, drop me an e-mail).

Then there’s the blogger who, apparently operating from an apartment in French Hill, Jerusalem, supplies his readers with the up to the minute news – from Gaza! Of course, all the “news” is about how evil the IDF is, how Gazans suffer, etc. Again, I am not making a political call here; Israeli policy in Gaza is certainly something that should – must – be discussed and analyzed. But not here, not by this guy, who purports to promote “peace in the desert.” He’s just the wrong man for the job!

While he may have e-mail contacts in Gaza, it would seem to me to be a bit condescending for him to be speaking for native Gazans, who are probably capable of portraying their own situation at least as effectively as he does, from dozens of kilometers away. What, he’s got some special insight they don’t? But even more – the writer of this blog is himself apparently Jewish, an immigrant from New York, a resident of the State of Israel for over two decades! And while we would defend the right of any member of any ethnic group or religion to take any side s/he wishes in a political dispute, it again seems a bit much for a total outsider to portray a culture and lifestyle that he has no part in. He doesn’t even live in the neighborhood, for G-d’s sake! And the fact that he, too, “occupies” an apartment on land (in Jerusalem) that the Palestinians see as their own – while he purports to be helping them out – is mind-boggling, to say the least.

Finally, we come to “radio personality” Alex Jones (he’s well known enough to have a Wikipedia page already), whom almost every anti-Jewish blogger sees as a guru. Jones is a well-known conspiracy theorist who believes that the world is run by the Rockefellers, the Trilatarel Commission, the Bilderberg Group, etc. He’s been around for a long time and his radio broadcasts are available on many web sites.

I have to admit that I have never heard him utter the word “Jew” outright in connection with any of these conspiracies (not that I’m such a devoted listener), but the hints that “the Jews” are behind it all have been quite broad and leading, to say the least. Well, according to Jones’ Wikipedia biography page, “the Alex Jones Show radio program is broadcast live from Emmis Communications’ KLBJ Radio in Austin, Texas.” The CEO of Emmis? Jeff Smulyan, winner of, among other things, the Jewish National Fund’s Tree of Life Award (http://tinyurl.com/cc2pc6)! Interestingly, I have never seen Smulyan’s name on the lists of Jews who run the media on the anti-Semitic sites. Could it be they don’t want to make their “rebbe,” Jones, look bad? After all, his salary is being paid by “Jew media!”

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Not that the other side is “winning” – when it comes to internet dominance, Israel’s got the competition beat hands down. But the hackers and crackers who are out in force right now, seeking out Israeli and Jewish content web sites to deface, are like swarms of annoying insects. If you spray – i.e. install protective measures on web sites – you can keep them at bay. But if they sniff weakness – security holes that web site administrators are supposed to be on top of – they’ll swoop in, invading web servers and replacing the content with anti-Israel propaganda.

Over the past week, hundreds of Israeli and Jewish sites have been compromised, with anti-Israel propaganda, consisting of messages, graphics and video, installed on sites they take over (you can see a whole gallery of such sites at http://www.arabic-m.com). And propaganda it is; the photos the hackers display of injured Gazans are heartbreaking, but after all, photos aren’t always what they seem, as we learned during the Second Lebanon War, documented at http://tinyurl.com/axlt5f, http://tinyurl.com/8sgvfu, and http://tinyurl.com/g2p9n, among others.

The attacks are sophisticated; you have to give them that, to the extent of being able to hijack a whole domain name server (http://tinyurl.com/7bsauq). According to experts I’ve spoken with, we’re dealing with a professional crew of hackers who are probably working for the “axis of evil” governments in the countries they live in (including Syria and Iran). With the right protection, though, sites can be made safe.

But just “being safe” somehow just doesn’t satisfy in a situation like this; you feel like you want to do more. How is it that they can get away with hacking our sites without feeling some pain on their side? Don’t we have hackers – or any other offensive weapons – to fight back with? What can an ordinary, non-programming person do to defend his or her country?

