The explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza Tuesday night was a loud, resounding alarm. The event, and the response by the international media, proved how fragile, not to mention fluid, is Israel’s moral legitimacy in the eyes of the world. While in the first week of the war Israel managed to gain global empathy due to the images of the terrible massacre in the south, this narrative changed very quickly. The search for international legitimacy for the IDF's retaliatory actions in the Gaza Strip is a complex and difficult cognitive process, and Tuesday night's events proved to what extent Israel is at a disadvantage in the Western and liberal world regarding the cognitive war and public diplomacy.
The fact that Israel is a country that is considered by global public opinion as an "occupying country” works to its detriment even when the citizens of Israel are brutally attacked by the barbarians among humans. After a very few days of shock, and with the “assistance” of visual images showing the results of the Israeli bombings, citizens of the Western world have quickly returned to their fundamental views, condemning the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria, supporting the Palestinian right to an independent state, and more.
It was very difficult for Israeli public diplomacy, grounded in a rather cumbersome and slow system, to get into gear following the reports of the explosion. Thousands of energetic Israelis, enraged by the false and horrible accusations hurled at the IDF, embarked on an independent advocacy campaign in order to spread the truth on social media. It was not the state that did it, certainly not the government. Even the opposition took time to wake up. But Israelis, from influencers to senior journalists and ordinary citizens, led a powerful defensive-offensive line. Within hours, the network was filled with reliable information about the difficult event in Gaza.
For many of the main media outlets in the world, this didn't really change much. The New York Times, which is considered the most important newspaper in the world, continued for hours to showcase the false Palestinian claims on its website’s home page. The pressure didn't help, and the facts didn't help: the New York Times preferred the Palestinian narrative over the factual data of Israel and the IDF. There are historical reasons for this, which haven't disappeared and probably won't.
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The post is published in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Israel.
The explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza Tuesday night was a loud, resounding alarm. The event, and the response by the international media, proved how fragile, not to mention fluid, is Israel’s moral legitimacy in the eyes of the world. While in the first week of the war Israel managed to gain global empathy due to the images of the terrible massacre in the south, this narrative changed very quickly. The search for international legitimacy for the IDF's retaliatory actions in the Gaza Strip is a complex and difficult cognitive process, and Tuesday night's events proved to what extent Israel is at a disadvantage in the Western and liberal world regarding the cognitive war and public diplomacy.
The fact that Israel is a country that is considered by global public opinion as an "occupying country” works to its detriment even when the citizens of Israel are brutally attacked by the barbarians among humans. After a very few days of shock, and with the “assistance” of visual images showing the results of the Israeli bombings, citizens of the Western world have quickly returned to their fundamental views, condemning the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria, supporting the Palestinian right to an independent state, and more.
It was very difficult for Israeli public diplomacy, grounded in a rather cumbersome and slow system, to get into gear following the reports of the explosion. Thousands of energetic Israelis, enraged by the false and horrible accusations hurled at the IDF, embarked on an independent advocacy campaign in order to spread the truth on social media. It was not the state that did it, certainly not the government. Even the opposition took time to wake up. But Israelis, from influencers to senior journalists and ordinary citizens, led a powerful defensive-offensive line. Within hours, the network was filled with reliable information about the difficult event in Gaza.
For many of the main media outlets in the world, this didn't really change much. The New York Times, which is considered the most important newspaper in the world, continued for hours to showcase the false Palestinian claims on its website’s home page. The pressure didn't help, and the facts didn't help: the New York Times preferred the Palestinian narrative over the factual data of Israel and the IDF. There are historical reasons for this, which haven't disappeared and probably won't.
______
The post is published in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Israel.