1.
It has almost been a year since the war began, but Israel doesn't seem to have a public diplomacy strategy. What we need is not just public diplomacy but an offensive targeting the world's centers of consciousness that spread hatred and lies about Israel and the Jewish people. While we may be few in number and face deep-seated historical antisemitism, in every country, there is a solid core of Israel supporters, and they need backing and reliable information to counter the hurricane of lies they are battling.
On the first anniversary of the war, Israeli embassies worldwide should screen the 47-minute-long horror film compiled from thousands of video clips recorded by Hamas terrorists on their cameras. "Remember what Amalek did to you." The Torah acknowledges human nature's tendency to forget, suppress, and crave a return to normalcy. If in Israel, there are those who seem to have forgotten why we went to war, how much more so abroad. We must remind them!
Hamas terrorists murdered our children, beheaded them, raped our daughters until their pelvises were shattered, and then shot them in the head. They tied parents and children together and set them on fire, sometimes while they were still alive, and they destroyed peaceful communities. Among the murdered were those who dedicated their lives to improving the lot of Gaza's Arabs. Kibbutzniks brought technology companies and water pipelines to Gaza and took Gazan children to life-saving medical treatments in Israel. Yet the terrorists murdered them as well. This is part of a pattern: During the 1929 riots, Arab pogromists in Hebron murdered Ben Zion Gershon, the pharmacist of the Beit Hadassah clinic who had saved the lives of many Arab patients. He was tortured to death after his daughter was raped in front of him by dozens of rioters, who also cut off his wife's hands, leaving her to die in terrible suffering. This is only one example out of many.
2.
Even if it is hard to reach all the public, it is possible to reach those who mediate reality for them. It is essential to screen the horror film to elected officials, journalists, and social influencers. Not individually to a few dozen, but in large-scale events with 500 attendees. They must know the truth. The film should be screened in parliaments and, in particular, to members of government and their leaders.
The war afforded many opportunities for a public diplomacy offensive that could have borne diplomatic fruit. For instance, after the world discovered that UNRWA employees participated in the massacre, it would have been possible to push for the organization's permanent closure. In a previous article, I wrote about the lie of the Palestinian refugees. It is important to provide data, as this lie fuels the killing machine of the terrorist organizations and feeds the antisemitic and anti-Israeli propaganda mechanisms worldwide. Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz published an important book on the subject, The War of Return. During my tenure as ambassador to Italy, we distributed copies of the book to policymakers there.
3.
UNRWA was established in the early 1950s as a temporary UN organization, meant to exist for a few years until the resettlement of the 1948' Arab refugees in their new homes. Arab countries pressured to keep the organization running, as they understood the damage they could cause Israel by perpetuating the refugee status and preserving the "right of return," thus constantly putting Israel's existence in question. Hamas is a product of UNRWA and its education system, which raises generations of children whose role models are murderers of Jews. In a previous article, I have shown that in other parts of the world, refugee status is not handed down from generation to generation – Palestinian refugees are the exception and transfer their refugee status within their families, from one generation to the next, forever. That is how we got from about half a million refugees in 1948 to more than five million today – and the number keeps on growing.
Here are some data: Forty percent of those registered as Palestinian refugees (note: not just "refugees," but "registered refugees," because even UNRWA knows they are not real refugees but just names on a list) live in PA-controlled areas, meaning by their own definition, they live in Palestine, after being born there, as were their parents and grandparents. Despite this fact, they continue to be registered as refugees displaced from Palestine. Another 40 percent are Jordanian citizens who are also registered as Palestinian refugees, most of them middle-class. The remaining 20 percent, about one million so-called refugees, are registered in Syria and Lebanon. Most of them have long since left and are dispersed around the world. UNRWA does not track them or update its lists – why should they? Even if they have obtained citizenship in Europe, the US, or South America, and even if they have become economically successful or wealthy, in UNRWA's eyes, they are still refugees entitled to return and destroy Israel. This, by the way, is another reason for the inflation of refugee numbers as UNRWA never fulfilled the mandate for which it was created: to resettle the refugees in new places.
4.
Beyond perpetuating the conflict, the existence of UNRWA has another destructive result, one that became even clearer after the October 7 massacre. By taking care of the Gazan population, the UN frees the murderers from any responsibility for their civilians, and thus allows them to focus on terrorism and massacring Jews. A few weeks after the massacre, senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk was asked why they hadn't built shelters for Palestinian civilians to take cover in during the bombings; after all they had built a massive underground array of tunnels. His answer was that the tunnels were meant to protect Hamas fighters who used them to launch operations, while the civilian population, who, in his words, are mostly refugees, and therefore they are the responsibility of the United Nations and not Hamas's. He also claimed that they are Israel's responsibility as the "occupier."
This is a well-known tactic employed by the Palestinians, both in Gaza and in the Palestinian Authority: they are not responsible for any civil aspects of their lives, the world is supposed to take care of them. The implication is that the moment the world pours money into Palestinian healthcare, education, welfare, and civilian infrastructure, this allows the murderers to focus on their "primary work" – the slaughter of Jews. Incidentally, Abu Marzouk's personal fortune is estimated at $2–3 billion. A refugee.
For many reasons, the conclusion is that UNRWA must be shut down, but the organization should not be replaced. We should demand that the Palestinians take care of themselves and have to clean up their own mess. October 7 showed they know how to do that, as we saw with the creation of massive underground infrastructures in the Gaza Strip. Instead of focusing on killing Jews and destroying Israel, it would be better to keep them busy with taking care of their own population without the help of the UN.
5.
The case of UNRWA is a prime example of a missed opportunity in global public diplomacy. But there are other issues that can be leveraged for Israel's benefit. A strong and constant public diplomacy offensive generates legitimacy for Israel's actions and gives breathing space to our political and military leadership.
In discussions with Europeans, I used to present this information and additional materials, and then I would ask them if they would like to know where the money they donate goes. It intrigued and worried them. Furthermore, it is important to repeatedly emphasize that the war against Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran is not just Israel's war, but the war of the entire free world. Today, there are serious forces in Europe that understand this and clearly see the danger posed by radical Islam – and its lackeys in Western academia – which threatens the old continent and Western civilization. The European Parliament has undergone a transformation, and if we work wisely and invest in a diplomatic and media offensive, it will be possible to shift certain countries from their traditional positions. It's not too late. Our lives depend on it.
