I’m also a “ keyboard warrior” but I’m convinced that the following things make Jews efforts to win the information war a false hope.
1) numbers: there’s 10’s of millions of them and only 15 million of us. They make louder noise
2) even those I call “the persuadables” are infected by what I identify is an antisemitic gene. That’s the only way to explain why intelligent otherwise thoughtful folks will immediately give credence to anti- Israel propaganda and default to a presumption that Jews did evil. It’s Why these say people accept mis-definition of “genocide” “apartheid” “colonialism” “self-defense” “proportionality” and others only when it comes to Jews.
3) the oppressors v oppressed narrative is fixed in multiple generations. So much so that a country of 9/million Jews can be seen as oppressing people who, worldwide out numbers them by multiples. And 15 million Jews worldwide can be blamed as the source of all evil.
4) the west is being Islamized at an astonishing rate. Indeed the reason Western Europe, NATO nations sat on their hands: fear of their jihadist population.
I think we should stop explaining why Jews should be allowed to live and be left alone. We need to learn how to defend ourselves, to fight kineticly and unashamedly when necessary and teach our children self-defense. And we must teach our children to live as proud Jews, marry Jews , have Jewish children to teach and survive and thrive as did our ancestors. We need to be “eternal people” who outlast the present haters despite their hate. We’ve done that for centuries.
Respectfully disagree. War is fought on many fronts. Netanyahu, it must be remembered, made his career on being a Netanyahu, it must be remembered, made his career on being an effective communicator on the history and rights of Israel. See my above post to Onnappeal. But…
Nope. I wasn’t replying to you. The person I was replying to vanished from the thread. He told me that if I had a wife or girlfriend, they deserved to be raped.
And no, it’s not a war. It’s a one-sided slaughter/genocide. War requires state to state conflict, and as we all know, the Palestinians are denied a state.
Moron. Maybe you shoulda thought of that before murdering, raping and kidnapping 1500.
I know this always comes in. Always happens. "We were just innocently murdering and kidnapping Jews, and then the mean old IDF came in and made life difficult for us."
How do you live with yourself believing this bullshit?
You must maintain the PR war, AIPAC, etc. Israel exists only because if the brilliant minds of it people, and military strength will not be enough. You are outnumbered, outgunned, out-economied by enemies.
From BIBI, the autobiography of your oft maligned PM. It is worth reading, As is the Less friendly THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF BENJAMIN NETANYAHU by Neil Lochery
I agree in principle ( was just on Capitol Hill re: Israel) but I’m also a realist. Israel must revitalize its munitions industry. It can’t rely on the whimsy of “allies.” Diaspora Jews must likewise be self-reliant in learning lawful self-defense techniques. And we have to stop justifying our existence.
Please excuse my many grammatical and syntax errors, due to voice recognition. I hope I have added something of value both to the debate in general, and to the continued survival and growth of Israel.
There is an agency that purchased land legally from Arabs. Nevertheless, and regardless of the terms Herzl used then, as a fact of history Israel is a post colonial country. Jews have lived there for 3,000 years. There was a sovereign Jewish nation there before Christianity and Islam came into being. Indeed, Christ was Jewish and lived his entire life in Israel. Consider the colonizing empires. None entered a land in which archeological records show their ancestors, speaking the same language, reading the same sacred scrolls, minting their own currency, living in the land thousands of years earlier. Babylon and Rome were conquerers. Muslims were conquerers and colonizers. What they have in common was the evicted the Jews from etetz Yisrael. Jews are back. Post colonial. They were the people uprooted.
As for the blood libel “genocide” , if I took you more seriously I’d ask your definition of the term. But why bother. It’s clear you are an unpersuadable hater in this regard.
As for racist and apartheid, that exposes how brainwashed you are. For those two, I suggest you visit eretz Yisrael. Ride a bus, go to the mall, walk the streets of the cities and you’ll see Arabs and Jews and Christian living and working side-by-side. Indeed, the only free “Palestinians” in the world live in Israel, where they are doctors, lawyers, cops, bus drivers business owners.Arabs have their own political parties whose representatives serve in the Knesset. And Indeed, recently they were part of the governing coalition.
Israel in fact is one of the most ethnically diverse countries you would see. Come. Visit. Unless you are totally blind to reality you’ll see with your own eyes that you’re wrong.
In sum, and this will be my last with you. Not words, but actual facts on the ground refute your claim that Jews are colonizers as that term has been applied historically.
Genocide, if not such a serious and purposeful blood libel, is easily refuted by the actual legal definition of the facts.
Racist/apartheid is refuted by facts on the ground refute. Go to Israel. Open your eyes. See reality, not propaganda.
There’s no doubt that Israel’s war in Gaza was not genocide. It is the least likely urban conflict in modern history to meet the standard legal definition of genocide.
