Daniel Seaman
Daniel "Danny" Seaman is the Deputy Director General for Information at the Israeli Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs. He formerly served as the Director of the Israel Government Press Office (GPO), part of the Office of the Prime Minister in Jerusalem responsible for the foreign media contingent in Israel. He is one of the foremost experts on the foreign press coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, having headed the Information and Foreign Press Departments of the GPO during the 1990s. He also served as the Foreign Press Liaison for the Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson's unit as an officer. Seaman, who resides in Jerusalem, is married and has three children.
Biography
Seaman was born on a US Air Force base in Germany in 1961. His family emigrated from the United States to Israel in 1971 and settled in the port city of Ashkelon.
He enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces serving in an elite paratroop unit in 1979 and is a veteran of the 1982 Lebanon War.
Seaman completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, with honors, at the City University of New York's Hunter College, while serving at the Consulate General of Israel in New York between 1983 and 1989.
He has served as an advisor and spokesperson to the Governments of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
Seaman was directly responsible for coordinating the press coverage of several heads of states visits to Israel including US President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister (PM) Tony Blair, Canadian PM Jean Chrétien, Australian PM John Howard, Jordan's King Hussein and Chinese Chairman Jiang Zemin. He was a member of the Israeli press delegation to the Aqaba Peace Talks.
Seaman received the Israel Outstanding Civil Service Award in 2000 for coordinating the international press coverage of Pope John Paul II's visit to the Holy Land in March 2000. Seaman was appointed as head of the GPO in December 2000 and worked with thousands of foreign media who covered news events in Israel until 2010. He had worked for the GPO for several years and was the first civil servant promoted to Directorship of the GPO after a period of 30 years. During his tenure as GPO Director he implemented several measures which improved working conditions for foreign journalists in Israel.
He took a leave of absence from his post in November 2008 and announced his candidacy in the Likud party primaries for the 18th Knesset, but withdrew his candidacy.[1]
Seaman lectures on Israeli and Middle-Eastern affairs and appeared on dozens of international news media outlets.
Media coverage
Seaman is mentioned extensively in Stephanie Gutmann's book - "The Other War - Israelis, Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy". Chapter 10 - "His Own Private Jihad" is specifically about his efforts to curb Palestinian influence on the media coverage.[2]
- "Opposing the Digital Pogrom" - Jerusalem Post, March 4, 2010.
- Op-ed on media manipulation in the Middle East Israeli news site Y-Net.
Upon conclusion of his term as GPO Director he gave an extensive interview to the editor of the Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=194079