Everyone knows that Israel has gotten a bad rap lately, and its efforts in the public relations sphere have not been much help.
Sure, Tel Aviv has been named one of the best cities in the world to visit, and one of the hottest party spots if you’re gay. But in the court of international public opinion, Israel finds itself constantly defending itself against attack.
What Israel doesn’t seem to yet realize is that it has a secret weapon in its public relations arsenal. At least one high-profile Israeli has many international friends out there…on Facebook, at least. (For those of you that missed it, an Israeli couple named their kid “Like” as in Facebook, like.) You can question little Like Adler’s parents’ motives and propriety for turning their daughter, born this past May 11, into a media and social networking curiosity. But you can’t argue the fact that this little girl with a highly unlikely name (sorry, couldn’t help myself) has been able to garner more goodwill for her country than anyone else lately.
Just a quick perusal of Like’s Facebook page (“liked” by 4985 people and counting), reveals that she has well-wishers and positive press coverage from every continent. I counted people from 27 different countries in just the several dozen most recent posts on the page. True, we’re talking about countries that are either friendly, neutral, or not too terribly antagonistic toward Israel, such as the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Portugal, the Philippines, Japan, Italy, Singapore, Zambia, Vietnam, and Poland. There’s a whole league of Hispanic countries represented, including Mexico, Honduras, Peru, Guatemala, Spain, and Argentina.
But there are also well-wishers who can’t stop gushing about how beautiful little Like is from Muslim countries with no diplomatic relations with Israel like Pakistan and Indonesia. There were also some posters who wrote in Arabic, but it was difficult to tell what country they were from. Kiwis, too, must have forgiven Israel for its recent espionage fiasco involving forged New Zealand passports.
Could “liking” a cute little baby named Like really make Israel liked among the nations? If only it were, like, that simple.