And you don't have to take my word for it. Take the word of the High Level Military Group, the HLMG, which is a collection of all the of high level officers and generals from almost all the Western democracies in the world, not just the United States. These people aren't Jews. They have no connection with Israel. They're just generals in militaries around the world.
They wrote a report and a brief to the International Criminal Court, the ICC, saying that Israel’s civilian warning system is completely unlike anything any other country has ever been willing to do for the civilian population of an enemy in wartime. Under this system, Israel tells the civilian population of Gaza exactly where it will be striking the next day and then provides humanitarian corridors for them to leave those zones. They also say it is something our own democracies would never be able to do, because our civilian populations would never stomach endangering the lives of our own soldiers by warning the enemy where our sons and daughters will be.
Israel's unprecedented efforts to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza has taken a very heavy toll on the IDF. Over 800 Israelis have been killed in Gaza precisely because they warned the civilian population to get out of harm's way.
And yet, we only need read the words of the founders and thinkers behind of state of Israel.
Theodore Herzl in Der Judenstaat, says ‘gradual “infiltration” would end badly and in the same paragraph said: Palestine and Argentina had seen “important experiments in colonisation”, but gradual Jewish “infiltration” was “bound to end badly”.
He also proposed the idea of ‘The Jewish Company’ and described it as colonial-adjacent. He says the proposed Jewish Company would resemble a great land-acquisition company, “a Jewish Chartered Company”.
He also referred to future settlers as “colonists”. He referred to the Company’s “colonists” and says defensive forces would form around a tenth of the male ‘colonists’, enough to suppress mutinies.
And then, there’s even more!!!! There was his letter to Cecil Rhodes, when he invited Rhodes to help make history, not in Africa but in “a piece of Asia Minor”, not with Englishmen but Jews “Because it is something colonial”.
Why would I not take those words at face value? What was not clear about the founders intent? And now, today, we can see the behaviours and conduct of Israel in plain sight.
Look, I empathise, really, but this is just classic text book groupthink stuff.
The abused became the abuser, and you cannot process that. Hard to imagine right?
Its understandable. History shows how many Germans, post WWII, denied knowing what was being done in their name under the Nazis, knowledge of the camps etc. The capacity for people to look away from uncomfortable realities, or to rationalise them, is hardly new.
But, it doesn’t alter the fact that genocide is being conducted, and that Israel is, a racist, apartheid structured, colonial state.
If only there was a genocide. They breed like lice. Sand rats who gave the world nothing. Even the guns they yse to kill Jews they appropriated from others. They are dune thieves
Not that I’m any expert but I believe reading (or writing) long articles on how Jews in general and Israel in particular need to improve at messaging is a big waste of time. No amount of messaging can overcome the general antisemitism of the world’s media or of the world’s political leaders.
Just be Jewish and proud of it and be prepared to defend yourself. And to all those spewing hatred and misinformation about Israel I am grateful that I have two middle fingers to offer in response.
The basic fact is that there are far more Muslims in the world than Jews. They have infiltrated „The West‘ coming from a world where there is no democracy, no critical thinking, only obeyance, Machism, obedience. „The West“ has transferred its "historical guilt" towards the Jews onto the rolling Islamists whom to contradict gets defamed as "racism". Everyone knows it, but no one dares to speak it out. Criticizing Islam gets labelled as „racism“ - „even“ by many Jews themselves -, while „criticizing“ Israel gets named „justified Israel Critics“. People are fed up with and disgusted by the prohibitions bans against naming the essentially racist Islam incapable of criticising itself. Now translate that into a 90 seconds TikTok Video without getting censored. To Gays who are that utterly DUMB to vote for „Queers in Palestine“, voting for themselves to be thrown off rooftops and who should rather land in mental institutions than watching Videos.
Israel is on its own, and as history shows, it always has been.
America has previously involved itself in conflicts in places like Iraq and Afghanistan in attempts to help local populations, a subject documented in numerous books. U.S. soldiers fought a thankless fight in environments where it was difficult to distinguish between friend and foe, yet America learned nothing from these experiences.
"Jew have over 3,000 years of history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. Everything Jews have was paid for, fought for, died for." Menachem Begin
"For the Israelis, there is no other home. There is no place to go back to. And the lesson of their history is very clear. Jews can never again risk life without a state, they can never again be a people without an army." Douglas Murray
Jews have the biggest obstacle to overcome and that is the original blood libel; it never happened no matter what we used. The persuasion must follow that the Marxist, and now Islamist textbook. It starts with the youngest generation and it is slow, about 40 years. It takes money and a lot of money but we must do it - Elon Musk money. He is persuadable.
Joshua, this may be the article I've agreed with most.
