Experts focused on exposing false narratives about Israel gathered on June 22 at the JNS 2026 International Policy Summit in Jerusalem to discuss ways to counter a growing campaign of disinformation targeting the Jewish state.
The Narrative Warfare Forum was chaired by The New York Times bestselling author of “IBM and the Holocaust” and host of “The Edwin Black Show,” Edwin Black, and co-chaired by Special Envoy for Trade and Innovation at Israel’s Foreign Ministry and co-host of JNS TV’s “The Quad” Fleur Hassan-Nahoum.
Among the proposals advanced during the forum was the creation of a Unified Narrative Command.
In her remarks, Hassan-Nahoum outlined a proposal to establish a nerve center modeled after the Israel Defense Forces to coordinate efforts on the narrative warfare front.
“The main problem is that the government of Israel has not realized yet that we are in hybrid warfare. There is also the narrative war, which unfortunately nobody has decided that this should be part of a national security doctrine,” she said. “All we have are many disjointed solutions, most coming from the bottom up.”
Currently, according to Hassan-Nahoum, no single entity has responsibility for narrative warfare.
“There is no hierarchy, unified messaging or strategy. If the government decided that it should be part of the narrative doctrine and that we should mirror the IDF in the narrative war, we would have a hierarchy. We would have a legal department, a cyber department, maybe bots, or maybe not,” she said.
“Somebody has to make a decision. Somebody has to own this. Until we do, we are an army shooting in different directions,” she continued.
Hassan-Nahoum stressed the need to treat narrative warfare as a serious strategic challenge more than two-and-a-half years after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of some 1,200 Israelis. She hoped that sufficient pressure would be generated for the next government to address the issue.
“They can’t beat us militarily, but they are doing a hell of a job at delegitimizing us,” she added.
She proposed an apolitical solution funded by the state, but managed by leading experts rather than politicians. “We created Hollywood. Surely we can beat them on storytelling, we can and we should,” Hassan-Nahoum said.
The panel featured Dr. Charles Jacobs, president of the Jewish Leadership Project; Jeff Kahn, global strategist at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs; Shabbos Kestenbaum, political commentator and host of PragerU’s “The Brief”; Ami Kozak, comedian, musician and commentator; Masha Merkulova, founder and chief Zionist officer of Club Z; Daniel Rosen, co-founder and co-chair of IMPACT; Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor, and Kenneth Abramowitz, founder of SaveTheWest.com.
Kahn argued that if narrative warfare were redefined as a national security priority for Israel and the Jewish people, more effective solutions could emerge.
“When you understand what we are up against, and how it’s being funded, we understand that this is something that needs to be run by the Israeli Defense Ministry as well as IDF intelligence and other bodies,” he said.
“The IDF is one of the best armies in the world, we have one of the best intelligence services in the world and some of the best people in technology,” Kahn continued. “We definitely need to be able to shift to a concept that says Israel is dealing with a new national security priority and existential threat to be dealt with by our intelligence and defense capabilities.”
The Nigerians, the Druze, the Kurds, the Hindus, the Europeans
Jacobs told JNS that many Israelis and Jews feel isolated because they believe they have lost allies around the world.
“We see ourselves being abandoned by people who we thought were our friends, but in fact, there are tens of millions of people who are natural allies waiting in the wings. They are the other victims and targets of jihad,” he said.
“We are all in the same boat as the Nigerians, the Druze, the Kurds, the Hindus, the Europeans who are now resisting and reacting to a massive influx of immigrants who are not there to settle, but to rule,” he continued. “We do not have to despair; we have to organize those people. We have a moral duty to defend them and a practical reason to be with them.”
Steinberg said that some of the main sources of anti-Israel propaganda and modern blood libels originate from organizations with large budgets that present themselves as promoters of human rights and humanitarian causes, citing groups such as Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
“It’s a huge industry. The message is that those organizations need to be confronted. The money that they have that is spent on promoting propaganda and hate needs to be cut off. There are various ways to do this, and everybody in the audience can participate and contribute to making sure that whether it’s their tax money or donations, it does not go to these organizations,” he said.
Abramowitz discussed economic warfare and its intersection with cultural and legal warfare, arguing that such campaigns often begin by portraying a targeted group as subhuman before progressing to calls for boycotts, sanctions or legal action against it.
He said that governments should criminalize what he described as “Islamo-Nazi death cults” and encourage countries to boycott those advocating boycotts.
“We should have a legal committee to criminalize incitement to genocide and stop or deport people on that issue,” Abramowitz said.
Kozak focused on the weaponization of comedy and satire. By making an adversary’s narrative appear absurd, he argued, movements can be stripped of their influence and credibility.
He also urged Jews to be unapologetic about their identity rather than constantly defending themselves against accusations.
“Don’t confuse ignorance and hate. There are those pushing evil lies and those who are falling for it. Most people care about themselves and need to feel virtuous. When you engage with young people, listen to their ignorance without judgment. Expose the evil people, and engage with those falling for it to change their minds,” Kozak said.
