Daniel Shek
Daniel Shek is a former Israeli ambassador to Paris.[1]
Background
Shek's parents were orginally from Prague, where they met in the Theresienstadt ghetto during the Nazi occupation. His father, Zeev Shek, was a personal secretary of Israeli foreign minister Moshe Sharett, and one of Israel's first diplomats.[1]
Military service
Shek served as a photographer in IDF military intelligence.[1]
Diplomatic career
After studing general history and French literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, worked at the Israeli embassy in Brussels for a year. He was subsequently accepted into the Foreign Ministry cadet's course in 1984.[1]
On Hasbara
Shek told Haaretz in December 2011 that expectations of what 'hasbara' or public relations can achieve are inflated:
- "To a great extent that's true. In every conflict, there has always been a military and a diplomatic dimension. In both of these dimensions, it is clear who is victorious: the one who is stronger. In the third dimension, the battle for public opinion, it's the opposite: The strong one always loses, and the Palestinians use the third dimension, and rightly so. There's no hasbara in the world that can explain away an Israeli tank confronting a fighter with a Kalashnikov rifle who is standing in a street with an open sewer, in a refugee camp in Jabalya."[1]