What you're describing is exactly the problem. The battlefield changed decades ago, and we kept fighting the last war. Israel became brilliant at intelligence, technology, and military operations, while its opponents focused on narratives, slogans, symbols, education, media, and culture.
What frustrates me is that we still don't seem to grasp the scale of the challenge. We have thousands of talented people, organizations, writers, activists, and donors all doing good work, but there is very little coordination. It often feels like a thousand lights shining in a thousand different directions. Meanwhile, the other side has managed to create simple messages, simple symbols, and simple narratives that reach ordinary people instantly.
You're also right that most people are not ideological fanatics. They are busy. They are not reading policy papers or studying Middle East history. They respond to stories, emotion, repetition, and people they trust. Whether we like it or not, that's the battlefield now.
The only place where I would go even further is this: we need to start treating the information war as an actual war. Every war requires strategy, leadership, priorities, and coordination. Too often we seem content simply reacting while the other side sets the agenda.
Jews HAVE published ‚Comic“ films/videos that „won internationational Prices“ a.o. about the former Lebanon invasion. Would making comics about the imbecility of Islam or their supporters win „International Prices“ who get rewarded ny the same people that would necessarily be criticized in such videos ? You might as well believe in fairy tales. Islam and Leftists are fundamentally humourless, you can hold a thousand mirrors to them, they will only reject it and look away. Of course I“ m eager to see that translated into a 90 sec.TikTok video.
You state, "The Arab world stopped trying to defeat Israel on the battlefield decades ago”. Not true. The Arab COUNTRIES may have stopped trying, but Arab militias supported by Iran have not stopped.
I believe that the phrase, “I've made up my mind, don’t confuse me with facts”, applies to the anti-semites of the world. The overwhelming volume of misinformation and disinformation on social media that confirms the mindset of the antisemites and antizionists is difficult to fight despite the efforts of people like Haviv Rettig Gur and organizations such as the Israeli Institute of New Zealand.
The persecution of the muslim Uyghurs in northwest China and Rohingya in Burma are probably unknown to the vast majority of college age adults as there are not hundreds of journalists reporting on their actions every day.
As long as in the heart within, The Jewish soul yearns, and to the east, onward
An eye looks toward Zion
Our hope is not yet lost, The hope of two-thousand years, To be a free nation in our land, The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.
These deeply beautiful sentiments are calming, quietly moving, and inspiring, like Naomi Shemer’s “Jerusalem of Gold”
ירושלים של זהב
And my singing is transformative. She relaxes and falls asleep, and my voice deepens and gains resonance.
“Michelle,” by Noam Bettan, Israel’s 2026 entry to Eurovision, like other Israeli entries to Eurovision, inspired millions globally, perhaps 10’s of millions, Leonard Cohen, no less than Bob Dylan, inspired generations. But while Dylan was ethnically Jewish, his only Jewish song was “Neighborhood Bully,” in 1983. Cohen’s work, like Dylan’s, was informed by Jewish civilization, themes, and culture, but he never stepped back from Judaism and Klal Yisroael.
We need more Jewish artists, comedians, singers, songwriter, thinkers, and writers to stand up, like Gal Godot, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld, etc.
And maybe they should get together, buy 51% of the NY Times, today worth $11.95 Billion so for around $6.0 Billion, fire Nicholas Kristof, and change the editorial direction.
Old expression summing up what your article says goes "Israel always wins the war but loses the peace."
There is a two front war: the battlefield and the propaganda war for world opinion, viz, the Court of Public Opinion which will duly do its robust Vigilante Justice.
The formula is simple and straightforward. In the West, politicians are voted into office by the electorate. The electorate vote based on sentiment, not evaluation of candidates' policies. Sentiments are shaped through tried and proven advertizing and PR techniques. Politicians wishing to be elected to office therefore must cater to public sentiment.
Propagandists already know they have all the tools they need to shape public opinion for their cause.
The public's primary. concern is personal, familial and national survival through safety and security.
Show them that the mob shouting loudest in the streets is but the surface of what is really taking place.
Expose the real threat to their survival comes from the well documented covert operations of foreign money flooding into the country buying influence in all social institutions under cover of seemingly benign organizations with the nod and approval of governments.
Driven axis driven by religeo-ethnic hatred their agenda is not the Jews. They are merely the cover. The cry "They will not replace us" says it all: the cry is about Christian values, Western liberal democracy, Freedoms and Human rights we now take for granted, and Western Culture, and Civilization itself. Cite passage from the Koran and Hadiths, religious leaders (Memri TV is a great source) as irrefutable proof of their plan to replace Judeo-Christian Western Civilization with Islam and institute Sharia Law everywhere. As they say, "li-yuzhirahu 'ala ad-din kullihi" which means, translated "make [Islam] prevail over all other religions" per Surah At-Tawbah (9:33), Surah Al-Fath (48:28), and Surah As-Saff (61:9).
