Reflections on my trip to Israel

This was some trip!

Most of the attendees of #Digitell18 with the Minister of Strategic Affairs

The main focus of the trip was the first Digitell conference, where I was honored to be invited with some 60 other influential Israel advocates worldwide to discuss how we can work together to support Israel. It was sponsored by Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs and they actually did it right; not trying to dictate the message but coming up with ways for bloggers, Facebookers, tweeters and other Israel advocates to work together and get resources when necessary from each other.

Other bloggers and I have often discussed how come we can't have a unified message the way the Israel haters usually do. I think the answer is - because we think, and they parrot.

How many times have you seen a video for a BDS group where one person shouts out a phrase in a megaphone and dozens of people mindlessly repeat what the leader says? It only happens because they attract human drones who cannot think for themselves. Pro-Israel advocates, on the other hand, often disagree with each other - because we are thinkers, not followers.

So the challenge is to get us to work together in a way that preserves our independence. I think the conference did a great job going towards that goal.

I also hosted two events of my own in Israel, both put together very quickly (perhaps too quickly.) One was the "Donald Trump: Good for the Jews?" symposium in Jerusalem last Sunday, which I have already posted the videos of, and the other was the live Hasby Awards last Thursday.

The Hasbys were fun. I was hoping for a bigger crowd, but a Thursday night a couple of weeks before Passover in Ramat Gan is perhaps not the ideal time and place for such an event.

The Hasbys have a number of facets. They are an awards show to highlight the best Israel advocates. They are a mini-symposium on the topic of Israel advocacy. They are a means to tell the world about advocates and videos that many might not have heard of otherwise. They are an excuse to get like-minded people who love Israel, from the left and the right, to meet each other. And, this year, Lex Markus also turned them into a small expo of Hasbara organizations, getting a couple of them to set up booths outside the awards themselves.

It will take a little time to edit the Hasby video footage (there are some sound problems, unfortunately.)

Because these events took up almost all of my time, I didn't get the chance to do what I normally do when we come to Israel, which is interviews and exclusive video tours.

I wish I could have stayed longer!

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