KINSELLA: Netanyahu a big part of why Israel is losing propaganda war

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Someone really needs to reacquaint Benjamin Netanyahu with the 1988 Hamas Charter. Quickly.

In particular, they need to show the Israeli Prime Minister articles 10 and 30. In those, in their governing document, Hamas says that it will use “word and deed” to wage Jihad – which has come to mean holy war.

Article 30 is pretty specific: “Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity – all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah’s sake.”

In other words, propaganda. What the terror organization is telling everyone, here, is that they wage war with words and images just as much as bombs and bullets. Implicitly, Hamas has always acknowledged that its desired genocide of Jews and infidels is a daunting military challenge. Propaganda, however, is Hamas’ real forte. At that, they excel.

So, in the information war, Hamas – and its axis, with Hezbollah and Iran and Qatar and Russia and China – is winning. You only need to cast your eye over the offerings of most news or social media – or look at what is happening in the streets – to see that it is true. Israel is losing the propaganda war. It is getting its ass kicked.

Netanyahu is a big part of the reason. Israel’s leader is propped up by a coalition of far right religious extremists, and adamantly refuses to let anyone else speak for Israel in the West. He has been in power too long, and the majority – inside and outside of Israel – are weary of him.

But Benjamin Netanyahu alone cannot be fairly blamed for all of the grave harm that has been done to Israel’s reputation. Hamas is the main author of that.

Since the beginning of the war in late October 2023, Hamas’ propagandists have completely dominated the news and information agenda. When an IDF tank moves through Gaza streets, for example, Hamas typically sends out four men: two to attach explosives to the side of the tank, one to guard the getaway – and one to shoot broadcast-quality propaganda footage.

Even with its leadership and its ranks decimated, Hamas and its axis never give up on propagandizing. Look at the evidence.

Casualties: Most media and governments still rely upon the death figures of the Gaza health authority – which is literally an arm of Hamas. They do that despite the fact that those casualty figures have consistently been shown to be wrong, and despite the fact that the health authority does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. A Hamas PR victory.

Children: Hamas did not build a single bomb shelter for Palestinian children in its labyrinth of tunnels, which is as big as the London underground system. But it is more than willing to use children as propaganda campaign fodder. In May, for example, Hamas persuaded a senior United Nations official to state that 14,000 Gazan babies were going to die “within 48 hours.” It was completely false, but the UN’s acknowledgment of their mistake came too late to offset the worldwide reputational damage. Another Hamas PR win.

Denial: From the earliest hours of Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, the terror axis was denying everything – the murders, the rapes, the mutilations, the torture, all of it. Bots and fake accounts pushed out denials of atrocities that were swiftly seen by tens of millions of people before the war had even started. Yet another Hamas win.

On one front in the propaganda war, Hamas has recently scored its biggest victory, however. And that is the Gaza famine story.

No one – Israel included – disputes that innocent Gaza civilians desperately need more food, water and aid. What is debated is who to blame.

More than 1,000 trucks containing aid now sit idle at four different distribution centers in the Gaza Strip. Israel and the United States have paid for that food and aid. But the United Nations refuses to help distribute it. And Hamas keeps trying to steal it.

You would never know any of that, however, by looking at the headlines or Instagram. So, Hamas scored its biggest propaganda victory on Monday morning – when US President Donald Trump recklessly blamed Israel for most of the famine crisis. Hamas wins again.

In sum, Israel is losing the propaganda war. It needs to tell its story better, and it needs a better storyteller.

Time is running out. If Israel does not take corrective action soon, the damage will be permanent.

— Kinsella’s book about antisemitism and the propaganda war against Israel and the West, The Hidden Hand, is being published by Penguin Random House in late 2025.