The main dilemma for spokespersons taught in the first lesson of the IDF Spokesperson training course lies between checking the absolute credibility of the information and the speed with which it is spread. The IDF and the Israeli public must remember that as an organized army in a Western country, the reliability of the information spread on behalf of the IDF must not be compromised for the sake of speed.
There is no disputing that in the hours between the explosion at the al-Ahli hospital and the presentation of conclusive evidence that the IDF had nothing to do with the incident, global public opinion was fixed firmly based on the Palestinian narrative. However, it is not impossible that even had the IDF offered the conclusive evidence of its innocence already at that time, the Palestinian narrative is the one that would have been entrenched; this is largely due to how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been fixed for decades in global public opinion. Imagine that the IDF Spokesperson's system would align with the rate of information flow that took place on Tuesday night, and as a result issue a complete denial at the same time that the blast was first reported. If in the end it was revealed that the attack was a result of IDF activity, the credibility of the IDF Spokesperson and probably of the army and the state would be suspect, if not completely eradicated, for the entire length of the war.
That said, at the end of the war, expectations between the public and the IDF spokesperson, and between the IDF spokesperson and the army, should be reviewed regarding the role of the IDF spokesperson in routine and emergency situations, and the relevance of its current configuration in an era in which a narrative is shaped and determined in a matter of minutes.
The main dilemma for spokespersons taught in the first lesson of the IDF Spokesperson training course lies between checking the absolute credibility of the information and the speed with which it is spread. The IDF and the Israeli public must remember that as an organized army in a Western country, the reliability of the information spread on behalf of the IDF must not be compromised for the sake of speed.
There is no disputing that in the hours between the explosion at the al-Ahli hospital and the presentation of conclusive evidence that the IDF had nothing to do with the incident, global public opinion was fixed firmly based on the Palestinian narrative. However, it is not impossible that even had the IDF offered the conclusive evidence of its innocence already at that time, the Palestinian narrative is the one that would have been entrenched; this is largely due to how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been fixed for decades in global public opinion. Imagine that the IDF Spokesperson's system would align with the rate of information flow that took place on Tuesday night, and as a result issue a complete denial at the same time that the blast was first reported. If in the end it was revealed that the attack was a result of IDF activity, the credibility of the IDF Spokesperson and probably of the army and the state would be suspect, if not completely eradicated, for the entire length of the war.
That said, at the end of the war, expectations between the public and the IDF spokesperson, and between the IDF spokesperson and the army, should be reviewed regarding the role of the IDF spokesperson in routine and emergency situations, and the relevance of its current configuration in an era in which a narrative is shaped and determined in a matter of minutes.