Media
Tribute to an outgoing Consul General
July 23, 2012
TORONTO — Israeli consul general to Toronto and Western Canada, Amir Gissin, arguably did more than his predecessors to promote Israel and stave off anti-Israel sentiment in North America during his time here.
Next week, the affable diplomat-warrior returns to Israel with his family after five years of service in Toronto.
Since his arrival in 2008, Gissin’s list of accomplishments include leading a major rebranding campaign of Israel that touted the positive impact the Jewish state has had on the world via technology, medicine and cultural exports.
He made it a priority to ensure the many disparate Jewish communities in and around Toronto – those of London, Hamilton, Kingston and Kitchener-Waterloo, among others – were always included in the discussion on ways to promote Israel and combat anti-Zionism.
He championed intra-cultural dialogue between the Jewish community and almost every other ethnic community in the Toronto area.
Toronto's Middle East proxy war
November 6, 2009
Last winter at York University, a group of students closed themselves in the offices of Hillel, a Jewish campus group, as another group of angry students shouted anti-Semitic slurs. Incorrect information appeared in the following article.
Imagine this dilemma: You're Israel's highest-ranking public relations expert. The world's news coverage, which shapes public opinion, is at best neutral and more typically hostile to Israel.
Is there a way to change the subject - to associate Israel with something besides tanks and checkpoints? A country afflicted with warts, perhaps, but also rich in culture and high-tech innovations? Other nations and cities have successfully engaged in similar rebranding exercises. Could Israel? And if so, where should it begin?
That was the strategic exercise Amir Gissin undertook three years ago, as director of public affairs at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.
Three years later, he's Israel's consul-general for Toronto - the city he chose as the pilot project for rebranding.
Israel ups the stakes in the propaganda war
November 20, 2006
Amir Gissin runs what he calls '"Israel's Explanation Department". Which is why it is surprising to hear him admit that many Israelis think "the whole problem is that we don't explain ourselves correctly".
Last week, as al-Jazeera launched an Arab view of the world into English-speaking homes worldwide, Gissin was a man under pressure. At the David Bar Ilan conference on the media and Middle East, he faced an audience of Israelis who were unhappy about the way the propaganda battle with Hizbullah was fought and lost during the war in the Lebanon. They wanted to know how it could be done better next time, because most people in Israel seem to think there will be a next time with Hizbullah soon.
Gissin said the words of his English-speaking spokespeople could not compete with the power of the pictures of civilians killed in the Israeli attack on Lebanese towns like Qana. And the Israeli parliament will not spend the money on an Israeli counterpart to al-Jazeera.
But Gissin was not down-hearted. He declared there to be a "war on the web" in which Israel had a new weapon, a piece of computer software called the "internet megaphone".