Use quotations from the Koran and Hadiths to show contempt for Christians, Christian religion, Christian culture, Christian values, Christian history, and Christian civilization. Quote statistics on real changes taking place throughout Europe: no-go zones, crime statistics by Muslims, two tiered policing, rape gangs, to show how this replacement is are already taking shape.
"every successful movement in history understood something: You do not build influence by obsessing over the people you cannot reach. You build influence by investing in the people you can"
aka "The silent majority." Exactly whom we need to reach out to. To repeat what was just noted above: most effective way is to deploy the very social media being used against us via our own influencers to reach the uncommitted, the uninformed, and the ill informed through the Koran and Hadiths that this war isn't just about the Jews. It is about them too. As a very well known Arab proverb goes: ""First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People."
Jews and Christians value Democracy, Life, Freedom and Liberty How about the media pointing out the Jihadists commitment to destroying Israel. Israel has been terrorized for 47 years, and the media in the West only emphasizes repeatedly the damage done when Israel defends itself often without explaining or showing how Israel was just attacked. We need to educate people on the history. How Palestinian terrorist families are paid a lifetime pension for killing Jews. How barbaric they put their children between themselves and the Israeli soldiers because they know Jews value life and will try not to fire on children. How the Pals cheered when the twin towers were destroyed. Israel is the only country throughout history that warns their enemies that they will attack a terrorist's location to try to save the not so innocent people, while Hamas tries to make their people stay so they will be injured for propaganda images. We and especially the media have to counter all the lies and misinformation with the true facts.
I certainly support your efforts at getting Israel's story out.
But the barbaric behavior of Israel's enemies, 9/11, 10/7, terrorist attacks in Europe and the ongoing islamic war on the west should itself be sufficient for Israel to win the information war. I still say the west has a morality problem more than Israel has a PR problem.
As for the war in Iran, the prospect of terrorists with nuclear weapons should be enough to convince ordinary Americans of the necessity of the war, especially in a post 9/11 world. What are gas and grocery prices in comparison to that?
"We built..." That is the key for me. We built institutions so that even the British recognized we had the makings of an independent state years before the partition vote. The Arabs didn't build.
They kvetched that the proposed borders of any partition plan put all the Jewish initiative industry in the Jewish state. We built in America. We invented the movie industry. Now we are charged with "controlling" the movie industry. I hope you're right about the prospects for changing perspectives. Here's a major Jewish celebrity Bette Midler ranting about "fascism" at a recent "alternative" concert with Jane Fonda. Not a word on the genocide of Oct. 7. It was genocide. It was the first of the hoped for wave of atrocities so humiliating that Jews would rush to Ben Gurion the way the Greeks rushed to the sea at Smyrna to find refuge on boats. The celebrities. SHAME. the artists, the writers, the directors....all the virtue signaling hypocrites SHAME. Brad Lander, Peter beinart, Omer Bartov....SHAME. Sanders. SHAME.......these bad actors deliver a toxic message. I hope your optimism is well founded and achievable.
And that lie that you just said if it spreads far enough will be the reason that's antisemitism gets redefined from being an irrational hatred to being a rational response.
The only real genocide was October 7th when your Hamas friends murdered and raped every Jew they saw.
Then they hid behind their civilians like crying bitches using human shields so you could spread a libelous lie called "Genocide."
No mention that the war ended when the basic demand was met -- and hostages were returned.
No mention of use of human shields.
No mention of Israel's efforts to reduce civilian casualties with leaflets, warnings and corridors, leading to the lowest civilian to combatant death ratio in recorded military history.
No.
You cling to the lie of genocide because the lie is all you have.
I’m also a “ keyboard warrior” but I’m convinced that the following things make Jews efforts to win the information war a false hope.
1) numbers: there’s 10’s of millions of them and only 15 million of us. They make louder noise
2) even those I call “the persuadables” are infected by what I identify is an antisemitic gene. That’s the only way to explain why intelligent otherwise thoughtful folks will immediately give credence to anti- Israel propaganda and default to a presumption that Jews did evil. It’s Why these say people accept mis-definition of “genocide” “apartheid” “colonialism” “self-defense” “proportionality” and others only when it comes to Jews.
3) the oppressors v oppressed narrative is fixed in multiple generations. So much so that a country of 9/million Jews can be seen as oppressing people who, worldwide out numbers them by multiples. And 15 million Jews worldwide can be blamed as the source of all evil.
4) the west is being Islamized at an astonishing rate. Indeed the reason Western Europe, NATO nations sat on their hands: fear of their jihadist population.
I think we should stop explaining why Jews should be allowed to live and be left alone. We need to learn how to defend ourselves, to fight kineticly and unashamedly when necessary and teach our children self-defense. And we must teach our children to live as proud Jews, marry Jews , have Jewish children to teach and survive and thrive as did our ancestors. We need to be “eternal people” who outlast the present haters despite their hate. We’ve done that for centuries.
