Why is Israel losing the PR war?

The well-known saying that, “A lie can travel half way around the world, while the truth is putting on its shoes,” was never more applicable to anything than Israel’s inability to win the battle of public relations.

Despite having provable facts on their side, not to mention the sympathy which should have resulted when the world got a glimpse of the atrocities that took place at the Nova Music Festival and the southern kibbutz communities on October 7th, none of that was enough.

It took little time for the perpetrators of the bloody massacre to pull off the greatest PR heist, reversing the tragedy and suffering of Israelis, by co-opting it and applying it to themselves. 

Suddenly, the red-headed babies, Holocaust survivors and beautiful young women who were strangled, mutilated and murdered were sidelined. Quickly replaced by images of starving children, Gazans garnered all of the tears originally meant for those whose people were violated.

It didn’t matter that massive amounts of food were being trucked in on a daily basis, assuring that starvation would not be the consequence to a war that the leaders of Gaza started. They, instead, had to search for the ultimate poster child to become the face of Gazan misery, undoubtedly, caused by Israel.

Once it was revealed that the photo of Mohammed Al-Motawaq was a cynical attempt to manipulate the truth, after it was disclosed that he got that way through a genetic disease, which kept him looking emaciated, even that didn’t cause an uproar over what was being reported.

Sadly, there is a dark and evil tendency within humanity that longs to hear the worst about others. Unquestionably, it is part of our downfall when we chose to disobey our Creator. At that moment, we were bitten by an insidious bug that infected us with jealousy, envy, pettiness, greed, unhealthy competition and the need to cast blame on everyone but ourselves.

In that bubbling cauldron of unsavory behaviors, we perfected the art of lying, exaggeration, identity theft, projection of our own transgressions onto others and so much more.  It became the way to make us look good while portraying others as the beasts we’d become.

Consequently, we were able to turn a narrative any way we wanted, while untruths were easily accepted, because we reveled in falsehood.

Of course, there is a great price for such deception, and it’s not one which is insignificant.  While the obvious fallout is the inability to trust the veracity of what is being reported, it is far from the only implication of deliberate twisting or the inventing of stories for the purpose of libelous accusation.

Perhaps one of the worst outcomes is the way a generation can be controlled and deceived through the trickery and clever plotting of how to influence others to believe what they ordinarily would reject. In some ways, it’s a sleight of hand which takes place to cunningly dupe individuals into accepting a fabricated version of what they are pushing.

Unfortunately, it works, effectively doing its job. So says American evangelical Mike Evans who is convinced that “Israel still has the support of American evangelical Christians,” despite his warning that “the Jewish state has lost the information war and needs to seriously invest its focus on the matter.”

It's not for lack of effort, however, that Israel has come in second, in a war that uses every type of myth, falsehood and misconception in order to claim the victimhood title. Our spokespeople constantly appear on cable news outlets as well as mainstream media, setting the record straight and factually proving what has been distorted.

In addition to their hard work, there are many prominent Israel surrogates, such as Douglas Murray, Mosab Hassan Yousef, Yoseph Haddad and many others who are committed to telling the real truth about Israel, disproving defamatory charges such as genocide and an apartheid society.  

But for those who prefer the malicious portrayal of Jews, even the most articulate speakers, backed by irrefutable evidence, would not make a dent into getting our side heard in a way that changes hearts and minds.

Because when you are invested in the need to castigate an entire nation, the truth does not serve that agenda in any way. It, instead, impedes the furtherance of innocence and ownership of culpability which belongs to the ones who will do whatever it takes to tarnish our good name.

In this case, the marriage between deceptive actors and people who are easily fooled, just because they lack the integrity to distinguish good from evil, is a relationship that has mutual benefit one to the other.  

The perpetrators of violence feed an unrighteous constituency who can’t help themselves. They will fall into the trap of their own default habits – one of which is hating the people whom God chose for His special purposes.  

So, when you think about it, Israel could have a 24/7 campaign of promos, infomercials, video clips and podcasts – all with the most convincing and persuasive reasons as to why we have acted responsibly, honestly, prudently and with integrity, but it might not necessarily change anything.

That is because this is really a spiritual battle, more than anything else, and until the foes of Israel are wiped out by Almighty God, there will be no effective or lasting way to eradicate the bad press coverage.

All we can really do is continue to stand tall, unashamed of how we have done everything, within our power, to fight the good fight even while being accused of war crimes and the purposeful targeting of Gazan civilians.  

If we are waiting to be vindicated by our accusers, who suddenly have an epiphany that we are justified in protecting ourselves or that we have done our best to ensure the least number of casualties, on the other side, we might as well give up.  

Yes, in many ways, the deck is stacked against us, but only from a human perspective.  Since we know that God is in control of what happens to his personal piece of real estate, then we needn’t fret over the public relations war which we cannot win no matter how hard we try.

What we CAN do is rest in the knowledge that we’ve got the best PR agent, looking out for us – the One who promised “to give us renown and praise among all the peoples of the earth.” Zephaniah 3:20 

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