Israel Wins the War Yet Loses the Global PR Battle

October 7 will mark the second anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, Americans’ views of Israel have turned more negative over the past three years. More than half of U.S. adults (53%) now express an unfavorable opinion of Israel, up from 42% in March 2022, before the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip.

In addition, Canada, France, Australia, Portugal and England have recognized a Palestinian state, citing the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza.

The Israeli government is worried enough about the decline of U.S. support that it has hired Genesis Consulting, a strategic consulting firm based in Israel, to conduct a campaign to improve Israel’s image in the United States through strategic communications support, content creation and influencer outreach. But that’s not the prime topic of this essay.

The main thesis of this article is that, as our advertising kin know, a long propaganda campaign can work, unlike one-shot public relations campaigns that last a year or less, as most PR agency programs do.

In this case, I’m referring to the yearslong propaganda campaign waged by anti-Israelis, anti-Semites and pro-Palestinian pressure groups against the only democratic state in the region and the only one the United States can depend on if needed.

But the anti-Israeli campaign could not succeed without the aid of the anti-Israeli media in the U.S., which plays up the suffering of Palestinians daily and rarely reports on the suffering of Israelis, who have lived under threat since the Jewish state was founded on May 14, 1948. Since then, Israel has continually been attacked by groups mostly funded by Iran and Qatar, whose stated purpose is to remove Israel from the world’s maps, as is Hamas’ objective.

History shows that only when Jews are being killed by the millions, as in the Holocaust, is there sympathy for their plight. When they are winning, as Israel is in Gaza, anti-Semitism, never fully asleep, awakens in many forms. But it is the openly pro-Palestinian slant of the media, led by The New York Times and most cable TV stations, that has resulted in Israel’s decline of support. PR practitioners and clients should learn lessons from this. One-and-done PR campaigns are usually a waste of money. It takes years of repeating the same message, as anti-Israeli groups and media have done, to convince the public that a No. 10 pencil is better than a No. 9 one, as our advertising colleagues know.

The repeat tactic by anti-Israeli propagandists is similar to the ones used by Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump: Say it often enough and people will believe it.

A post from the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem on Jan. 10, 2024, in part: “Hitler’s ‘big lie’ technique used propaganda to convey the big lie and garner the support of the masses. Successful propaganda spoke to people’s emotions more than their intellect, was limited to a few points, and harped on slogans. He said repeating simple slogans was necessary for the masses to retain them.

“Hitler’s words ring with a chilling truth. Despite his plan’s evil intent, he knew how to get it past the people. When he became the head of state in Germany, Hitler implemented his strategy precisely. He fabricated the ‘big lie’ of the evil Jew causing Germany’s troubles, and he used propaganda to instill it in people’s minds, preparing the way for the extermination of the Jewish people.

“Hitler’s big lie technique is still at work today. Mein Kampf was translated into Arabic back in the 1930s and has been one of the all-time best sellers throughout the Muslim world since.

“Israel is defending its right to exist and following international humanitarian war law while doing so. Israel is not attempting to destroy the Palestinian people. Hamas, however, wants to wipe Israel off the map and has made it clear it won’t stop until that happens, saying Oct. 7—when terrorists killed and mutilated more than 1,400 innocent people—will happen again and again.”

Today, the big lie technique has been a constant tool of President Trump. Americans are fed constant lies by the president, the most outrageous one, in my opinion, being that the thugs who stormed the Capitol, killing five policemen, are patriots.

Reminders

Refresher: Hamas, the terrorist government of Gaza, was elected by the Palestinian people in 2006. Ever since, Hamas has said it wants to eliminate Israel from the world’s map and has attacked the Jewish state every few years.

Refresher: The latest war was initiated when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and resulting in 251 people being taken hostage, as some still are.

Refresher: In the days following the assault, much of the world condemned the Hamas attack and said Israel had the right to defend itself.

Refresher: World opinion about Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas attacks vanished, as usual, when the Israeli army began defeating Hamas’ forces.

