Emily Schrader, AKA EmilyinTelAviv, a journalist and prominent pro-Israel activist, was filming one of many TV interviews this past week when a siren went off and forced her to find shelter in her Tel Aviv home, live on camera. She was safe, but she subsequently posted the clip to her 97,000 followers on Instagram, showing them the realities of what it’s like to be in Israel right now.
“Hamas fired a rocket at my house I had to run to the bomb shelter while on television… even more insane? It was a debate with Palestinian who was trying to gaslight and claim that it’s Israel’s fault we were slaughtered by Iranian Regine backed terrorists. I won’t stand for this.”
Schrader was born in Los Angeles and made Aliyah in 2015. Since then, she’s built a following showing the beautiful side of Israel on Instagram and Twitter, as well as reporting on what’s happening in her country and Iran following the murder of Mahsa Amini. She has a huge fan base in the U.S., Israel and Iran, and writes her posts in English and Arabic to Persian.
Since the war started, she’s barely been sleeping, anxious for her own life and trying to do her part to clarify what’s really happening to the world.
“I’ve seen firsthand some of the most horrific scenes since the footage of ISIS or since photos and documentation of the Holocaust,” she told the Journal. “I hate making those comparisons, but the truth is there is no adequate comparison.”
Schrader, who writes for the Jerusalem Post, Politico and Ynetnews, has noticed that while the coverage of the war is less biased against Israel than it has been in recent years, she is worried that will shift following Israel’s defensive in Gaza.
“It upsets me to see some sources like RT are pretty much streaming nonstop coverage from Gaza about civilians getting injured and dying,” she said. “That is indeed a tragedy, but at the same time, you have to acknowledge if you’re being honest about reporting, it’s a response. What Hamas did was not a response or a military operation.”
Though it’s Schrader’s job to put on correct information, it’s been difficult emotionally to process what’s happening.
“On a personal level, I am absolutely devastated,” she said. “I don’t know how to put into words how much my soul hurts from the things I’ve seen, that I’ve had to look at and verify as a journalist. The level of cruelty is unlike anything I could have imagined. It makes it difficult to sleep, to enjoy anything. I speak for myself and many other Israelis when I say the whole country is traumatized by what we have seen and gone through. I wish the international community would understand more before demanding to see photos of decapitated babies, for example.”
Schrader points out the media’s hypocrisy, which only seems to happen when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I don’t think any country in the world or victim of massacre, rape or torture would be subjected to the same level of scrutiny by the international media,” she said. “The second there were eyewitnesses who reported about rapes, there were people who said there was no proof. In all my reporting on conflicts, genocides, massacres and terror attacks, I’ve never seen anyone respond like that about any other group or person who claimed they were a victim of such an attack.”
“I don’t think any country in the world or victim of massacre, rape or torture would be subjected to the same level of scrutiny by the international media.”
As someone who has long reported on the Iranian threat, she wishes that it would have been taken more seriously, since there are reports circulating that Iran was allegedly behind the attacks.
“As an Israeli and journalist, it was very frustrating to have been speaking about the threat of Iran, the support for terrorist proxies on pretty much all of Israel’s borders, and the genocidal rhetoric and intent that’s very clear in both the propaganda of the Islamic Republic and Palestinian society at every level. From the cradle to the grave, there is incitement of hatred of Jews that is not only accepted but celebrated. We’ve been speaking about this for years in the media.”
For now, Schrader will keep fighting in the information war. Her overarching concern? The fact that people on both sides will continue to die.
“More lives will be lost if the world doesn’t take these threats seriously, just was they haven’t before,” she said. “I don’t want to see that happen.”
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