Let Go of the Narrative

Maybe if we show them evidence from poll after poll, video after video, and post after post on social media about the violent intentions of the vast majority of the Gazan people, they’ll stop claiming that “Hamas doesn’t represent the people of Gaza.” Maybe they’ll never again equate a people and an army, who want nothing more than to live in peace with their neighbors, with a people who want us to die.

Maybe if we just remind them one more time of the countless current and former Western military generals who have affirmed again and again over the years that no other army in history of warfare goes to the same lengths as the IDF to avoid “civilian” casualties, they’ll stop trying to hold us to an impossible standard that no other army in the history of warfare was ever held to or even considered as a remote possibility.

We need to finally learn from this and stop engaging with those who don’t want to know. To quit blaming ourselves for anti-Semitism. That doesn’t mean that we should abandon all kinds of hasbarah. We are responsible for hishtadlus. Polls suggest that, despite the poison on their screens, the majority of Americans’ sympathies are with Israel, and they understand that the Israelis are doing what they must. These people want to understand how to come to terms with headlines such as “Israeli Air Force Bombs Gaza Baptist Hospital, 500 Killed.”

But it does mean acknowledging the limits of hasbarah, easing up on the desperation and our quest to convince the moral-equivalencers. Why? Because we’re not in control, and it’s not our problem.