KINSELLA: First casualty of war is truth

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As the Israel-Iran war goes on, be wary about what you see and hear and read. The first casualty of war, goes the cliché, is truth.

And Iran, in particular, has shown itself to be an unequalled master at promoting propaganda and lies.

Around the same time that Israel is commencing its long-overdue effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Natasha Hausdorff agrees to meet. The location is apt: the Nova Festival exhibit in Toronto, where the story is told of the 378 Israelis – and Canadians, and Americans, and Britons – who were slaughtered by Hamas on October 7, 2023.

The exhibit is harrowing and disturbing, and the organizers have done an extraordinary job of capturing the sadness and horror of that day. When hundreds of unarmed young people were butchered by Islamist terrorists – simply because they had wanted to dance.

Hausdorff frowns, thinking about the question she has been asked: namely, how have the world’s media gotten the story of Israel – and, equally, Iran – so completely wrong? How has the truth been so fundamentally distorted, in so many places?

Hausdorff is young and attractive and brilliant. She has law degrees from Oxford and Tel Aviv University, and has been clerk to a Supreme Court judge – a coveted role. A few days ago, Hausdorff became a mega-star when she appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored and left the British talk show host looking like a sexist, thuggish jerk.

Morgan called Hausdorff “despicable,” cut her off dozens of times, and resembled a shouty polemicist, not a journalist. Asked about that now-infamous encounter, asked about the media’s role in these dangerous days, Hausdorff doesn’t hesitate.

“In general, I think it’s been shameful,” she said. “It’s been shameful that we have not seen a single piece of reporting from Gaza that has acknowledged that nothing that comes out of the Gaza strip is not controlled by Hamas. The notion that the international media would be parroting Hamas propaganda is deeply, deeply shameful – and indicates to me a complete absence of journalistic integrity.”

The misinformation and the disinformation are all having real-life consequences, she said.

“This embracing of Hamas terrorist organization propaganda – not just in the obscene statements that we’ve had from supposed allies of Israel, like the UK, France and Canada, including promoting blood libels like starvation – (is leading to) Jews being executed on the streets in the capital of the free world.”

Hateful deeds are always preceded by hateful words, she said. Which makes the obligation of the media to ascertain the real truth to be not just a journalistic one – it’s a moral obligation, too.

Asked if Iran, Hamas and their axis have gotten better at propagating lies, Hausdorff nods her head.

“They certainly have invested a great deal more in time, energy and resources into it. It’s certainly a been a key factor of Hamas’ planning of this war… I think they have definitely come leaps and bounds. We’re seeing the impact of that disinformation campaign. But it’s not just Hamas.”

Iran, China and Russia, too, have perfected the telling of untruths, and the manipulation of gullible Western media along the way, she said.

Israel itself shares some of the blame for losses in the propaganda war, Hausdorff added. The Jewish state is not good – or not good enough – at telling its side of the story to Western media.

“Israel’s very much on the back foot on this. One of the founding features of Israel was that Jews wouldn’t need to explain themselves to non-Jews anymore,” she said. “For a long time, you saw that kind of mentality within Israel: we know what we’re doing is right. We don’t need to explain ourselves to the international community.”

She paused, then added: “(But) that is fighting it with both hands tied behind our backs.”

True enough.

In any war – the seven-front war that Israel has been waging since Oct. 7 – truth is elusive. And truth becomes non-existent if media notables, like Piers Morgan, are too easily deceived by Iranian and Hamas propagandists.

“Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, fighting these barbaric terrorists, fighting essentially on behalf of the West. And this is not just Israel’s war,” Hausdorff concluded.

She’s right, of course. It’s a war against the West, too – and Iran, Hamas and their ilk are clearly visible on the other side. And they are waging their war not just with bombs and bullets.

Words and images, too.