And Israel should keep killing the bad guys.
“I think we should stop explaining why Jews should be allowed to live and be left alone. “.. Right. “ it’s our land. Done explaining.
Respectfully disagree. War is fought on many fronts. Netanyahu, it must be remembered, made his career on being a Netanyahu, it must be remembered, made his career on being an effective communicator on the history and rights of Israel. See my above post to Onnappeal. But…
🇮🇱. Never forget- Never again
“Never Defenseless Again “
Nope. I wasn’t replying to you. The person I was replying to vanished from the thread. He told me that if I had a wife or girlfriend, they deserved to be raped.
And no, it’s not a war. It’s a one-sided slaughter/genocide. War requires state to state conflict, and as we all know, the Palestinians are denied a state.
Moron. Maybe you shoulda thought of that before murdering, raping and kidnapping 1500.
I know this always comes in. Always happens. "We were just innocently murdering and kidnapping Jews, and then the mean old IDF came in and made life difficult for us."
How do you live with yourself believing this bullshit?
Carpet bomb those terrorists who stole a name that they have no claim to
You must maintain the PR war, AIPAC, etc. Israel exists only because if the brilliant minds of it people, and military strength will not be enough. You are outnumbered, outgunned, out-economied by enemies.
From BIBI, the autobiography of your oft maligned PM. It is worth reading, As is the Less friendly THE RESISTIBLE RISE OF BENJAMIN NETANYAHU by Neil Lochery
I agree in principle ( was just on Capitol Hill re: Israel) but I’m also a realist. Israel must revitalize its munitions industry. It can’t rely on the whimsy of “allies.” Diaspora Jews must likewise be self-reliant in learning lawful self-defense techniques. And we have to stop justifying our existence.
Please excuse my many grammatical and syntax errors, due to voice recognition. I hope I have added something of value both to the debate in general, and to the continued survival and growth of Israel.
There is an agency that purchased land legally from Arabs. Nevertheless, and regardless of the terms Herzl used then, as a fact of history Israel is a post colonial country. Jews have lived there for 3,000 years. There was a sovereign Jewish nation there before Christianity and Islam came into being. Indeed, Christ was Jewish and lived his entire life in Israel. Consider the colonizing empires. None entered a land in which archeological records show their ancestors, speaking the same language, reading the same sacred scrolls, minting their own currency, living in the land thousands of years earlier. Babylon and Rome were conquerers. Muslims were conquerers and colonizers. What they have in common was the evicted the Jews from etetz Yisrael. Jews are back. Post colonial. They were the people uprooted.
As for the blood libel “genocide” , if I took you more seriously I’d ask your definition of the term. But why bother. It’s clear you are an unpersuadable hater in this regard.
As for racist and apartheid, that exposes how brainwashed you are. For those two, I suggest you visit eretz Yisrael. Ride a bus, go to the mall, walk the streets of the cities and you’ll see Arabs and Jews and Christian living and working side-by-side. Indeed, the only free “Palestinians” in the world live in Israel, where they are doctors, lawyers, cops, bus drivers business owners.Arabs have their own political parties whose representatives serve in the Knesset. And Indeed, recently they were part of the governing coalition.
Israel in fact is one of the most ethnically diverse countries you would see. Come. Visit. Unless you are totally blind to reality you’ll see with your own eyes that you’re wrong.
In sum, and this will be my last with you. Not words, but actual facts on the ground refute your claim that Jews are colonizers as that term has been applied historically.
Genocide, if not such a serious and purposeful blood libel, is easily refuted by the actual legal definition of the facts.
Racist/apartheid is refuted by facts on the ground refute. Go to Israel. Open your eyes. See reality, not propaganda.
There’s no doubt that Israel’s war in Gaza was not genocide. It is the least likely urban conflict in modern history to meet the standard legal definition of genocide.
And you don't have to take my word for it. Take the word of the High Level Military Group, the HLMG, which is a collection of all the of high level officers and generals from almost all the Western democracies in the world, not just the United States. These people aren't Jews. They have no connection with Israel. They're just generals in militaries around the world.
They wrote a report and a brief to the International Criminal Court, the ICC, saying that Israel’s civilian warning system is completely unlike anything any other country has ever been willing to do for the civilian population of an enemy in wartime. Under this system, Israel tells the civilian population of Gaza exactly where it will be striking the next day and then provides humanitarian corridors for them to leave those zones. They also say it is something our own democracies would never be able to do, because our civilian populations would never stomach endangering the lives of our own soldiers by warning the enemy where our sons and daughters will be.
