“Firehose of Falsehoods”
Another week in Israel, another breathless media scandal.
This time, Israelis were told that Defense Minister Israel Katz had effectively humiliated and “fired” Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth live on air. The story exploded. Politicians reacted. Commentators thundered. Social media erupted.
And then, almost as quickly as it appeared, the story collapsed.
By now, the pattern should be familiar.
Israelis are subjected to an almost continuous barrage of scandals, one explosive story after another, each dominating the news cycle for a few hours or a day before fading away, often after its central claim has been disproved, radically qualified or exposed as nonsense.
Consider just a few examples from recent days.
We were told that MK Simcha Rothman had said the blood of brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, murdered by a Palestinian terrorist, was somehow “redder” than the blood of the victims of Oct. 7.
We were told that Likud had deliberately produced a monstrous campaign video showing Gadi Eisenkot running toward his fallen son, only to have his son replaced by Israeli Arab politician Mansour Abbas.
We were told that Shin Bet chief David Zini had announced that he would be loyal only to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
We were told that Likud had ordered its Knesset members to photograph their ballots in the election for state comptroller.
The details change. The pattern does not.
Each scandal has a remarkably short but extremely noisy life cycle. Before one allegation can be properly examined, another takes its place. Then another. And another.
The cumulative effect resembles a kind of psychological carpet bombing: maintain a constant level of outrage, suspicion and negative emotional noise in the public consciousness.
There is a name for this method.
In 2016, RAND Corporation researchers Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews published an influential study titled “The Russian ‘Firehose of Falsehood’ Propaganda Model.”
They used the term to describe a propaganda system built around the massive, rapid and continuous dissemination of information through multiple channels, with little commitment to truth and, remarkably, little commitment even to consistency.
The genius of the method is that no individual allegation needs to survive.
One story can fall apart completely, provided another scandal has already taken its place. Then another follows that one.
Eventually, many people no longer remember what was proven and what was disproven. What remains is the emotional residue:
There were so many scandals. There must be something there.
That is the firehose.
RAND identified four central characteristics of the model.
First, high volume and multiple channels. The message arrives through television, news websites, social media, activists, influencers, “experts,” videos, anonymous accounts and supposedly independent commentators.
Second, speed and repetition. The allegation is broadcast before anyone has had time to check it. By the time the facts catch up, the original claim has already been repeated dozens or hundreds of times.
Third, a lack of commitment to objective reality. The method freely combines partial truths, misleading framing, unsupported allegations and outright fabrication.
Fourth, a lack of commitment to consistency. Today’s explanation does not need to agree with yesterday’s. In fact, it does not even need to agree with the story circulated an hour earlier.
That last point is especially important.
Traditional propaganda generally tried to persuade people that a particular narrative was true.
The firehose does something subtler.
It does not necessarily need you to believe Version A.
Its purpose may simply be to prevent you from confidently believing anything at all.
Maybe everyone is lying.
Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Maybe nobody really knows.
Maybe there is no proof.
Once the public reaches that state, the propagandist has already achieved a great deal.
The technique also exploits several well-established features of human psychology.
The first is the power of the initial narrative. The first explanation people hear often becomes the mental framework through which later information is processed.
The second is the illusory truth effect: Claims that are repeated frequently become familiar, and familiar claims tend to feel more credible, even when the underlying evidence has not improved at all.
The third is simple cognitive exhaustion.
Fact-checking is slow. Lying is fast.
It may take hours or days to establish what actually happened. It takes seconds to publish a sensational claim.
When the public is confronted with 20 allegations at once, most people will not investigate all 20. Eventually they stop trying.
And this is one of the great advantages of the firehose: Even when a particular allegation is later disproven, it can leave behind a psychological stain.
People forget the correction.
They remember the scandal.
There is another advantage to this method, one that fits Israeli progressive politics particularly well: Never look backward.
Always look toward the next disaster.
The next threat to democracy.
The next supposedly unprecedented outrage.
The next catastrophe that will occur unless the public acts immediately.
But rarely return six months later and ask: Was the warning accurate? Did the predicted disaster actually occur? Was the original allegation true? Who was held accountable for getting it wrong?
The firehose always points forward.
So how should Israelis respond?
RAND’s answer is particularly instructive.
Do not try to fight a firehose with what amounts to a “squirt gun of truth.”
If your strategy is to refute every allegation individually, you will always be behind. Your opponent can manufacture ten new claims in the time it takes you to properly investigate one.
The better response is strategic.
Get accurate information out early.
Teach the public to recognize the manipulation technique itself.
Warn people in advance that they are likely to encounter rapidly changing, emotionally charged and poorly sourced allegations.
Repeat the verified factual account rather than endlessly repeating the falsehood in order to deny it.
And expose the networks behind apparently independent sources when those sources are in fact amplifying the same narrative.
Most important, Israelis should develop a simple personal discipline.
When the next enormous scandal breaks, and it will, do not rush to judgment.
Wait.
Give it 48 hours.
See what remains after the initial headlines, leaks, anonymous sources, political reactions and social-media hysteria have cleared.
And only then decide what you think.
There is another reason for confidence.
The political parties, organizations and media outlets most dependent on this permanent climate of outrage are not becoming stronger. They are steadily losing their grip on the Israeli public.
Between the 2022 and 2026 elections, Channels 12 and 13 lost roughly 40 percent of their strength by key audience measures, while Channel 14 expanded its reach by several hundred percent.
That shift is not accidental.
A growing number of Israelis have learned to recognize the mechanism.
The firehose may still be spraying.
But fewer people are standing directly in front of it with their mouths open.