To shield Israel's reputation from the lies, conspiratorial gobbledygook, and all-around slander of the Arab Street, there's actually an easy PR solution: Assign the Gaza Strip to China and reclassify the Palestinians as Uyghers. Problem solved: The Arab Street will feign amnesia and never mention them again.
Alas, China has absolutely no — zero, zilch, nada! — interest in acquiring Gaza. Neither does Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else (which ought to tell you something). And unfortunately, in today's Middle East, there are no easy solutions.
But there are solutions.
A terrorist campaign is a public relations campaign because its significance isn't the act itself but what comes next: how the enemy responds, how your allies rally, and how the status quo is swayed. The death, carnage, and destruction are secondary to the perceptual shifts.
The Hamas terrorist/PR playbook has remained unchanged since its inception: Target civilians, murder civilians, hide behind civilians — and if/when the enemy finally responds and there's collateral damage, cry crocodile tears and (naturally) blame the enemy for all the dead civilians. It's a strategy that, historically, has been quite effective, especially when the left-leaning media amplifies its false accusations of blood libel: Hamas supplies the pictures and its sycophants ghostwrite the bylines.
It's Corpse PR.
Make no mistake, the heart-wrenching photos of injured Palestinians — the younger, the better — are Hamas' greatest weapon. Time and time again, it's been a doomsday device that's kept Israel boxed in and unable to fully retaliate to previous Hamas attacks.
If you're still on the PR fence, consider: the greatest, most damning lie that Hamas has yet devised... is to accuse Israel of acting exactly like Hamas. And then, when/if Israel does something accidentally that Hamas does deliberately, the media's messaging will paint the Jews as bloodthirsty, racist, and morally repugnant.
But something unexpected happened on October 7 — something that didn't exist during the Arab-Israeli conflicts of yesteryear: social media had exploded in reach and has now supplanted the mainstream media in size and influence. And despite the much-ballyhooed "systemic poverty" in Gaza, Hamas certainly didn't seem to have any trouble acquiring high-end smartphones and brand-new weapons.
Instantly, the photos and videos from October 7 went viral: images of raped women, butchered babies, tortured teens, decapitated infants, and the slaughter of the elderly. As thousands of Jewish civilians were murdered, disfigured, terrorized, and abducted, those morally upstanding heroes of Hamas cheered and celebrated — and they did so on social media.
And for the first time, the mainstream media could not sanitize the images. The left's media gatekeepers had lost their gate, and now it was too late. Everyone saw Hamas for exactly what it is.
This has given Israel the PR breathing room to prepare an effective military response, but Israel's window of opportunity won't stay open very long. Hamas is still targeting civilians, still murdering civilians, and still hiding behind civilians — so undoubtedly, their stockpile of photogenic martyrs will grow.
The Arab Street — no fans of the Jews anyway — simply isn't predisposed to sympathize with Israel. Ever. And the same media outlets that labeled Israel an apartheid state pre-October 7 would relish an opportunity to revisit their old narrative. They have a very specific template, after all: the Jews are greedy colonizers who've stolen this land from the peaceful Palestinians; there's nobility in the Palestinians' gallant struggle; Israel is cruel and indifferent to the plight of Arab civilians.
To amplify their narrative and tie this template together, their go-to props are dead Palestinians — especially children. The more camera-ready dead children, the better. And if you think I'm overstating Hamas' desire to grow its number of child corpses, consider: as the unquestioned rulers of the Gaza Strip for 17 years, they could've passed any law they wanted. Why do you think Hamas never passed a single law that prohibits storing weapons, artillery, and ammo in schools, playgrounds, and children's hospitals?
You can see why certain people — such as Rep. Rashida Talib (D-Mich.) — were so bitterly disappointed to learn that a Palestinian missile struck the Gazan hospital: it royally screwed up their go-to PR talking points. Of course, if the missile had successfully struck an Israeli hospital, the Jihad Squad would have celebrated this wonderful, joyous, divine victory against those evil Zionist occupiers. In the minds of certain people, it only becomes a "war crime" when Jews can be blamed.
Understanding the fierce PR headwinds it's facing, Israel must respond proactively, strategically, and aggressively. The language Israeli leadership uses on the global stage is critical to ensuring moral clarity and depriving Hamas' apologists of their blood libel:
- Don't call the Palestinians — including Hamas — animals. They're not animals. They're human beings, made in the image of God, and it's important to acknowledge that you recognize (and care about) their humanity. Even though Hamas doesn't give a damn how many civilians live or die, Israel must hold itself to a higher standard.
