KINSELLA: Organization is key to winning information wars -- just ask anti-Israel and MAGA crowds |
Exactly 100 days after Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, I was asked to speak at a rally at Toronto’s City Hall to call for the release of the Israeli hostages still held by Hamas. I appeared before a crowd of a couple hundred people, tops. My colleague Brian Lilley was there, too, covering the event.
It was bitterly cold, so Brian and I headed a few blocks east towards Yonge St. to warm up. Almost immediately we could hear lots of chants and noise. The clamour was coming from a crowd of variously anti-Israel, anti-West, antisemitic, pro-Hamas protesters heading south on Yonge, paralyzing Toronto’s main street.
KINSELLA: Organization is key to winning information wars -- just ask anti-Israel and MAGA crowds Back to video
There were thousands upon thousands of them. They had taken over the centre of Toronto. The police didn’t seem to be doing anything. Palestinian flags and antisemitic signage as far as the eye could see.
In the intervening years, that same thing has been observed over and over again in the streets and on computer and TV screens — the mainly Jewish, pro-Israel side, sometimes showing up in puny numbers. And, on the other side, 100 times as many people, organized and organizing against Jews and the Jewish state. With seemingly bottomless resources, with tested messages, with military precision.
There are exceptions, of course. There is, say, the annual Walk for Israel, which attracts thousands of people to Toronto to march up Bathurst St. But, for the most part, the angry Israel-haters have completely dominated the propaganda battle that commenced in earnest on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered and wounded thousands of Israeli civilians. It is not even debatable: They are winning the information war.
Strategies of left and right impact success
The same phenomenon can be observed in politics, too. In an essay in a recent issue of the New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Charles Duhigg investigated the contrasting tactics and strategies of the American left and right. The left has the Democratic Party, Duhigg writes, and occasional events like the 2017 Women’s March or the 2025 No Kings protests. The right has Donald Trump, MAGA, Turning Point USA, and the Faith & Freedom Coalition.
Even though most voters self-identify as progressive, the right has been utterly dominating the discourse in recent years in the United States. The MAGA side controls the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court. The left, meanwhile, can put together big and flashy events — the Women’s March attracted five million participants, the No Kings rallies had seven million — and then … nothing. After an event takes place, the momentum always fizzles out.
Writes Duhigg: “(The left) is great at mobilizing: It can propel people into the streets with big marches, raise billions of dollars for national candidates, and get liberals to bombard congressional offices with letters and phone calls. However, it’s less talented at organizing and building the kinds of local infrastructure and disparate leaders that are needed to sustain a large and ideologically-diverse coalition. MAGA, on the other hand, is great at organizing.”
MAGA has done so with what the Republicans call the Faith & Freedom Coalition-inspired Precinct Strategy, which focuses on building formidable infrastructure on the ground, populated with people with sometimes wildly contrasting views — on guns, abortion, health care, and so on. For admission, however, all that is required is an affection for Donald Trump.
United on prime objective is the key
Meanwhile, the anti-Israel, anti-West, antisemitic, pro-Hamas side have many internal disagreements, as well. But, like MAGA, those things are not as important as the prime objective — which is eliminating the Jewish state.
Continues Duhigg: “This kind of organizing is hardly the only reason that Trump won. But scholars who study both parties agree that in recent decades Republicans have created broad ideological coalitions, something that Democrats, who tend to have litmus tests on abortion, social justice, and numerous other topics, have often not achieved. Conservatives have also built a media ecosystem that dwarfs Democratic messaging … the MAGA movement has nevertheless ‘done a fantastic job of welcoming anyone who puts on the red hat. That’s the only requirement: You just have to think Trump is great.’”
The Israel-haters are like that, too: They don’t subject potential recruits to purity tests. All that is required is singular commitment to ending Israel. The pro-Israel side, on the other hand, is too often riven with disagreements about strategy and tactics, and too many contrasting organizations and voices — and the Israel-haters have taken full and frequent advantage of that.
Periodic protests, slick websites, and celebrity endorsements are nice. They make people feel good. But what matters — on election day, or in the battle to capture public opinion — is long-term strength on the ground. Bodies, organization, commitment.
All politics is local, Democratic Party legend Tip O’Neill liked to say. But his party has forgotten that lesson, and Trump’s MAGA has learned it too well.
Same goes for the Israel-Hamas propaganda war. There, the bad guys have been winning because they know organization isn’t just one thing.
— Kinsella’s new book on the propaganda war against Israel and the West, The Hidden Hand, is being released by Penguin Random House starting this month.