Israel's Battle of Ideas: Course Overview

An important part of the Beyond Images project is to provide education and training seminars on Israel's Battle of Ideas.  We strongly believe that more people should be equipped and galvanised to take part in Israel's public battle of ideas and information.  Our seminars are run by Beyond Images director Andrew White.  Since 2005 over 1100 people have attended these seminars, in the UK, Israel and Sweden, together with 300 sixth formers.  Here is an outline of the seminar

Andrew White's five week modular course - Autumn 2007.

Each session lasts 1 hour, and was delivered in a London community.

Week 1 Israel 's fundamental case Tuesday 30 October

•  What is ‘making Israel 's case'?

•  Israel 's ‘battle of ideas': rethinking objectives

•  Some Key Messages

•  Strategies for the community

•  Engagement: making a difference

•  Project: reviewing ‘Key Messages' document

Week 2 Key topics Tuesday 6 November

•  ‘If only Israel would agree to a Palestinian state, there'd be peace….'

•  ‘The West must engage with Hamas….'

•  ‘The Palestinians are victims of Israel ….'

•  ‘The Jews took over Palestine in 1948…'

•  ‘ Israel is the root of the problems of the Middle East ….'

•  Project: Economist article on Israel 's settlers ( 11 October 2007 ) –letter

Week 3 Israel on the web: an online guide 13 November

•  Reviewing projects from Weeks 1 and 2

•  Jerusalem Post / Daily Alert

•  Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs / NGO Monitor

•  MEMRI / CAMERA / Honest Reporting

•  Myths & Facts by Mitchell Bard

•  Israel21c /One Family / Keren Malki

•  Blogs / networking sites / Wikipedia – power to the users…..

•  Project: recommending a programme for a British church group on “what Israel is really like…”

Week 4 Israel's democratic and humanitarian values 20 November

•  “ Israel 's a democracy” – making it more than a slogan…

•  The rights of Israeli Arabs

•  The Israeli courts and Israel 's security fence

•  When and how to highlight Israel ‘beyond the conflict'

•  Save A Child's Heart / IsraAID / Yad Sarah

•  Israeli healthcare advances

•  Israel 's disaster relief efforts

•  Solar energy; water technologies; curing blindness in children

Week 5 Panel discussion and course round-up 27 November

This panel discussion brought together two very experienced Israel advocates, sharing their “at the coalface” experiences, and discussing the challenges ahead. The discussion was facilitated by Andrew White.

Andrew also make some concluding comments about the five-week course.

Feedback from participants after the completion of the course

A total of 195 people attended this course. They represented a cross-section of people from within the London Jewish community. Of the 11 people who filled in feedback forms, 10 called the course “excellent”, and said they would attend a similar course in the future. The following comments were also received: “This course made the case for Israel factually not emotionally….”; “it avoided whitewashing problems inside Israel ”; and “informative and succinct”.

Beyond Images mission statement

The purpose of the Beyond Images project is to provide facts, arguments, resources and techniques to help people engage effectively in Israel 's global battle of information and ideas. The project is an independent, volunteer-run and not-for-profit project.