 |
| Mahmood Abbas at the UN - an image we will not see this year (BBC) |
President Donald Trump said Israel is winning militarily but “losing the public relations war,” warning that support for the Jewish state in Congress has weakened.
In an interview with the Daily Caller, Trump noted that Israel’s once-powerful influence in Washington has “diminished significantly.” He recalled a time when Israel had “the strongest lobby” in Congress but said that dynamic has changed, particularly as progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her allies have shifted the debate.
Trump pointed to recent polling showing younger Republicans holding less favorable views of Israel. He cautioned that while the country remains strong on the battlefield, it is “losing the PR fight” in the eyes of the public. Still, Trump defended his record, insisting, “Nobody has done more for Israel than me.”
There is nothing to disagree with here. Leaving aside the
favorite whipping boy of the left—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is an
easy target to blame for everything, I ask: what exactly is Israel supposed to
do about it?
As I recently wrote, you can explain until you are blue in
the face - why Israel has no choice but to do what it is doing in pursuit of
its future security. It won’t matter. The overwhelming world view is that
Israel is committing genocide and using starvation as a tactic of war. Israeli denials are ignored.
There is no understanding of Israel’s need to protect its future. There is o death! ocus at all on the nature of Palestinian hatred for the people they claim ‘stole’ their land, or theigPtalestinian suffering under Israeli bombardment; tens of thousands of innocent civilians - mostly women and children - being killed; homes destroyed, people displaced living in tents, and rampant starvation. That is all they see.
They have all but forgotten what happened on October 7th. Nothing about Israeli hostages still in Hamas captivity under the cruelest of conditions. Deliberately being starved to death. Even when they occasionally pay lip service to it, it pales in comparison to the accusations of genocide by Israel. The latest of which has come from so-called ‘genocide experts’ – the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). Who have all but emptied the word of all meaning by redefining it to fit what’s going on in Gaza.
That Palestinians in Gaza were living in relative peace before October 7th
doesn’t seem to matter. That Israel gave them Gaza to build into their own
version of paradise - which Israel would gladly have helped them do - matters
even less. Instead, Hamas used billions in aid to dig terror tunnels and build
a base for random attacks against Israel. Gaza could have been a beautiful city
on the Mediterranean. Instead, its leaders chose to take that money to terrorize Israel - and preserve
refugee status in order to blame Israel for it.
And yet, despite Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure, Gaza
still managed to have hospitals, schools, mosques, and community services.
There were no food shortages. Only poverty caused by poor governance.
Israel never had any intention of killing Palestinians because
they were Palestinians. That would be genocide. But when there is a war of existential import where terrorists embed
themselves among the most vulnerable of their own people, civilian deaths
become unavoidable. In truth, the only ones committing genocide is Hamas - against
their own population.
And yet the world doesn’t care. The IAGS has redefined the
term to indict Israel, claiming it is targeting innocents. That they can say
this with a straight face makes them, in my view, practiced liars. But because
they are considered the ‘gold standard’ in determining the term, their
accusations stick. Add to that other so-called ‘gold standard’ UN affiliated
institutions that have declared famine - is it any wonder why Israel is losing the PR
war and lost so much support in Congress?
Worse, this makes people like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar
look as if they were right all along about Israel. It even justifies all the protests
against Israel that have called to
implement BDS.
None of this is new. Except that it has now been
acknowledged by the president himself.
That being said, I am grateful that Secretary of State Marco
Rubio for the following:
The US State Department has instructed its diplomats to refuse most visas for Palestinian passport holders, whether they live in the West Bank, Gaza, or overseas, according to a cable seen by CNN.
And from the BBC:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been blocked from attending the UN General Assembly session in New York next month, after he and 80 other Palestinian officials had their visas revoked, the US State Department has said.
And finally, I am grateful for President Trump’s steadfast support. He and his administration know the truth. Even
as he urges Israel to end the war soon, he does not necessarily mean surrendering the goal
of defeating Hamas. He simply believes it should be done faster.
If Israel could do that, it would. Which brings us back to
the same old - same old: is the pain worth the gain? Is plummeting
congressional support for Israel worth the prime minister’s definition of
victory? And if Netanyahu ends the war short of his goal, is it too late to win
back congressional support that has been lost?
I don’t know the answers. All I do know is that facts no longer matter. The only thing that matters is image.