Israel's unprecedented efforts to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza has taken a very heavy toll on the IDF. Over 800 Israelis have been killed in Gaza precisely because they warned the civilian population to get out of harm's way.
And yet, we only need read the words of the founders and thinkers behind of state of Israel.
Theodore Herzl in Der Judenstaat, says ‘gradual “infiltration” would end badly and in the same paragraph said: Palestine and Argentina had seen “important experiments in colonisation”, but gradual Jewish “infiltration” was “bound to end badly”.
He also proposed the idea of ‘The Jewish Company’ and described it as colonial-adjacent. He says the proposed Jewish Company would resemble a great land-acquisition company, “a Jewish Chartered Company”.
He also referred to future settlers as “colonists”. He referred to the Company’s “colonists” and says defensive forces would form around a tenth of the male ‘colonists’, enough to suppress mutinies.
And then, there’s even more!!!! There was his letter to Cecil Rhodes, when he invited Rhodes to help make history, not in Africa but in “a piece of Asia Minor”, not with Englishmen but Jews “Because it is something colonial”.
Why would I not take those words at face value? What was not clear about the founders intent? And now, today, we can see the behaviours and conduct of Israel in plain sight.
Look, I empathise, really, but this is just classic text book groupthink stuff.
The abused became the abuser, and you cannot process that. Hard to imagine right?
Its understandable. History shows how many Germans, post WWII, denied knowing what was being done in their name under the Nazis, knowledge of the camps etc. The capacity for people to look away from uncomfortable realities, or to rationalise them, is hardly new.
But, it doesn’t alter the fact that genocide is being conducted, and that Israel is, a racist, apartheid structured, colonial state.
If only there was a genocide. They breed like lice. Sand rats who gave the world nothing. Even the guns they yse to kill Jews they appropriated from others. They are dune thieves
Not that I’m any expert but I believe reading (or writing) long articles on how Jews in general and Israel in particular need to improve at messaging is a big waste of time. No amount of messaging can overcome the general antisemitism of the world’s media or of the world’s political leaders.
Just be Jewish and proud of it and be prepared to defend yourself. And to all those spewing hatred and misinformation about Israel I am grateful that I have two middle fingers to offer in response.
I've got two fingers unconditionally dedicated to the cause.
The basic fact is that there are far more Muslims in the world than Jews. They have infiltrated „The West‘ coming from a world where there is no democracy, no critical thinking, only obeyance, Machism, obedience. „The West“ has transferred its "historical guilt" towards the Jews onto the rolling Islamists whom to contradict gets defamed as "racism". Everyone knows it, but no one dares to speak it out. Criticizing Islam gets labelled as „racism“ - „even“ by many Jews themselves -, while „criticizing“ Israel gets named „justified Israel Critics“. People are fed up with and disgusted by the prohibitions bans against naming the essentially racist Islam incapable of criticising itself. Now translate that into a 90 seconds TikTok Video without getting censored. To Gays who are that utterly DUMB to vote for „Queers in Palestine“, voting for themselves to be thrown off rooftops and who should rather land in mental institutions than watching Videos.
GOD BLESS ISRAEL AND ITS PEOPLE
Israel is on its own, and as history shows, it always has been.
America has previously involved itself in conflicts in places like Iraq and Afghanistan in attempts to help local populations, a subject documented in numerous books. U.S. soldiers fought a thankless fight in environments where it was difficult to distinguish between friend and foe, yet America learned nothing from these experiences.
"Jew have over 3,000 years of history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. Everything Jews have was paid for, fought for, died for." Menachem Begin
"For the Israelis, there is no other home. There is no place to go back to. And the lesson of their history is very clear. Jews can never again risk life without a state, they can never again be a people without an army." Douglas Murray
I'll be honest about my perspective here - keyboard warrior in London.
It has taken me A LOT of reading to understand Israel's history and the struggles of the Jewish people.
And I know there's a lot I don't understand or am yet to learn.
But knowing what I know has made me an ally through and through.
Now how to bundle what I know into a 30 second tiktok.
Have to change the narrative FROM a longtime oppression of the Palestinians to defense of an Arab world hellbent on pleasing mohammed!
Jews have the biggest obstacle to overcome and that is the original blood libel; it never happened no matter what we used. The persuasion must follow that the Marxist, and now Islamist textbook. It starts with the youngest generation and it is slow, about 40 years. It takes money and a lot of money but we must do it - Elon Musk money. He is persuadable.
Joshua, this may be the article I've agreed with most.
What you're describing is exactly the problem. The battlefield changed decades ago, and we kept fighting the last war. Israel became brilliant at intelligence, technology, and military operations, while its opponents focused on narratives, slogans, symbols, education, media, and culture.