The answer is yes, there is something you can do – and you don’t have to be a hacker to take some offensive action. Legal, even! As we all know, hacking is generally looked upon askance by the law, and while I don’t think anyone who hacks an anti-Semitic web site has to worry about being arrested, they may find themselves with a lawsuit on their hands.

However, there is a perfectly legal way to get back at bad sites – sites that skew the facts or tell outright lies about Jews and Israel. How? Just by being a nudnik – the more obnoxious, the better. The sites that describe in detail how Israel controls the world and is planning to drag all the goyim into World War III have to be hosted somewhere. All you have to do is run a traceroute on the domain name of the site and find out the actual numerical IP address the site uses. That address is registered to a web site provider, somewhere in the world. Using an online tool, you can track ownership of that address – and when you do, it’s time to open up your e-mail program and write a scathing letter, complaining at the poor quality of sites hosted on the company’s servers (and the fact that it is promoting racism, anti-Semitism, and libelous accusations). Mention the fact that your uncle is a lawyer, and chances are you’ll get satisfaction – doing as good a job of booting a site off the internet as a hacker would, or even better!

It’s actually far less complicated than it sounds. You may already have a traceroute program installed in your computer, but you can also use an online traceroute took; at http://www.geektools.com/traceroute.php, just choose one of the many links (grouped by country; for our purposes, it doesn’t matter which one you select. The Israel links are pretty reliable). Type in the name of the host (www.hostname.com, without the http:// at the beginning). The system will begin seeking out the true home of the host, and after about 13 or so “hops,” it will present you with an IP address.

Copy that address and surf on over to http://www.ip2location.com/free.asp, which will look for the physical location of the server that IP address is associated with – and usually, the name of the hosting company that provides the address. And that’s all you need; you can surf to the hosting site and get the appropriate e-mail, to write your complaint to the system administrator, director, or other bigwig who takes complaints. Chances are the site administrators or owners do not realize what screed they are hosting, by the way; there’s no law that says they have to check up on the work done by their clients. And while they have no legal obligation to respond positively to your complaints, they probably will, in order not to get a bad reputation, as well as to get you off their back.

If you’d rather let someone else do the hacking for you, by the way, check out http://www.help-israel-win.org/, where they have an application you can download and install that uses group computer technology (sort of like SETI, Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, http://www.seti.org) – except their application attacks anti-Israel web sites. I don’t know if it’s legal, but it is easy.

But why take chances? With my way, you know you’re safe – and you get the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of your work. I know the anti-Israel crowd is going to flip if people use this tactic, which is easy and requires very little, if any, technical skill; “the Jews own all the web hosting sites,” etc., which could be, but is unlikely. Fortunately, there are plenty of people – of all types – who have self-respect, and who don’t want to be known as the type of people who spread lies and hate. If anyone wants to take this job on (it’s really not hard, and it does get results) and doesn’t know how to proceed (after reading the instructions carefully, of course), please write and I’ll do what I can to help.

And unfortunately, that goes double for Wikipedia’s Arabic language version. What an opportunity to break down stereotypes and promote understanding between strangers, even enemies – and they’re blowing it!

Unfortunately, if we are counting on the “brand name” of Wikipedia to help break down barriers and stereotypes, the site has a lot of work to do, it seems. Wikipedia, with its over 10 million articles (there are only 500,000 in the Encyclopedia Brittanica), is quickly becoming the de facto place to look for information, almost anywhere there is an internet; increasingly, the Wikipedia entry comes up first when you Google for information about almost anything these days.

How does Wikipedia make sure it stays more or less accurate? Through “peer-editing”; it is assumed that when inaccurate information is listed in an article, someone will come in and correct it, or at least present an opposing point of view (http://tinyurl.com/fccjr). According to the site, thousands of articles have been amended or rewritten since Wikipedia came into being on 2001, thus proving the validity of the system.

But what happens when you have a society that has a very definite set of “everybody knows” beliefs – where inaccuracies and outright lies plague Wikipedia articles, but no one does anything about it, because everyone believes them? If somebody writes that the earth is flat in an article, and all the peers believe that the earth is flat, then readers who are counting on the information in Wikipedia are going to read that the earth is flat, and that’s all they’re going to hear. So the system isn’t foolproof.

