Monday, June 13, 2011

Stupid Publicity Stunt Watch

Mk Ben Ari did a silly publicity stunt, as described by the Jerusalem Post:

brought dozens of Sudanese refugees to the pool at Tel Aviv's Gordon Beach on Sunday. They intended to make a statement about the refugee situation in south Tel Aviv. 

"You northerners care about human rights? Then give them human rights in Gordon, Afeka, and Ramat Aviv,"said Ben-Gvir to a group of pool-goers. He continued, "south Tel Aviv is the back yard of the State of Israel... and we want to make the division equal, refugees everywhere, not just in Tikva neighborhood," Army Radio reported.

The stunt was intended to show that the "Rich" and "Left Wing" Tel Aviv yuppies, are only really so tolerant in other people's neighberhood. Did the stunt work? depends what newspaper you read. Rotter.Net - a scoop forum that is frequented by right wing religious demographic is filled with threads reporting that the local Tel Aviv population fled the swimming pool amidst racist comments. NRG covered the story but didn't report on the reaction of the Native Tel Aviv population. Glatz (Army Radio) reported that the pool did indeed become empty from swimmers - but claimed that this was due to the commotion caused by the press and Mk Ben Ari.

Does this stunt prove anything? nope. Most people would leave a pool that suddenly gets swamped by 40 new swimmers, and one annoying Mk. What it does prove is a certain cynicism of Mk Ben Ari, who is using the illegal immigrants to make a point. The NRG story finished with a quote that sums it up. When the reporter asked one of the immigrants why he came he answered "The boss (בעל הבית) said to come - I don't know why, but the boss said to come".

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