The Gaza War began when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel in 2023. Hamas had planned, prepared, and trained for it for years. At the same time Hamas and their various supporters around the world launched a communication war via news and social media. Within hours of the military attack there were allegations against Israel of genocide and occupation. There were “Free Palestine” demonstrations, flags, posters, and stickers in major cities in Canada. These things require planning and organizing; “Free Palestine” stickers do not print themselves and get affixed to pedestrian call buttons at intersections near Canadian transit stations randomly or spontaneously. The war of words was not a coincidence; it was part of a long-running strategy.
After two and half years, the military conflict has de-escalated into a nominal ceasefire situation. All the while, the war of words continues to escalate. In the military war, Hamas fought without constraints. Israel fought a more conventional war, despite the challenge of dealing with an enemy that dressed as civilians and used civilians as pawns and human shields. Military experts have examined the evidence and concluded that Israel’s military operations have resulted in low civilian casualty levels relative to the kind of urban warfare waged by Hamas.
Despite the wealth of forensic and documentary evidence that Israel has acted morally and ethically in its defence, the communication war against Israel has flooded news and social media with propaganda to the contrary. Some of it has been traced to the Chinese and Russian governments, who are intent on disruption and interference in American and European and Israeli democratic interests. Much of the content matches the propaganda produced in Farsi and Arabic by Iran and by Arab theocracies that supplied and supported Hamas in the military campaign. The gist of their narrative is that Zionists – their code for Jews worldwide – are committing a genocide against Palestinians everywhere. The result has been to turn public opinion and governmental policy against the Jews.
It would be an understatement to say that Israelis, Jews, and their supporters everywhere are incredulous about this. In response to this outrage, most of the media coverage that is even-handed about Israel has featured two often intersecting frameworks: truth – i.e., the reporting of facts and evidence, and sympathy – i.e., emphasis on the damage that Hamas and their supporters have done to Israelis in particular and Jews around the world in general.
In theory, each of these responses is rational. However, rationality may not be enough to stem the tide of antisemitism in governments and media. Reporting of facts has not worked; it has been drowned out by the quantity and intensity of antisemitic commentary, media posts, editorials, books, and videos. On the one hand, it is imperative to set the record straight. On the other hand, the situation on the ground has nothing to do with truth, evidence, or rational arguments. This is why our current era has been called “post truth.”
If truth is not a path to peace, then what about sympathy? In conflict and communication theory, sympathy is supposed to appeal to the moral sensibilities of the bystanders and witnesses to an injustice. The anti-Zionist movement has achieved success and gained support and recognition precisely due to the volume and intensity of their use of falsehoods and distortions to acquire the world’s sympathy. At the same time, Jewish voices continue to speak out, post, and editorialize about how much Jews have been victimized by the hate speech, propaganda, encampments, and violence directed at them in every aspect of everyday life. However, antisemitism continues to escalate.
The more we fight a symmetrical war of fact reporting and appeals to sympathy against the marketing of antisemitism, the more the antisemites gain market share in the public sphere. This has to stop. We are obliged to promote and record documentary evidence of the truth for posterity; failing to do so would be seen as weakness, and would be exploited as an admission of guilt. Sympathy is a different matter, because it is not working, and that is a big problem. To address this problem, it helps to know something about feedback loops.
A feedback loop is a process in which the output of what happens in a system serves as the input for what happens next in the system. For example, a thermostat is designed to measure the temperature in a room to determine what the heating/air conditioning system should do. If the room is too cold, then it sends a signal to the furnace to heat and recirculate the air. Feedback loops are a basic feature of communication processes. In conflict, we participate in feedback loops all the time in conversations, in correspondence, in social media.
What is happening in the communication war between Hamas and Israel, and by extension between antisemites and Jews is a clear example of a feedback loop gone viral and toxic. Every time a Jewish person or organization communicates to the world that they have been traumatized, victimized, or marginalized by antisemitic hatred, they are giving antisemites feedback that antisemitic violence and hate speech are having the intended effect. In a classic feedback loop, it is exactly the kind of information that triggers an escalation of the desired effect – in this case, isolation of Israel and denial of Jewish self-determination.
