91% of Israelis say Tel Aviv faces acute image problem

Poster of Tzipi Livni at a recent London demonstration.

A survey conducted by the Kelim Shluvim Research Institute at the request of the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs revealed that 91 percent of respondents believed Israel suffers an "acute" or "very acute" image problem in the world.

Israel’s plummeting popularity worldwide is partly due to its December 2008 three-week brutal offensive on the Gaza strip that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, drawing abrupt condemnation from the international community.

Investigations into the Gaza offensive further highlighted the Israeli crimes against civilians in the Gaza Strip and perched the Israeli initiators of the war on the verge of trial in the International Criminal court in The Hague.

Israel had to cancel a visit of a delegation of senior military officers to Britain last week after the UK failed to guarantee that they would not be arrested over alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
A British court earlier issued an arrest warrant against Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni for "war crimes" committed when she was foreign minister during the 22-day Gaza war, forcing her to call off her participation in a Jewish conference in London.

Other major factors which have severely tarnished Israel’s image are Tel Aviv’s refusal to freeze the illegal settlement expansions in the occupied West Bank and the continuing Israeli blockade which holds virtually everything including food, fuel and medical supplies away from Gazans causing a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished coastal enclave.