Unfortunately, this “what if” scenario is not theoretical, but what actually happens on pages I checked out in the Arabic language version of Wikipedia (http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki). Many Westerners get nervous when they see Arabic writing, like there must be some terrorist-oriented message embedded in the text; but thanks to the miracle of Google Translations (http://translate.google.com/translate_t#), Arabic, along with dozens of other languages, no longer need be a mystery. While clearly not professional translations, Google returns a good enough rendering of a page that (usually) gives you a pretty clear picture of what the site in question is trying to say.

I don’t read or speak Arabic, but thanks to Google Translations, I’m able to get a much better insight into the point of view of Arabic speakers online. My method: Type in a search term at the translation site, then copy the resulting Arabic characters and do a Google search for them, then click on the “translate this page” link on results.

Using this method to Google for “hot-button” items like Israel, Jew, Zionism, etc., returns results like you would unfortunately expect, in many cases. Which is what led me to Wikipedia. Interestingly, in Arabic language Google searches, Wikipedia entries were usually at the top of the list, too. That’s good, I thought – wouldn’t Arabic language Wikipedia pages be translations of English language pages on the same subject? Not that I’m such a fan of Wikipedia’s point of view on Israel and Jewish-oriented issues, but it’s a lot more palatable than what many of the “native” Arabic sites present.

But it turns out that Arabic Wikipedia (AW) is not necessarily a translation of English language Wikipedia (EW). While as I mentioned, the Google Translation rendering of these pages is clearly not totally accurate, the discrepancies between AW and EW were so great that you quickly realize that the two versions have very little to do with each other, at least on the hot-button issues. Which to me is a major problem; Wikipedia is such an authority today that if a Wikipedia page says, for example, that the Haganah’s fighting against Arab villages in Palestine before the establishment of Israel is a “genocide,” akin to the Holocaust or the genocide in Rwanda, how can we be surprised when kids in Ramallah, Jenin or Gaza rally behind suicide bombers who wantonly kill Israeli women and children? Wouldn’t we have been happy if Polish Jews conducted an “intifada” against the Nazis? (Note that there is a separate AW page titled “Gaza Holocaust,” referring to a battle in Gaza in March of this year, in which Hamas said 116 Gaza residents were killed).

Of course, you won’t find a hint on AW of what was well documented by the Haganah during the War of Liberation – how residents of these Arab villages actively took part in the war, giving themselves the status of combatants, or how the vast majority ran away when told to do so by the Arab armies invading the newly established state of Israel, the better to clear out and give the Arab Legion a clear field to perpetrate a genocide of their own, against the Jews. Of course, one man’s terror attack is another’s “freedom fight,” as the old saying goes, but you have to really be out there in anti-Israel land to claim that the Haganah conducted a near-genocide against anyone, especially given the well-known and time-and-again proven historical facts.

Among the historic genocides listed on the AW page are the Cambodian genocide, the Rwanda genocide, “French massacres in Algeria from 1830 to 1962” (more about that later), the “Armenian genocide,” (ditto), and others. The next paragraph on this page reads: “Human history has witnessed several cases of mass murder, but the debate is the use of the term genocide by around the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, because this group is the core purpose of genocide, but difficult to demonstrate.” Listed here is “Mongol invasion of Baghdad,” “Annihilation of Native Americans (Indians),” and – “Massacres against the Palestinians by gangs Haganah Jewish at the beginning of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.”

Politics, of course, plays heavily on anything having to do with Jerusalem, and the AW page on the city makes for interesting reading. Prominent on the AW page, for example, are references to “the Judaization of Jerusalem.” The introductory line says “Jerusalem is the largest city of historic Palestine under Israeli control today,” and the city’s status “as the capital of a  Palestinian state within a Palestinian declaration of independence,” is the second sentence, while Security Council 476 and 478 are the context for the mention of the city as Israel’s capital (the resolutions condemned Israel’s unification of the city). Interestingly, the history of Jerusalem on the AW and EW pages are quite different, with Canaanites and Egyptians stressed far more strongly on the AW page (the “debate” link on this page makes clear why).