Rationally, one might assume that exposing the barbarity of Hamas would advance the world’s sympathy for Israel. One might assume that exposing the hatred and violence against Jewish worshippers, Jewish students and teachers, and the targeting of Jewish businesses and institutions would garner the world’s sympathy. One might assume that exposing the falsehoods and machinations of activists who channel the propaganda of antisemitic regimes would inspire sympathy from their target audiences. The history of the communication war has taught us that rationality will not triumph over the big lies and the false narratives of antisemitism. This lesson is reinforced by the way in which Jews have retold and ritualized our traditional stories.
The story of Purim has a villain to be sure, but the ritual of the Megillah’s retelling accepts the position that we Jews must take responsibility for ourselves. It does not harp on the unfairness of Haman’s plans and accusations. In particular, the Megillah accepts Haman’s accusation of the Jews being scattered and divided among the nations. It celebrates the fact that the Jews come together – נקהלו, ויקהלו, נקהלו… The modes of celebration express the power of our coming together through gifts of food to friends, gifts to the poor, sharing a meal, and reading a story together. Our holiday is not a pity-party of victimhood; it is an underscoring of how we correct our own weaknesses in a world that seeks to exploit our weaknesses so as to destroy us.
Pesach is the same; it is not a wallowing in the misery of Egypt, but rather a reminder that we had the power to choose to leave the comforts and culture of Egypt. The Passover offering and the blood on the doorposts exemplify our choice to disobey the laws of Egypt and assert our self-determination. We celebrate the speed of our departure with food that symbolizes our haste. The pain of Egypt is not a badge of victimhood, but rather a lens through which to measure the morality of our actions. The Talmud mentions at least 36 times that we are not to oppress the stranger for we were strangers in Egypt.
At Hanukkah we celebrate purity, light, and temple rituals. The Seleucid Greek attempts to destroy us through cultural genocide do not define us. Rather, they are the context for the spiritual triumph that defines us.
Traditional Jewish responses to tragedies all had a familiar refrain; מפני חטאינו–because of our sins, this befell us. A prime example is the famous story of Rabbi Amnon who composed the Unetana Tokef prayer. In the telling he appears before the bishop to pronounce his own punishment, “my tongue should be cut out for saying I would consider betraying my faith.” The highlight of the prayer - “Repentance, Prayer and Charity” – is our plea to Gd to avert the severity of the decree. The decree is Rabbi Amnon’s one guilt. The bishop is like a character from central casting; his hatred of the Jews and his need to proselytize are a given, an immutable fact of his existence. In contrast, it is a Rabbi Amnon who is dynamic, who must respond.
This ability of the Jews to take matters in our own hands has been the hallmark of our success. It is the story of survivors of the Holocaust who came to this country penniless and thrived. It is the story of the State of Israel that refused to surrender to anyone else the responsibility for its defense. It is the story of every Jewish grandmother who knows that so-called Jewish guilt is the secret sauce.
Given the realities of what has happened since 7 October 2023, one would be mistaken to rely on today’s rational assumptions about truth and sympathy. In this post-truth era, in the eye of the storm, the story might seem bleak, but we have staying power. The false narratives of today’s antisemites will have no more power over us than those of the Egyptians, or Haman, or the Seleucid monarchs. There may come a time for reconciliation. Until then, it would be most prudent to stop trying to convince the world that what the antisemites have been doing has been effective at hurting us. If and when truth prevails and the world comes to its senses and regrets what happened to Israel and the Jews, then we can make peace with our enemies and those who failed to stand with us. We can say that so long as the world remembers to never forget, we are willing to forgive and live in peace.
Shabbat Shalom and Purim Sameach,
Rabbi Rosenblatt and Dr. Terry Neiman
