Special to WJW

For many Zionists, it has become a cliche that Israel, particularly the Israel Defense Forces, has poor public relations.

Benjamin Anthony, a sergeant in the IDF reserves, is trying to do something about that.

As founder of Our Soldiers Speak, an organization that, according to its Web site, aims to "bring the truth from the front line of Israel's battlefields to the people of the Diaspora," Anthony has been traveling the United States, speaking out against what he considers an anti-Israel media bias.

"Israelis have not yet learned how to play the game with the media," Anthony, 29, said in an interview.

"It is far easier to report on a story without corroboration than it is to wait around for confirmation of allegations," he said. "Of course, those who fight against us don't wait for evidence and make sensational stories. We don't do that and can't do that, so a journalist's headline is going to arrive by way of the other side rather than ours."

Anthony was in the Washington area last week, speaking with students at the University of Maryland at College Park and congregants at Beth Sholom in Potomac, as part of a three-month United States tour. His tour comes as Israeli high school seniors -- conscientous objectors -- have been visiting the country to lament what they see as Israel's oppression of Palestinians.

"We obviously speak about the virtues of the IDF; we don't speak against it," he said. His group, which includes another 15 reservists, all with experience on the front lines, is independent of the IDF, but he said that he is open to working with Israel's military.

Our Soldiers Speak is also apolitical, Anthony said, noting he would be happy to work with any organization that supports the IDF. That category, incidentally, does not include J Street.

"I personally do not view J Street as a pro-Israel lobby," Anthony said. "I think they are rather exploiting the fact that they are Jewish in order to bring a very distracting message against Israeli society and the Israeli state in general."

So as he sifts through the distracting messages and the biased headlines, what does Anthony say about his experiences on the front lines?

The most important message of Our Soldiers Speak is that the Israeli soldier is a "reluctant warrior," who dreams of peace in a uniquely Jewish way. He talks of something "in the fiber" of Israeli soldiers -- something inherent in the ways they are raised, whether in observant or secular households -- that leads them to sacrifice their own lives in an unprecedented and "not militarily and strategically sound" fashion to protect Palestinian citizens.

Israelis soldiers go into their service with the singular aim of becoming civilians again, he said.

By the end of his U.S. trip in December, Anthony expects to have visited 40 universities, and he has recently been invited to venues in South Africa and Australia.

He admits his goals are somewhat abstract, in contrast to military missions, which tend to be concrete. "I'm afraid I work in intangibles," he said, and there is no hard evidence to testify that any of his audience members are swayed by his words to support Israel.

He said he receives many e-mails from people who hear his talks, and all it takes is a few converts to tell their friends about him for his message to spread like wildfire.

"I really feel that the diplomatic battle is every bit as vital and important as the military one," he said.