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| By israelinsider staff March 24, 2007 |
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War... What war? Terror... What terror? We have T & A!
The beer 'n' boobs magazine Maxim is invading the Holy Land ready to shoot Israeli women.
Foreign Ministry officials hope the locale fauna in hotinis will get foreign men all hot and Zionistic. "All the surveys we have done shows that the biggest hasbara problem that Israel has is with males from the age of 18-35," effused David Saranga, consul for media and public affairs at Israel's New York consulate.
No clothes, no problem.
"Israel does not seem relevant for them, and that is bad for branding," Saranga said. "In order to change their perception of Israel as only a land of conflict, we want to present to them an Israel that interests them." That means removing superfluous textiles.
The nine-person Maxim team, including photographers, a reporter, hairstylists and make-up people, will arrive for a five-day photo-shoot on Tuesday, using Tel Aviv-Jaffa -- and the old and new motif -- as a backdrop for the photographs, the Jerusalem Post reported. Old idea, new babes.
Maxim, launched in the US in 1997, claims a circulation of "around 2.5 million" and boasts that it is the "#1 men's lifestyle magazine in both the country and the world." Move over Playboy.
The Medium is the Massage
The Israeli models, Saranga said, were a "Trojan horse" to present Israel as a modern country with nice beaches and pretty women. "Many Americans don't even know we have beaches," he said.
Let alone bioches.
Let's just hope the visiting Greeks remember to bring their Trojans once they've penetrated the gates of the holy city.
But what about the interests of foreign women? Is Saranga willing to strip down to a sarong? No comment.
But he did say that blurbs would be written about each of the seven models to show the diversity of Israeli society, including, apparently, a wide range of cup sizes. "Israel is viewed as a very macho society," Saranga said. "We want to show that we are a normal society like all others." Normal society, normal needs, but not too much need for coverage: skin coverage that is.
Israel's consul-general in New York, Arye Mekel, said, "I want people to think about beautiful people in beautiful places when they think of Israel, as well as see the diversity of Israeli society and culture." Israel, he added, "is a vibrant and vivid place, and capturing this on the pages of America's biggest male magazine helps us reaffirm our brand in an important way."
Mekel, too, apparently will not be posing.
The photo spread is scheduled to appear in the magazine's June edition, the Post reported, with an article on tourism in Israel scheduled to appear the following month: first the flesh, then the details. Apparently they reasoned that Maxim's hormone-raging readers would not bother for the explanation.
The project is being executed with the assistance of the American-Israel Friendship League and ISRAEL21c, a non-profit news agency focusing on Israel "beyond the headlines."
David Brinn, editorial director of ISRAEL21c, said the idea behind the project was to "open up another lens" so that people can view Israel through a lens that is not militaristic, religious or historic. |
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