What frustrates me is that we still don't seem to grasp the scale of the challenge. We have thousands of talented people, organizations, writers, activists, and donors all doing good work, but there is very little coordination. It often feels like a thousand lights shining in a thousand different directions. Meanwhile, the other side has managed to create simple messages, simple symbols, and simple narratives that reach ordinary people instantly.
You're also right that most people are not ideological fanatics. They are busy. They are not reading policy papers or studying Middle East history. They respond to stories, emotion, repetition, and people they trust. Whether we like it or not, that's the battlefield now.
The only place where I would go even further is this: we need to start treating the information war as an actual war. Every war requires strategy, leadership, priorities, and coordination. Too often we seem content simply reacting while the other side sets the agenda.
In any case, excellent article.
Jews HAVE published ‚Comic“ films/videos that „won internationational Prices“ a.o. about the former Lebanon invasion. Would making comics about the imbecility of Islam or their supporters win „International Prices“ who get rewarded ny the same people that would necessarily be criticized in such videos ? You might as well believe in fairy tales. Islam and Leftists are fundamentally humourless, you can hold a thousand mirrors to them, they will only reject it and look away. Of course I“ m eager to see that translated into a 90 sec.TikTok video.
You state, "The Arab world stopped trying to defeat Israel on the battlefield decades ago”. Not true. The Arab COUNTRIES may have stopped trying, but Arab militias supported by Iran have not stopped.
I believe that the phrase, “I've made up my mind, don’t confuse me with facts”, applies to the anti-semites of the world. The overwhelming volume of misinformation and disinformation on social media that confirms the mindset of the antisemites and antizionists is difficult to fight despite the efforts of people like Haviv Rettig Gur and organizations such as the Israeli Institute of New Zealand.
The persecution of the muslim Uyghurs in northwest China and Rohingya in Burma are probably unknown to the vast majority of college age adults as there are not hundreds of journalists reporting on their actions every day.
My granddaughter, less than a year old, I sing her to sleep with Hatikvah.
כֹּל עוֹד בַּלֵּבָב פְּנִימָה נֶפֶשׁ יְהוּדִי הוֹמִיָּה,
וּלְפַאֲתֵי מִזְרָח, קָדִימָה, עַיִן לְצִיּוֹן צוֹפִיָּה,
עוֹד לֹא אָבְדָה תִּקְוָתֵנוּ, הַתִּקְוָה בַּת שְׁנוֹת אַלְפַּיִם, לִהְיוֹת עַם חָפְשִׁי בְּאַרְצֵנוּ, אֶרֶץ צִיּוֹן וִירוּשָׁלַיִם.
As long as in the heart within, The Jewish soul yearns, and to the east, onward
An eye looks toward Zion
Our hope is not yet lost, The hope of two-thousand years, To be a free nation in our land, The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.
These deeply beautiful sentiments are calming, quietly moving, and inspiring, like Naomi Shemer’s “Jerusalem of Gold”
ירושלים של זהב
And my singing is transformative. She relaxes and falls asleep, and my voice deepens and gains resonance.
“Michelle,” by Noam Bettan, Israel’s 2026 entry to Eurovision, like other Israeli entries to Eurovision, inspired millions globally, perhaps 10’s of millions, Leonard Cohen, no less than Bob Dylan, inspired generations. But while Dylan was ethnically Jewish, his only Jewish song was “Neighborhood Bully,” in 1983. Cohen’s work, like Dylan’s, was informed by Jewish civilization, themes, and culture, but he never stepped back from Judaism and Klal Yisroael.
We need more Jewish artists, comedians, singers, songwriter, thinkers, and writers to stand up, like Gal Godot, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld, etc.
And maybe they should get together, buy 51% of the NY Times, today worth $11.95 Billion so for around $6.0 Billion, fire Nicholas Kristof, and change the editorial direction.
Old expression summing up what your article says goes "Israel always wins the war but loses the peace."
There is a two front war: the battlefield and the propaganda war for world opinion, viz, the Court of Public Opinion which will duly do its robust Vigilante Justice.
The formula is simple and straightforward. In the West, politicians are voted into office by the electorate. The electorate vote based on sentiment, not evaluation of candidates' policies. Sentiments are shaped through tried and proven advertizing and PR techniques. Politicians wishing to be elected to office therefore must cater to public sentiment.
Propagandists already know they have all the tools they need to shape public opinion for their cause.
The public's primary. concern is personal, familial and national survival through safety and security.
Show them that the mob shouting loudest in the streets is but the surface of what is really taking place.
Expose the real threat to their survival comes from the well documented covert operations of foreign money flooding into the country buying influence in all social institutions under cover of seemingly benign organizations with the nod and approval of governments.
