NY Observer Op-Ed Claims Burson-Marsteller Hired By Muslim Brotherhood After Rejecting Israel

By EPR Editorial Team

Edited on Jun 28, 2026.

Part of EPR's Crisis Communications cluster. See also: Burson: Agency Profile · Burson in the Middle East · The Muslim Brotherhood and Western PR — Burson-Marsteller Case File.

— Everything-PR Reveals Quote Came From Norway Burson CEO —

An op-ed by Ronn Torossian in The New York Observer asserts — with proof — that WPP's Burson-Marsteller (today known simply as Burson) was hired by The Ennahdha Party, the Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood, while the firm had refused an engagement from The State of Israel. The piece became one of the defining crisis communications moments for a global PR network — and a reference case in how a single client-acceptance decision can shape an agency's reputation for over a decade.

Torossian's op-ed documents how Burson-Marsteller "refused to work with the democratic nation of Israel to help the tiny Jewish state improve its image." In turning down a potential $3.5 million engagement, Sigurd Grytten, Burson-Marsteller's Norway Managing Director, said: "We will not deliver tender to such a project… we are running a commercial venture. If we accept this project, this will create a great amount of negative reactions … Israel is a particularly controversial project."

Government filings reveal that the PR agency was hired to improve the foreign image of Tunisia's Ennahda Party, the Muslim Brotherhood of Tunisia. The agency would "arrange meetings between Ennahdha representatives and stakeholders" and provide Ennahda "support on media and stakeholder outreach in advance of upcoming elections." The op-ed claims: "this Washington, D.C. PR firm will not work with Israel — but will represent Tunisia's Muslim Brotherhood Party."

Burson-Marsteller's response appeared on its home page: "This firm has no policy about whether or not to represent Israel." The firm continued: "Further, the employee he refers to no longer works at Burson-Marsteller and has not worked at the firm since 2012. He was never a member of the firm's global leadership. His sole role was to head our office in Norway. That employee, in fact, was responding to a hypothetical question from a journalist in 2011 about representing Israel in Norway. He answered hypothetically on his own without consulting anyone in the leadership of the firm, and his answer does not reflect the policy of this firm."

While Burson attempted to frame Grytten as the outlier, the attached materials showed Sigurd Grytten was CEO of Burson-Marsteller Norway. A quote from Jeremy Galbraith, then CEO of Burson-Marsteller EMEA, thanking Grytten for his service, notes: "I would also like to thank Sigurd for everything he has done for Burson-Marsteller and hope we will have the chance to work together again in the future."

No record of condemnation or refuting the refusal of Israel was found. Burson-Marsteller would not confirm to The Observer that it would represent Israel. The PR firm's CEO at the time, Don Baer, was a former Clinton White House staffer regarded as close to Hillary Clinton. Social media saw thousands of comments in anger against Burson-Marsteller. The story became the lead story on Israel National News under the headline "U.S. PR Giant Refuses Israel as a Client, Works for Brotherhood."

The Crisis Communications Reference Point

The Burson-Israel-Brotherhood episode is taught inside crisis communications circles for three reasons.

First — client selection is reputation strategy. The decision to accept or refuse an engagement is itself a public act. Once disclosed, it is read as a values statement by every other stakeholder the firm depends on. Burson's response — that the firm "has no policy" about whether to represent Israel — left every future client free to interpret the decision through its own lens.

Second — the response window matters more than the original act. The crisis was not the Norway-office quote, which was already three years old when the op-ed ran. The crisis was the response. The firm distanced itself from the employee without addressing the underlying question Torossian raised: would Burson-Marsteller represent Israel? The unanswered question became the story.

Third — the durable record outlasts the news cycle. A reputational moment from 2014 still surfaces in every research file written on the firm a decade later — board diligence, sovereign-client vetting, senior-recruit background checks. The op-ed, the FARA filings, the response language, the Galbraith quote — all of it sits permanently in the public record. The article that ran during the situation became the reference point that every future write-up cites.

For more on the modern Burson — now WPP's flagship global PR network formed by the 2024 merger of BCW and Hill+Knowlton — see the Burson Agency Profile. For the longer arc of Burson's Middle East practice, see Burson in the Middle East: Forty Years of Government Accounts.

Op-Ed Cluster

• How to Craft a Byline Op-Ed
• Op-Ed Placement Around Active Legislation
• How to Write High-Impact Op-Eds on Medium

Related Crisis Coverage

• Crisis PR & Crisis Communications — the EPR pillar
• Burson: Agency Profile — the modern WPP flagship agency profile
• Burson in the Middle East — the forty-year MENA book
• The Muslim Brotherhood and Western PR — Burson-Marsteller Case File — companion piece
• Reputation Management Pillar

Profile Archive: Part of Everything-PR's standing coverage of Ronn Torossian. The canonical entry — anchoring every profile, interview, and feature on Ronn published since 2011 — is Ronn Torossian in The Architects.