Fighting the War of Words and Ideas

Welcome to the TikTok War.

Just as television coverage brought the fighting in Vietnam into our living rooms in the last century, and Matthew Brady’s photographs of Civil War battles allowed Americans to witness the devastation of military conflict in the century before that, the ubiquity of streaming video on social media has transformed the way voters in this country and around the world are now experiencing the war in Gaza. The unhappy result is that Israel and its advocates, who have never placed an especially high priority in telling the modern Jewish state’s story to an international audience, are badly losing the contest for global public opinion in a markedly one-sided fashion.

In those earlier eras, still photographs and television video created a visual and emotional immediacy for the vast majority of the public that was not physically present for battlefield bloodshed. Social media has had a similar impact as images of the fighting in Gaza spread virally around the planet and millions of consumers watch abbreviated and horrifying videos presented without the context that could explain what caused the violence to take place. But advances in communications technology did not create Israel’s lopsided disadvantage in this clash of competing narratives. Rather, these digital tools have only exacerbated an already-skewed discussion that now has pictures to support the misleading and deceptive words that portray Israel – and Jews – as oppressors ruthlessly subjecting helpless victims to their dictates.

The third-party sympathies that naturally flow toward the underdog and therefore buoyed public support for Israel for many years have shifted over the years to its enemies. 

Since Israel’s independence in 1948, its leaders have seemed to view public relations as an unaffordable luxury to a country fighting for its very survival. But the third-party sympathies that naturally flow toward the underdog and therefore buoyed public support for Israel for many years have shifted over the years to its enemies. In recent years, the changes in public opinion have been noticeable but not large enough to cause alarm among Israel’s supporters. But the war in Gaza has created a political landscape on which these attitudes have become much more intense, much more apparent and much more harmful.

Over the same time period, the changing role of social media has provided a powerful set of platforms from which these messages can be delivered. The traditional political and media gatekeepers, while not always consistent in their support for the Jewish state, usually provided some level of protection against the angriest and most deceitful critics of Israel. But those gatekeepers no longer possess the power they once held, so the ugliest verbal attacks can now move rapidly into the public conversation.

The power of social media isn’t just that anti-Israel messages can spread more quickly and more uncontrollably, but also that the power of video allows that message to pack a much greater emotional wallop and therefore move public sentiment much more dramatically. While these platforms are theoretically available to all messengers on all sides of this debate, the historic disregard that Israel and its allies have displayed toward international public opinion means that these technological tools have been utilized much more proficiently by Israel’s opponents than its friends.

The great irony is that one of the Jewish people’s powers throughout our history has been our strengths and skills as storytellers. The legends that we have passed on through the generations — the stories of Abraham and Noah and Moses, of Miriam and Ruth and Esther, of David and Samson and Judah Maccabee and so many others — not only shape our own history and values, but create moral grounding for people of all religious faiths.

Now, as Israel faces the greatest challenge of its modern existence, we no longer make our case in the public square. There are some — Zioness on the left and Bari Weiss’ The Free Press on the right, newly emerging voices such as We Are Tov and others — who possess the courage and savvy to confront these challenges on the digital battlefield. But these are brave exceptions to the sporadic and ineffectual countermessaging we see more frequently. It’s time for us to remember that a critically important aspect of achieving military victory is winning the war of words and ideas.

Dan Schnur is the U.S. Politics Editor for the Jewish Journal. He teaches courses in politics, communications, and leadership at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. He hosts the monthly webinar “The Dan Schnur Political Report” for the Los Angeles World Affairs Council & Town Hall. Follow Dan’s work at www.danschnurpolitics.com.