As far as the entry for Jews goes, the article seemed pretty balanced, except for a comparison of Purim to Halloween (wearing costumes and getting drunk), and of Chanukah to Christmas (gift giving) – false stereotypes Western Jews worked hard to debunk. That, and a discussion as to how the Jews and the Children of Israel are not the same entity (not very clear, but appears to be not very complimentary). Plus, a reference to “Aerosmith: Crazy,” which I always thought was a song by that rock group, but turns out to be, when you click on the link, a discussion of a heavy Quranic concept! The entry on Israel recited the country’s familiar history, but key elements (“In 1947, the world witnessed the partition of Palestine, which gave the Jews living in Palestine 55% of the land, when they accounted for 30% of the population”) are just plain wrong.

Besides issues that concern us, Wikipedia gives us an insight into how Arabs see their own history. There is no reference to a century of French genocide in Algeria in EW, but there is a page dedicated to the Sétif massacre, in which French troops shot and killed Algerian rioters (as few as 1,100, or as many as 45,000, depending on who you believe). Most interesting was the AW entry on the Armenian genocide, compared to the EW entry. On the AW page, it appears as if the Armenians were in league with the Russians to fight the Ottoman Turks, and the Armenians died in the general starvation of World War I, like everyone else (ie, there was no “genocide,” and even if there was, the Armenians had it coming, because they acted like “a fifth column” in Turkey, armed by the Russians). The EW page on this subject has the more familiar version of an organized extermination of the Armenians.

The disparity between the two versions is really wide – which means that one of the Wikipedias isn’t getting the story right. I could go on, but you get the idea. Like a Tower of Babel, Wikipedia aims to build a body of knowledge that all humanity can benefit from. But if we’re not speaking the same language – figuratively and intellectually, not just literally – what chance do we have of making that happen? And should Wikipedia be lending its authoritative name to the process?

Google, for example, believes in Israel’s hi-tech potential to such an extent that it has opened not one, but two research and development centers in the past four years – one of the few countries outside the U.S. where the company has multiple R&D offices, says Google Israel CEO Meir Brand. “That’s an honor reserved for large countries, like Russia and China,” Brand says, “so it’s an indication of just how advanced Israel’s hi-tech capabilities are that the company would open two R&D centers here,” in Tel Aviv and in Haifa. “We’ve found a huge pool of scientists, engineers and mathematicians full of innovative ideas. Israelis tend to think ‘out of the box,’ a trait highly valued at Google,” he adds. As a company, Brand adds, Google seeks out workers who can think and act independently – a trait Israelis are well known for, and that fits right in with the Google ethos.

Besides converting Google products, such as Gmail and Google Docs, for use in Hebrew – (projects that will also benefit users of other right to left languages, like Arabic, says Brand), the Google Israel staff – about 100 people work in the two centers, Brand says – are at the forefront of delivering some of Google’s latest and greatest products. Among them are Google Trends, which lets you research and compare what people are looking for online, contests and annotations for Youtube, and Google Insights for Search, which lets you compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames. And Google believes in Israel’s hi-tech future, as well, Brand says: Among other projects, the company has developed, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, layers for Google Earth that will help Israeli students learn history, geography, and other core subjects.

Cisco, another worldwide technology powerhouse, also has a huge presence in Israel – with some 750 employees, mostly engineers, working at the company’s R&D facility in Netanya, says Cisco’s Israel director Bina Rezinovsky, making it the company’s second largest research center outside the U.S. Many of those workers came to Cisco as the result of the company’s purchases of Israeli companies; to date, Cisco has acquired nine Israeli companies, which, says Rezinovsky, have furnished the technology for some of Cisco’s most important products, such as the network management systems designed by Israel’s Sheer Networks. Cisco acquired Sheer in 2005 for some $100 million, part of the over $1 billion Cisco has invested in Israeli companies over the past decade.