Just asking

What would England, France, Australia, Canada and the U.S. do if they were attacked? That’s a rhetorical question. We know what they would do: fight until the threat of another attack was no longer possible.

Hamas has said many times it will continue to attack Israel until the country no longer exists. What is Israel supposed to do, let Hamas attack it every two or three years until there are no more Jews left?

Why is it that as soon as Israel gains the upper hand during its many battles with Hamas, Israel is condemned by the United Nations and the world turns against the Jewish state? Could it be that the world loves dead Jews and not living Jews?

Why hasn’t the Democratic leadership condemned Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for labeling Israel’s war against Hamas a genocide?

Why are many Democratic office holders supporting the election of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a socialist who isn’t even a Democrat, despite his saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza?

Why haven’t civil rights advocates condemned anti-Israeli protesters for occupying Microsoft’s president’s office, as they did on Aug. 26, and before then blocking entrances to college buildings to students who support Israel?

Even though it’s widely known that Hamas locates its military in civilian areas, why does Israel always get blamed when civilians, including so-called journalists, are killed, instead of blaming Hamas for positioning its military in civilian areas, a technique started by Yasser Arafat more than a half century ago?

Why is it that anyone in Gaza who puts the word “PRESS” on a shirt is considered a bona fide journalist, even if they are associated with Hamas? That’s like a person who has a letter to the editor published claiming to be a writer for the publication.

Why is Israel condemned every hour by the media for attempting to destroy a foe that has attacked the Jewish state every several years and vowed to do so until Israel is erased from the world’s maps, while Russia, which started the war against Ukraine and continually attacks civilian targets, gets little criticism for its actions? Could anti-Semitism be part of the reason?

Why doesn’t the media that criticizes Israel for trying to destroy Hamas mention five things in its reports: Hamas started this war, not Israel; the war could end today if Hamas released all Israeli hostages; Hamas continues to say its mission is to wipe Israel from the world’s maps; since the 1960s, Palestinians who kill Israelis are considered martyrs whose families receive compensation; and before Yasser Arafat changed the narrative, Jewish settlers were considered part of the Palestinian population. That’s history, despite what the anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian media and far left-wing politicians say.

On Sept. 10, the Times published an article saying more than 1,000 filmmakers, actors and industry professionals signed a pledge not to work with certain Israeli film institutions. Prominent actors included Olivia Colman, Ava DuVernay, Tilda Swinton, Mark Ruffalo, Ayo Edebiri, Cynthia Nixon, Yorgos Lanthimos and Susan Sarandon. I don’t recall any of them pledging not to work with Palestinian filmmakers after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed, raped and took civilian hostages at a music festival. Do you?

In a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) opinion article titled “Three Big Lies About the Israel-Hamas War,” by Bernard-Henri Levy on Sept. 4, Mr. Levy answered my question by writing in part:

“True, there are pyramids of the dead. Children killed in the flower of their age. And not enough pressure on Hamas and its sponsors to stop this atrocious war. But words have meaning.  “To say “genocide” means a plan—a deliberate, targeted initiative to destroy a people. That isn’t what the Israeli army is doing. Perhaps it is waging the war badly—though who would do better in an asymmetric conflict when the enemy’s goal isn’t to minimize casualties on its own side but to maximize them, so that every martyr is a trophy and a reason to continue a fight whose aim is not a state for the Palestinians, but no state at all for the Israelis?

“A genocidal army doesn’t take two years to win a war in a territory the size of Las Vegas. A genocidal army doesn’t send SMS warnings before firing or facilitate the passage of those trying to escape the strikes. A genocidal army wouldn’t evacuate, every month, hundreds of Palestinian children suffering from rare diseases or cancer, sending them to hospitals in Abu Dhabi as part of a medical airlift set up right after Oct. 7. 

“To speak of genocide in Gaza is an offense to common sense, a maneuver to demonize Israel, and an insult to the victims of genocides past and present.” (Mr. Lévy is author of “Israel Alone.” This article was translated from French by Emily Hamilton.)

