In this week’s episode of “Top Story,” JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin discusses the importance of the information war between Israel and Hamas terrorists. With so much of the corporate mainstream media adopting the narrative of the Palestinians, in which the Jewish state is depicted as the aggressor—even after the terrorist atrocities on Oct. 7—the ability of Israel’s enemies to influence both public opinion and U.S. policy shouldn’t be underestimated.
He’s joined by Tal Heinrich, spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She has become a familiar face on American television in the last month, explaining the conflict in detail. During the course of their conversation, which was interrupted at one point by a Hamas missile attack, requiring Heinrich to take shelter, she said the Oct. 7 attacks had changed Israel but that in spite of the grief over those killed and the hostages taken, despair is not the national mood.
“Everyone is so united in this fight,” said Heinrich. “Everyone understands what must be done—that Hamas must be gone and that we have taken this decision as a nation.”
She said we have grasped the decision “not only as a government, although we have a unity government representing the public sentiment here right now, but every person in this country has taken this decision that Hamas can be no longer, that we will no longer live next to a crazy, bloodthirsty terrorist enclave, a terror base.”
Speaking of the bias against Israel that is widespread in the media, Heinrich, herself an experienced journalist, said much of the reason for false stories about Israeli actions and the whitewashing of Palestinian terrorist war crimes was due to ignorance on the part of the press. “People really don’t know the history of this place. People deny the rights of the Jewish people for their own homeland in their ancestral land, in the biblical heartland of Judea,” said Heinrich.
Antisemitism also plays a role in the problem. “Not only in the United States but also in Europe and other places across the Middle East, we see that anti-Semites are disguising their anti-Semitism behind Western terminology, twisting it in a way,” she said, referring to the attempts to disguise anti-Zionist goals with the language of human rights and intersectionality. “But sometimes, the anti-Semitism is just in your face with the slogans—with the chants that we see, from the river to the sea, globalize the intifada, genocide for the Jews.”
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