“Israelis are imaginative, and they are familiar with technology, two traits that make the human resources of the country very valuable to Cisco,” says Rezinovsky. While they can sometimes be a bit “provincial,” she adds, the “Israeli brain is dynamic and creative, and that’s what we need on our development teams. For Cisco, Israel is a second home, an island of stability in a difficult world economy. We have no plans to stop investing here.” Cisco has had great success in Israel, Rezinovsky says, and gives back to the community as well: Besides job training programs in peripheral areas, the company runs the Mediterranean Youth Technology Club (MYTecC), an education initiative aimed at giving ninth and tenth grade pupils from the Mediterranean region the skills needed for them to become future business and social leaders, and the Digital Cities project, which includes more than 20 different projects aimed at improving relations between Israeli Jews and Arabs in Nazareth and Nazareth Illit.

When it comes to working with Israel, however, the “grandfather” of all multinational investors here is, of course, IBM, which began working in the country in 1949. Invited to help the fledgling country with defense needs, the company stayed, and grew from its initial three employees to about 2,200 today, says IBM Israel CEO Meir Nissensohn. “We also had the privilege of opening the first R&D lab, in 1972, when we established the IBM Science Center, developing projects in the medical, agricultural, and other fields.” Today, IBM has three research labs, with almost 1,000 employees – including the company’s largest research lab outside the U.S., in Haifa. And despite its image as a large, mature corporation with very specific policies, IBM actually prefers the less formal and rigid mentality of Israeli workers when it comes to development. “Israelis are very big on innovation, which is key for any corporation today, including ours. There is a huge amount of innovation on all levels in Israel, and the workforce is well educated and motivated.”

IBM also pioneered the practice of acquiring Israeli companies, and last year it snapped up three more, including XIV, FilesX, and Diligent Technologies. Those acquisitions made IBM the largest foreign investor in Israel in 2008. IBM is a strong player in data storage, says Nissensohn, “and companies like XIV and FilesX, developed using the strong talents of the Israeli hi-tech workforce, provide top of the line solutions for IBM to bring to its customers worldwide. Israel has become a worldwide center for data storage innovations, and we intend to continue our growth in this area.” IBM is also well known for giving back to the community, and has a long history of supporting educational and cultural institutions, and supplying schools with computers, libraries, and scholarships for promising students.

Microsoft, which sells more software worldwide than anyone else, is also heavily invested in Israel. Microsoft Israel has a large research and development center here, and has acquired several Israeli companies, says Microsoft Israel CEO Danny Yamin; today, about 700 people work for MS Israel. “Microsoft sees Israel as an excellent source of innovative workers, and we at MS Israel are proud of our contribution to Microsoft’s worldwide development,” Yamin says. Those traits are essential in the software business, says Yamin, and Israel has more than pulled its weight in developing important Microsoft products. “Their ability to think out of the box and get past formal strictures is a big advantage,” Yamin says.

MS Israel is also heavily involved in the local market, helping large and small businesses, as well as consumers, with software solutions. “Microsoft was one of the first companies to commit to translating its products into other languages, and in fact, any new version of Windows or Office is available in Hebrew the same day it is released worldwide,” Yamin says. “We see ourselves has having an important responsibility to the local market. According to an IVC survey, about 90,000 workers in Israeli hi-tech use Microsoft products. That’s a large group, and they look to us for solutions.” Microsoft Israel’s commitment to the country also expresses itself in the many philanthropic and education projects the company runs; the Maala index for Social Responsibility consistently gives the company its highest ranking for philanthropy and community involvement.

In a sense, the story of Israel’s rise as a hi-tech giant is one of the most inspiring chapters in the country’s history, and one of the greatest signs of the success of the Zionist project. It’s a sure sign of the country’s maturity, and the resources of its people; if multinationals, whose bottom line is the bottom line, are rushing to invest in Israel, we must be doing something right!

Why can’t “they” figure out that we won’t do business with them if they treat us like dirt – or worse, cash cows? Don’t they realize that, ironically, the more they don’t try to “sell” us something we don’t believe we need – and instead help us figure out what we need – the more likely we are to buy from them, not just once, but over and over? With competition cutthroat in the market right now, only the strong will survive – and “strong” in this case means knowing how to care for your customer.