Dara Horn in her 2021 book “People Love Dead Jews” thinks she also has the answer:

From Wikipedia, in part:   “In an interview with The Atlantic, Horn argues, that Western society prefers to tell stories about how Jews died, rather than how they lived, because "it's much easier to mold dead Jews into martyrs and morality tales than it is to coexist with living ones." Horn mentions that the book attempts to confront common excuses for not caring about antisemitism, such as that antisemitism is not systemic and antisemitic incidents are all "lone wolf" events or committed by deranged individuals.  She also mentions that the "Jews are rich" stereotype, which is regularly used to justify antisemitism, is not used as an excuse for prejudice against Hindus, who are one of the wealthiest minority religious groups in the United States and United Kingdom.” That from 2021.

From 2025: In its Sept. 13-14 edition, the WSJ in its Review section devoted two pages detailing how “ISRAEL IS WINNING THE WAR BUT LOSING THE WORLD.” The lead paragraphs said, “In the days after the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks on Israel by Hamas, the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and the Brandenburg Gate were lit up in the blue and white colors of Israel’s flag—a sign of how many Western nations rallied to the country’s side after the worst loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.” The article reported how Israel now “runs the risk of becoming a pariah, even among its longtime allies” 

It’s another example of how Israel is popular when its citizens are being attacked and killed, but becomes unpopular when it fights back and is winning in its war against Hamas, an enemy that began the current war by attacking a music festival, and continues to say that their goal is to wipe the Jewish state from the maps of the world.

The article could have been titled, as was Ms. Horn’s book, “People Love Dead Jews.”

In its current battle with Hamas, ever since Israel grained dominance over the Hamas army, the world, as usual, has turned against it. Israel has been accused of starving the Palestinians and has been accused of genocide, even though it has been reported many times that Hamas and the U.N. have blocked Israel from delivering food to the Palestinians because they don’t 

want Israel to get the credit. As for the charges of genocide, it is well known that Hamas hides its military in heavely-popuilated areas and uses civilian Palestinians as shields, attacking from schools and hospitals.

Instead of the world denouncing Hamas for its strategy, which is certain to result in civilian casualties, Israel is condemned for attempting to eliminate a terrorists organization, whose stated mission is to wipe the Jewish state from the world’s maps. Instead of condemning Hamas for its tactics, Israel is condemned for attempting Hamas from achieving its stated goals.

The anti-Israel reporting in the U.S. is, of course, led by the NYT, which acts as the propaganda arm of Hamas. 

An example: On July 25, the Times featured a picture of a Palestinian boy, Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, on its front page, saying he was suffering from malnutrition, but not mentioning that he had pre-existing health problems, cerebral palsy, affecting his brain and muscle developments. It wasn’t until July 30 that the supposedly “paper of record” acknowledged that the child had pre-existing health conditions unrelated to the conflict. 

If you didn’t see the correction when it was first posted you’re not alone. Neither did I or the great majority of Times readers because the correction was only added to the on-line article and was posted on the Times' public relations account on X, not on its main account. If seen by all, the Times’ correction could have been seen by less than 90,000 people on X. The Times main account has more than 55 million followers.

Throughout the coverage of the conflict, news organizations have taken what Hamas and the anti-Israeli U.N. says as facts, and has disregarded Israeli statements. In addition to the Times, other major news outlets like NPR, The 

Associated Press, Reuters, CBS News, The Washington Post, MSNBC, Politico, Axios and the BBC have reported Hamas statements as facts, 

without saying that the statements were not independently confirmed. Statements from Israel, which allows news sites to report from it, are largely disregarded.

In his NYT Sept. 10 column, Bret Stephens wrote how the anti-Israeli comments are contributing to anti-Semitic attacks against Jews around the world. He wrote, in part, “Somewhere near the center of the Israeli psyche lies the thought: The world is out to get us. Save for some shining exceptions, much that’s happened since Oct. 7, 2023, has proved them right: Being accused of genocide the same month they were grotesquely massacred. Watching a  pogrom unfold on the streets of Amsterdam. Seeing elderly Jews burned alive in Colorado. Becoming the singular object of a global protest movement that’s utterly indifferent when our NATO ally Turkey bombs Kurds or Syrian forces massacre Alawites.” (Or, when in my opinion, Russians are destroying Ukraine and Russian and Chinese leaders kill any of their countrymen who speak out against them.) 