Driven axis driven by religeo-ethnic hatred their agenda is not the Jews. They are merely the cover. The cry "They will not replace us" says it all: the cry is about Christian values, Western liberal democracy, Freedoms and Human rights we now take for granted, and Western Culture, and Civilization itself. Cite passage from the Koran and Hadiths, religious leaders (Memri TV is a great source) as irrefutable proof of their plan to replace Judeo-Christian Western Civilization with Islam and institute Sharia Law everywhere. As they say, "li-yuzhirahu 'ala ad-din kullihi" which means, translated "make [Islam] prevail over all other religions" per Surah At-Tawbah (9:33), Surah Al-Fath (48:28), and Surah As-Saff (61:9).
Use quotations from the Koran and Hadiths to show contempt for Christians, Christian religion, Christian culture, Christian values, Christian history, and Christian civilization. Quote statistics on real changes taking place throughout Europe: no-go zones, crime statistics by Muslims, two tiered policing, rape gangs, to show how this replacement is are already taking shape.
Check out https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQgMVcdNkbnnQZkwVrPZHrsFjWT
"every successful movement in history understood something: You do not build influence by obsessing over the people you cannot reach. You build influence by investing in the people you can"
aka "The silent majority." Exactly whom we need to reach out to. To repeat what was just noted above: most effective way is to deploy the very social media being used against us via our own influencers to reach the uncommitted, the uninformed, and the ill informed through the Koran and Hadiths that this war isn't just about the Jews. It is about them too. As a very well known Arab proverb goes: ""First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People."
Thank you Michael for adding bright light to the discussion. We can only hope that the light eventually penetrates the vast darkness
Jews and Christians value Democracy, Life, Freedom and Liberty How about the media pointing out the Jihadists commitment to destroying Israel. Israel has been terrorized for 47 years, and the media in the West only emphasizes repeatedly the damage done when Israel defends itself often without explaining or showing how Israel was just attacked. We need to educate people on the history. How Palestinian terrorist families are paid a lifetime pension for killing Jews. How barbaric they put their children between themselves and the Israeli soldiers because they know Jews value life and will try not to fire on children. How the Pals cheered when the twin towers were destroyed. Israel is the only country throughout history that warns their enemies that they will attack a terrorist's location to try to save the not so innocent people, while Hamas tries to make their people stay so they will be injured for propaganda images. We and especially the media have to counter all the lies and misinformation with the true facts.
Please copy, edit and paste.
I certainly support your efforts at getting Israel's story out.
But the barbaric behavior of Israel's enemies, 9/11, 10/7, terrorist attacks in Europe and the ongoing islamic war on the west should itself be sufficient for Israel to win the information war. I still say the west has a morality problem more than Israel has a PR problem.
As for the war in Iran, the prospect of terrorists with nuclear weapons should be enough to convince ordinary Americans of the necessity of the war, especially in a post 9/11 world. What are gas and grocery prices in comparison to that?
"We built..." That is the key for me. We built institutions so that even the British recognized we had the makings of an independent state years before the partition vote. The Arabs didn't build.
They kvetched that the proposed borders of any partition plan put all the Jewish initiative industry in the Jewish state. We built in America. We invented the movie industry. Now we are charged with "controlling" the movie industry. I hope you're right about the prospects for changing perspectives. Here's a major Jewish celebrity Bette Midler ranting about "fascism" at a recent "alternative" concert with Jane Fonda. Not a word on the genocide of Oct. 7. It was genocide. It was the first of the hoped for wave of atrocities so humiliating that Jews would rush to Ben Gurion the way the Greeks rushed to the sea at Smyrna to find refuge on boats. The celebrities. SHAME. the artists, the writers, the directors....all the virtue signaling hypocrites SHAME. Brad Lander, Peter beinart, Omer Bartov....SHAME. Sanders. SHAME.......these bad actors deliver a toxic message. I hope your optimism is well founded and achievable.
Imagine being so propagandized that you can't even understand why the world hates those who commit genocide.
Israelis don't have to wonder why everyone hates Holocaust deniers.
And there they are wondering why the world hates them.
But if you're one of those people who deny the Holocaust, or denies Israel is committing a genocide, then you deserve every ounce of hate you get.
Except Israel isn't committing a genocide.
Without that lie your entire position falls apart.
And that lie that you just said if it spreads far enough will be the reason that's antisemitism gets redefined from being an irrational hatred to being a rational response.
Actually it's the truth.
The only real genocide was October 7th when your Hamas friends murdered and raped every Jew they saw.
Then they hid behind their civilians like crying bitches using human shields so you could spread a libelous lie called "Genocide."
No mention that the war ended when the basic demand was met -- and hostages were returned.
No mention of use of human shields.
No mention of Israel's efforts to reduce civilian casualties with leaflets, warnings and corridors, leading to the lowest civilian to combatant death ratio in recorded military history.
No.
You cling to the lie of genocide because the lie is all you have.
Just remember this: You can fool people.
You will not fool G-d.
And you will answer to him.