So, given the tough economic climate right now, SAP Israel can consider itself lucky that it has a manager of the caliber of Gilad Gans. Gans, Managing Director of SAP Israel, is responsible for the overall marketing, sales and distribution of SAP products in Israel. Gans oversees the strategic planning and implementation of sales and field activities, professional services and product development, as well as leading investment opportunities in the region. And, he is a chief reason for SAP’s strong showing in an otherwise so-so economy. How strong? “Israel is the second largest market in the world for rampups of SAP’s CRM 2007, after Germany,” Gans says, a significant sales accomplishment that bespeaks a winning strategy – something not lost on SAP executives from countries around the world, who pile into SAP Israel’s Ra’anana office to learn how the local branch has come up with one of the most winning sales strategies of any of the company’s branches anywhere.

SAP, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is the multinational software and information management company, originally based in Germany, that provides a wide range of solutions to customers seeking to make their businesses more efficient, or compete more effectively in the marketplace. Some of SAP’s products include database management, customer relationship management (CRM) software and systems, enterprise resource planning systems, financial planning, and much more. The case of SAP Israel is interesting because it highlights Israel’s unique position and creativity in the world of hi-tech and business – even in the context of what would seem to be a staid, conservative multinational corporation.

When one thinks of a company like SAP, the financial centers of New York, London, or Tokyo come to mind – and while Tel Aviv is certainly advanced enough, none but a handful of Israeli companies would seem to need the services of such a giant.

But one would be wrong to think thus, says Gans. “In Israel, we have about 3,000 customers, 2,500 of which are classified as small businesses with fewer than 50 employees – and many with as few as one employee!” It turns out, says Gans, that his philosophy of working with individual customers to find solutions, not just to sell licenses, has proven a big hit. “Israel is a unique market, because many people have worked in development and engineering. Every Israeli is an ‘engineer,’ having worked at – or established – their own startup at one time or another. Israelis are a very technological people, and in that sense it’s easier to sell solutions here than in many other places,” Gans says.

But what has really made the difference for SAP Israel is Gans’ philosophy of treating even small customers like big ones – by “partnering” with customers to help them find the ideal solution. “Previously, SAP sold licenses for products like other software companies, but now we work with customers as partners, to ensure they are getting what they need to succeed. Personally, I’m more interested in providing a customer with a solution than selling a license – and with the worldwide experience and resources of SAP, I know that we have a solution that will help them accomplish their goals.”

In essence, Gans’ approach is the way high-end sales and marketing staff work with their top customers – except here, it’s SAP’s strategy for working with even small customers. “We are way ahead in sales of other countries with similar sized markets.” In fact, Gans adds, SAP Israel is at the top of the list of company sales organizations selling to small businesses. His next target is the mid-sized business – with between 50 and 2000 employees – which have until now been serviced by local companies. “I think I can prove to them that they are better off with SAP than with their local vendors,” Gans says.

As a result, SAP executives from around the world troop to Israel to get ideas on how to improve their own sales efforts, as well. In fact, Gans says he even gets calls from SAP offices in the Arab world. “We have been working at a steady pace converting SAP products for use in Hebrew systems, and offices in Arab countries often call seeking help on how to make certain features work properly from right to left, like in Hebrew,” he says.

Although Gans expects a somewhat tougher time selling in the near-term, due to the worldwide economic slowdown, he’s not particularly worried. “One thing customers seek during tough times is greater efficiency – saving money wherever possible – and that’s exactly what SAP can do for them,” he says. “In fact, the current situation is an opportunity for us and for our customers. We’re here for the long term, and we want to help them plan for the long term as well. The downturn won’t last forever, and we want to help them – and ourselves – to be here when things clear up.” It’s not about selling licenses – it’s about helping customers find solutions, Gans says. But that, as it turns out, is what prompts them to buy – specifically from SAP.

It’s a lesson I wish the supermarket, the post office, the bank, and all the other places I have to do business with would learn.