 “So what effect do anti-Israel gesture politics actually have?

From Montreal to Paris to Melbourne, diaspora Jews are living through the worst era of open antisemitism since the 1930s. Leaders like Canada’s Mark Carney, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Australia’s Anthony Albanese are no doubt sincere in condemning this. But they are also contributing to a climate of anti-Jewish demonization by treating Israel as a quasi-pariah state whose presumptive supporters can be viewed as guilty accomplices. In their virtue-signaling foreign policy, they are inflicting genuine harms on their own Jewish citizens.”

An August 5 column in the WSJ by Gerard Baker was headlined, “Hamas Starves Jews and Palestinians, and Israel Gets blamed." A subhead said, “The Western press and politicians play along with the terror group’s ghastly propaganda campaign.” The article referenced the false picture of the Palestinian boy that the Times published on page one and said, “It says so much about the enemy Israel is up against that both images [the other picture was of a starving Israeli hostage] are part of the campaign against Israel. The only thing Hamas likes better than a starving Jew is a starving Gazan child. Both are useful for their ends. The former horrifies a credulous world so it puts international pressure on the Israeli government to end the combat. The latter taunts Israeli hostage families so they put similar pressure on the government. If there were a Goebbels prize for propaganda, Hamas would win it every year. It should be a source of shame that so much of the West’s media is gulled or persuaded into playing the Leni Riefenstahl part in the campaign.

“What is so sickening about this—and the deafening chorus of condemnation Israel receives for its war effort—is that it is so far from the underlying moral truth of this war. Israel is the side that wants lasting peace and security. Its enemies want a state of permanent and existential war and suffering for the innocents,” said the article, and, if I may add, much of the 

Western press is either anti-Semitic, or anti-Israel, except when Jews are being slaughtered.

And in a NYT opinion article on August 17, Nicholas Kristof, as usual, blamed Israel for the situation in Gaza, saying “Support for Israel in this conflict is a moral failure.” The last line of his column said, “We have blood on our hands.” 

As a former journalist, I understand the usage of words as “We,” but in this case I think it was a misuse of the pronoun. It reminds me of the politicians who say, “The people want,” after being elected by one percent. His use of the pronoun “we” certainly doesn’t include me or the many millions of other people who do not blame Israel for trying not to be “removed from the world’s maps,” as Hamas has said many times is its goal. This war could have been over many months ago if Hamas would have released the hostages. It never would have started if Hamas didn’t attack Israel. I am waiting for Mr. Kristof to write a column saying that. But I won’t hold my breath until he does.

It’s difficult for me to believe people when they say that they are not anti-Semitic but are only anti the Israeli government. The rise of anti-Semitic incidents against Jews in the U.S. and around the world disproves those statements. Jews make up only a tiny fraction of the world’s population and Jews who don’t live in Israel have no say in what the Israeli government decides. Nevertheless the anti-Semitic incidents against non-Israeli Jews continues to rise. That’s why I believe that the great percentage of people who criticize the Israeli government are also anti-Semitic.

Because of the Western press’ reporting, anti-Semitism is flourishing in the United States. Anti-Semitism is also increasing around the world. Israel is the only country that is willing to accept all Jewish people who feel unsafe. It is the only country that is fighting to prevent books like “People Love Dead Jews” from being written in the future.

That’s why I support the state of Israel’s actions and have no qualms about saying so.

History shows that the world only likes Jews when they are being victimized, not when they are winning. In the current war, Israel is winning but losing the public relations battle.

There is an important PR lesson to be learned from this: Just as much of the information PR people disseminate can truthfully be labeled propaganda, so can much of the reporting by many news outlets about the war and other subjects. When researching a speech for a client, it is better to rely on facts from unbiased historians than on news reports, which are often the first edition of history and often wrong and amended. But make certain the books are not recent ones written by insiders, but works written years later by authors with distance from the events.