I remember well that when I was studying at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, we went to classes in the neighboring music school. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas had made a prodigious donation to the University to build a new building for the cinema school, whose architecture style could be described as “Star Wars.”

In my two classes every week at the music school, while the new Star Wars building was under construction, I would see huge gatherings of Palestinianists in the room next door. That’s right, somewhere in 2008, every week, like dutiful ants, the Qatar-funded Palestinianist campus movement would gather in an amphitheater of the music school to plot. Plot what? I don’t know. I was going to class, not to their meeting. What was even more surprising was that when I told the people at the Jewish student union, Hillel, they had no idea that such Palestinianist gatherings of hate were even taking place.

When the first pro-Palestinian demonstration took place on campus the following year, 12 white people showed up and, thanks to the efforts of Charlotte Korshak, 300 Israel supporters showed up in the counter demonstration. But in 2024, fifteen years later, pro-Palestinian captured the entire USC campus in downtown LA and kept it hostage, “Judenrein“, for a week.

This brings me to the point why I invited this small anecdote Americana, to show that the whole Middle East conflict has operated in the last 60 years with the same rules as the USC campus. Israel has fought this conflict in the predicament that the reality of a modern, inclusive, high-tech Jewish democracy in the Middle East, and its overwhelming military victories would win hearts and minds.

Since the late 60s, when they came up with a fictitious identity, Palestinians realized that they did not need to win in the real world; they needed to win on the propaganda front. In the age of social media and post-truth, where people make up their minds based on emotion, not facts, this means Israel, like the USC Hillel, is fighting a samurai with a foam sword, while the Palestinianists have been conquering the “campus” patiently.

Israel has fundamentally misread the communication war from the get-go, and now it’s perhaps too late. The last two years given a gigantic beating to the image of the Jewish state, boycotts, and eventual sanctions. The Israeli mentality, “we don’t care what they say,” or the religious, “it’s written in the Bible, the world will turn on us,” won’t cut it anymore. Palestinianists’ side has a one-hundred-year plan; our plan should be permanent like our state. Communication is war; it’s not postering, it’s not winning an argument, it’s war. That’s how they saw it, and let’s give credit where it’s due, they may have lost the Gaza war, but they have won the first modern post-fact battle. To get back in the game, Israel does not need half a dozen influencers; it needs to think long run, understand that wars may come and go but communication stays, and it’s irrelevant to win a war, and lose soldiers and civilians, if you are treated as a pariah.

Palestinianism does not seek an Arab state in the land of Israel; it seeks the destruction of Israel through discrediting and de-credibilization, and as it happened in the previous flotilla international military intervention. They are not interested in sharing the truth, but in controlling the narrative. Last week it was burning statues of Baal; this week it is defending Albanese; next week they will see. They control the social media bot farms until your feed looks like Ismail Haniyeh’s laptop.

The core problem Israel faces is a strategic communications gap: while its military and technological capabilities are overwhelming, its messaging fails to influence hearts and minds on a global scale. To address this, Israel needs a permanent, coordinated communication strategy that operates continuously rather than reactively. Solutions include establishing a dedicated international media and messaging command, deploying trained professionals with global experience to craft narratives, monitoring disinformation campaigns in real time, and leveraging social media, traditional press, and thought leadership to shape perceptions proactively. Strategic partnerships with credible international voices and media outlets can amplify Israel’s story and counter propaganda before it gains traction.

Additionally, Israel must prioritize long-term education and public diplomacy campaigns that explain its reality as a modern, democratic, and inclusive state. This involves clear, emotionally resonant messaging that humanizes its citizens, highlights its achievements, and exposes misinformation without engaging in reactive hostility. Above all, don’t wait for the narrative; create it, and amplify it brutally if necessary.

In my time working in communication in Israel, I saw the opposite. Israeli companies leave communication as an afterthought, doing dreadful work at it. Branding and content are confused, and image and marketing goals are mashed until no one understands which one is which. The country follows the bad example of its companies, and the results are there to be seen. Israel needs to change its mindset. The Achilles heel of the start-up nation has always been communication, and its enemies know that.

In today’s post-truth, media-driven environment, Israel’s survival and legitimacy are inseparable from its ability to control narratives. Success requires treating communication as a strategic, ongoing war, professional, globally informed, and proactive, ensuring that facts, context, and credibility outpace propaganda in shaping global perception.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)