Peloni: I recall a podcaster some years ago who breathed the words, “I have been wanting to say this for a long time”, and followed those telling words with a long litany of antisemitic ramblings ending with the conclusion that Jews were the real Nazis. In fact, such closet antisemites have been granted a sense of comfort in this new antisemitic war which has been breaking lose in recent years, most acutely since October 7. As Seth Mandel explains in this excellent essay, those who accept such obviously false sources as sources worth citing are in fact simply acting out the part of that podcaster I mentioned above as she mouthed the words, “I have been wanting to say this for a long time”. Their purpose is not considerate, nor deductive, but is instead complicit and malicious in nature. It is simply that simple.
In the spring of 1945, Italy’s most famous newspaper editor was gunned down, mere days before a controversial Austrian newspaper owner and artist died by gunshot at point-blank range.
I suppose there are better ways to describe the deaths of Mussolini and Hitler, but in the year 2025 this would likely be the more common path media would take.
In fact, I shudder to think how the war effort might have gone had either of those men worn a vest that said PRESS.
The point is not to compare the crimes of the Hamas men who wear press vests to those of Mussolini or Hitler—although the most recent press-vest-wearing terrorist figure to be eliminated in an IDF strike was a massive public enthusiast of the Nazis’ tactics and held a fairly similar ideology—but to highlight the creativity of the propagandists in the press. “9 hours and the heroes are still roaming the country killing and capturing.… God, God how great you are [heart emoji, heart emoji, heart emoji],” posted Anas al-Sharif, the man whose name appears on several Hamas rosters that were reportedly discovered by the IDF in Gaza. Can you guess the date on that post? Of course you can: It’s Oct. 7, 2023.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about how Israel is badly losing the propaganda war. And I don’t necessarily disagree. But I’m just not sure how Israel would turn it around: Have IDF soldiers wear press vests? Ultimately the challenge here is that the world contains a great many people who want to see the state of Israel destroyed, or at least defeated. And that’s why they pretend that anybody with a press vest is a journalist. They don’t care what happens to random journalists, they care what happens to Hamas.
Sharif worked for Al Jazeera, which doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t a journalist—surely Al Jazeera has unknowingly hired a journalist here or there. What makes him not a journalist is that he wasn’t a journalist. Earlier in the war, Israeli hostages were held in Gaza by a journalist and his family. I hate to have to spell this out, but: A person who holds hostages in the conflict he “covers” is also not a journalist. I have been known to dress up as Tom Petty for Purim, but not once has that actually made me Tom Petty.
His wife Bethany who wrote a book on Woke was asked to define Woke. Her reply is truly alarming for the cause of literature…
“Defining “woke” and viral celebrity
edit
On March 14, 2023, during an interview with Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave of Rising, when asked to define the word “woke” in connection to the release of her co-written work Stolen Youth: How Radicals are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation, Mandel stumbled repeatedly in attempting to define the word. “So, I mean, woke is, sort of, the idea that, um…This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral.”[12] When pressed further by Joy Gray to elaborate and provide a working definition of the word, Mandel continued, “So, I mean, woke is…Sort of the idea that, uh, um … I … Woke is something that’s very hard to define, and we’ve spent an entire chapter defining it…It is sort of the understanding that we need to re-, totally reimagine and re-, re-, redo society in order to create hierarchies of oppression…Sorry, it’s hard to explain in a 15-second sound bite.”[13] The moment went viral across multiple platforms. “
https://youtu.be/tXqXUcBFRHA?si=CU2COgCTCFVxdP1i
Ardie Geldman on FB
The “Propaganda War” is not winnable because no amount of “facts” and other good stuff will help. Why? Because this is not a war wherein the people on the “other side” understand anything rational. No matter how charming or factually correct you are, and no matter what history says.
So why waste your energy fighting this war? The only situation that will cause any semblance of a rational change in behaviour would happen if the “tables were turned” as it were.
This will happen if and when Western Europe (for a start) enters into a civil war, country by country.
@keelie
In part at least, what you describe here as the reason for the Propaganda war being unwinnable, is described by Seth in this essay. It is because those who are on the other side, are in fact on the other side. They have chosen a preferred outcome, and they are against us. This feature is also described by Prof. Fenton in his description of what took place among the Medical Freedom Movement.
Still, I believe there are many people who like to be led, to trust likeable personalities to lead them wherever they go. So I disagree that the war is unwinnable, that is unless we fail to contest it.