Israel: Arab Governments Are 'Borat'-ing Us

According to Israeli public relations official Ido Aharoni Tuesday: "The Arabs, our adversaries, have succeeded in doing to us what 'Borat' did for Kazakhstan," Haaretz reports. The reference is of course to Sasha Baron Cohen's 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, which depicted an anti-Semitic, primitively atavistic and oblivious Kazakh journalist touring America through a slew of outrageous and embarrassing scenarios using seemingly innocent civilians.

Following Borat's release, the Kazakh government in September 2006 launched an advertising campaign to combat the the scurrilous image of the country that Cohen portrayed in the film, according to the Telegraph.

Likewise, Aharoni, who heads the Brand Israel project, insists that Arab governments "have created an image [for Israelis] whose connection to reality is very weak," according to the Haaretz report, and that his complaint echoes a similar one made by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who bemoaned the image of Israel held by many throughout the world.

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