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Hamas's Capture of the West's Sympathy, Attention, and Media

(Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs) Izabella Tabarovsky - Psychological warfare is a crucial part of Hamas's strategy. Hamas and its supporters understand that letting the Western public dwell too long on the massacres of Jews is damaging to their cause. Their objectives are drawing attention and public sympathy away from murdered Jews and shifting the news cycle to get the world back to sympathizing with Hamas as "the resistance" to Israel and depicting Jews as the devil incarnate. Another goal is to present Jews as the culprits for their own murders. After Oct. 7, pro-Hamas online brigades spread a lie claiming that the IDF murdered most of the Israelis who perished on that day. The same lie is circulating on social media today about the six hostages who were murdered. A document uncovered in Gaza by the IDF instructs Hamas operatives to increase dissemination of hostage videos to build psychological pressure on the Israelis; to continue blaming Netanyahu; and to work to undermine Israel's belief that the ground invasion will bring the hostages home. The writer is a Senior Advisor at the Kennan Institute (Wilson Center) in Washington, Senior Fellow at the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities, and a Fellow at the Jerusalem Center.
2024-09-05 00:00:00
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