Israel’s recently announced decision to mount a massive international public relations campaign has prompted a flood of reactions and opinions from across the ideological spectrum, reports the New York Times. The initiative will engage Israeli citizens as traveling spokesmen on behalf of the Jewish state.

The Information and Diaspora Affairs Ministry is distributing pamphlets to Israelis traveling abroad and sponsoring classes to instruct people on how to present their country in a more positive light. The literature and courses emphasize promoting Israel as a sophisticated and technologically advanced society whose national policies “are not the source of regional conflict,” the article continues.

“To counter the big money invested by Arab states in propaganda against Israel, we have to mobilize our human capital, meaning the residents of Israel,” the minister of information told the New York Times.

However, the campaign has raised alarm bells for many who are familiar with the Jewish state and its related regional issues, although they would concede Israel does have a genuine problem with international perception.

“I think it is puerile,” political science professor Shlomo Avineri of Hebrew University in Jerusalem told the New York Times. “Some of the information is ridiculous, and behind it I find a Bolshevik mentality... There is never any intimation that some of our problems have to do with actual policies.”

At the annual Israel Tourism Conference in Tel Aviv, Ido Aharoni, the head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s brand management team, commented that although there is widespread global support for Israel’s right to exist, there are few foreigners who view the country as anything less than a nation in constant conflict, according to the Jerusalem Post.

“Political support doesn’t translate into consumer affinity... In the modern age it is no less important to be attractive than it is to be in the right,” Aharoni said.

The initiative was partially motivated by a recent report by the Reut Institute, a Tel Aviv think tank. The report indicated that “Israel’s legitimacy is being attacked by a variety of individuals [in the West],” according to an Arab News article.

The announcement of the PR campaign also comes on the heels of an international uproar over the murder of Hamas member Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai, which many detractors are eager to tie to the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency.

Israel will continue to lose substantial support from Europeans if it is true that the Mossad used European passports to enter Dubai before the assassination, writes Gregg Carlstrom of non-partisan Middle East news blog The Majlis.

Others are more direct in their critique of Israel’s politics. “The country, or at least the current administration, seems incapable of learning from its mistakes,” comments The National in an editorial. “It is past time that Israel abandoned its blind determination to kill its enemies. Surely it must be obvious that the political cost outweighs any potential benefit... No public relations campaign can change this fact.”

But in another opinion piece for Arab News, Ramzy Baroud claims that Israel has the Western news media “devoted” to pushing a positive image of the country. He stresses that although Israel may take credit for successfully retaining international support for the country, Western media is responsible for Israel’s image

“The secret of Israeli ‘success,’ if any, was not its own doing,” he writes. Yet, “Israeli officials continue to congratulate themselves on a job well done, and must be preparing yet another marvelous [propaganda] campaign,” Baroud observes.

Baroud and Israel might agree on one thing though-- regardless of their past triumphs, global support for Israel is waning. “Despite the fanfare and self-congratulating commentary, Israel has now largely lost the media war,” Baroud concludes.

Carlo Strenger at Haaretz agrees that the Israeli government’s policies are mainly responsible for shaping international opinion of the country. “Ultimately Israel’s standing in the world hinges on one central factor: the continuing occupation of large parts of the West Bank and maintaining dozens of mini-settlements there,” he writes.

“The contrast between Israel’s human, cultural, social and economic reality and the paralysis maintained by its political class is stunning,” Strenger continues.

On the same day that the PR campaign was announced by the information ministry, Ron Dermer, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior advisor, said that the Israeli government must also mount a negative campaign against its enemies, reports the Jerusalem Post.

One public relations expert, who spoke at the recent annual Herzliya Conference on National Security in Israel, commented that although Israel may be a technologically advanced, sophisticated country with a high quality of life, the re-branding campaign that the information ministry has proposed will “fail miserably.”

Writing on the blog for his firm Empax, Martin Kace asks, “How is it possible to brand the country in a way that speaks only of progress, fun and modernity, asking of the world to ignore the military and the conflict? It’s not.” Kace goes on to posit that Israel’s attempt at re-branding will not be taken seriously by the international community unless they acknowledge the conflict.

“To bring forth a brand that avoids these is just spin in the eyes of the global public; and the line between spin and outright lie grows thinner by the hour,” he concludes.