- Don't say it's about revenge. Say it's about justice, recovering hostages, and protecting the innocent from future bloodshed.
It's not a war against the Palestinian people. It's a war against Hamas and its terrorist infrastructure. Furthermore, it's not a time to be boastful, cavalier, or celebratory; what happens next will be hell on earth, and innocent people are going to die. Israel's tone should echo Golda Meir's words: "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. But we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children."
Here in North America, we would be wise to channel our inner Rahm Emanuel and not let this crisis go to waste. If it's in the national interest of the United States to accelerate the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia (and President Biden certainly seems to believe that it is), then this conflict in the Middle East could be used to further this American objective by focusing on what our "target audience," the Saudis, most covet — and most fear:
What Saudi Arabia most covets is the military protection of the United States. Recognizing Israel's right to exist is secondary; its primary goal is to win a war guarantee from the world's lone Superpower. Via our unwavering, steadfast support of Israel in this conflict, President Biden can increase the value of American protection in the eyes of Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
The value of an American war guarantee isn't fixed; it's static, and the White House's policy decisions will determine if the arrow points up or down. (The wisdom of such a guarantee is another topic entirely.) By throwing American diplomatic, political, tactical, and industrial might behind the Israelis and helping them definitively crush Hamas — utterly removing it from the face of the earth — President Biden can elevate the perceived value of American support.
In other words, it becomes a more powerful bargaining chip for U.S. diplomats.
Furthermore, what Saudi Arabia fears most is Iran. Clearly, establishing a precedent where Iran faces no consequences for arming, training, funding, and supporting paramilitary forces as they operate within the borders of sovereign nations is an existential threat to the Saudi regime. If such actions are normalized, there will be much more of them, as MBS is surely aware. And to further raise the stakes, following Israel, the country that the Iranians are most likely to target is Saudi Arabia.
The international community stands at a critical crossroads: Either Iranian patronage of paramilitary troops will be allowed to continue, or it will be forcibly prohibited. Depending on how we frame the issue and execute our foreign policy decisions, we can make this a very easy decision for Saudi Arabia... and everyone else.
The final PR battlefield is the war for moral clarity. Righteous, pure, unadulterated moral indignation is the most powerful PR weapon in politics, and Israel cannot afford to vacate the battlefield — but not all battles are worth fighting. Trying to win the hearts and minds of committed anti-Semites is an exercise in futility. So it just doesn't matter what Nazis, Iranian mullahs, congressional Squad Members, and other assorted Jew Haters think. What matters is everyone else — everyone with an open mind and an unfrozen heart.
This is a war to decide if "Never Again" was just a cute, innocuous, post-Holocaust marketing slogan that really didn't mean anything. (Sort of like saying "Have a nice day" or "Happy holidays.") Because "Never Again" wasn't intended to apply only to the Nazis in Germany — but also to their apologists.
And to their enablers.
And to everyone else who chose to look away.
PR is strategic storytelling. Whoever tells the most credible, emotionally moving story usually wins. It's essential to identify the protagonists, the antagonists, and the stakes. You can't tell your story or disseminate your narrative without it. And right now, world opinion is part of the story because absolutely nothing in the Middle East happens in a vacuum.
Israel's PR allies must stay on the offense and demand accountability — and uncompromising moral clarity: when someone claims that Hamas was justified or that the mere existence of Israel is so abhorrent that Jewish civilians deserve to be slaughtered in mass graves, fit them with a Scarlet Swastika and expose their ideology for what it is. Those who side with the spiritual heirs of Nazis, ISIS, Haman, and Hitler deserve condemnation and confrontation; they certainly don't deserve indifference. There's a dividing line between civilization and savagery — between what's moral and what's profane — and in PR, you can't fight your enemy if you can't define your enemy.
Either "Never Again" means something or it means nothing. And we already know what Hamas believes.
But if you believe Hamas is wrong — that "Never Again" is a moral absolute and civilization is worth defending — then we need to hear your voice, too.
Desperately.
Because today, there's a definitive answer to Hillel's question, "If not now, when?"
The time is now.
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