The famine shows the human cost of information warfare

Yes we must end the starvation in Gaza; but we also need to ask how our media convinced us it is Israel’s responsibility and not Hamas’

It is sometimes easy to imagine the media landscape is disconnected from the realities on the ground, that complaints about media bias are luxuries when in-real-life events are pressing. To imagine that headlines stay headlines, and public relations are just exercises in branding and positioning. To ignore the information war and focus only on the “real” war and its consequences.

Yet the information war has real consequences. Strategic consequences. For example, whether or not you believe there’s a famine currently gripping Gaza is the consequence of a sustained information campaign waged by Hamas and its allies from the early days of this current war. Despite significant indications that this time is different, that this time there really is massive damage being inflicted on civilians, it’s hard for many to believe given the number of times Hamas’ Gaza Health Ministry cried wolf: since 2024 headlines claimed Gaza was on the brink of starvation. Time and again those claims were debunked. This time seems different.

So what should we do about it? This also is deeply influenced by the information front. For example, one could claim that Hamas – who speaks for and negotiates for the Palestinians of Gaza – should be held accountable, told to surrender immediately so no more Palestinians die. Yet somehow Western elites have managed to erase Hamas’ responsibility for their population. Because if they held the Palestinian leadership accountable, the 25 countries who sent a letter to Israel would begin with the words: “We hold the government of Gaza, held by Hamas, as responsible for the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza, and call on Hamas to immediately unconditionally surrender their arms so that international aid can ensure the people of Gaza suffer no longer.”

That Israel and not Hamas is being held responsible for Hamas’s decision to prolong negotiations and starve its people to up the ante on Israel is nearly absent from the discourse because someone made it happen. Someone – or more correctly an alliance of interests – has spent time and treasure on conquering the information landscape and that victory has cost the lives of too many innocents on both sides.

We should hand it to our enemies: it is quite an accomplishment to convince the world that your enemy is responsible for your crimes. Hamas and its antizionist supporters were able to do so because they have been relentless in promoting their agenda. They’ve built media networks (Al-Jazeera’s AJ+), established academic institutes (across elite colleges), sponsored sports teams (hard to find a leading team without Oil across its jerseys). They did all of this during times of peace so that they could have an infrastructure to work through during times of war.

It’s remarkable that protestors worldwide can hold all Israelis and even all Jews responsible for the decisions of the current government of Israel while not holding Hamas responsible for its own decision to sacrifice its own people for victory. It’s remarkable that we of the 60% of Israelis who love Israel and oppose this current government and want an end to this war are unable to convince the world that we share the same goals. That the world’s coming out against Hamas will be more productive for the Palestinian people and Israeli people than blaming Israel.

And now we are seeing the human costs: when narrative conflicts with reality, the collective cognitive dissonance prolongs suffering. When Hamas remains free from responsibility for its population it can harden its negotiation position, knowing that the world will pressure Israel and not it. When world leaders use their platforms to place the blame fully on Israel and ignore the commitment of Hamas and its allies to the destruction of the Jewish State, Israelis instinctually sense that the world couldn’t care less for their safety. It becomes easier for this already autocratic government to ignore the protests of its citizens. To justify the pursuit of the most extreme of the coalition’s ideologies. The cost of information warfare is measured in human life.

To be clear, even though Hamas prolonged the war by not surrendering, even though Hamas bears ultimate responsibility for the suffering of its people due to the choices it makes, Israel broke Gaza’s food distribution infrastructure and, therefore, I believe Israel must hold its nose and take responsibility to ensure innocents do not starve. Given the very real signals that this time is different, I believe Israel should risk Hamas regaining power if it means innocent lives saved. But all of that could have been avoided if only global elites would have held Hamas and its backers in Qatar responsible, would have applied pressure to end the war through surrender as opposed to a ceasefire that will enable Hamas to fight another day.

This war will, eventually, end. There will be a period during which we will all have to reckon with its consequences. I hope we do not forget that it was success on the information front that enabled Hamas to last as long as it did. To generate the international support it needed to justify its steadfastness against Israel. To stay in power. This lesson will be learned by other insurgent groups and will be applied in their campaigns across the world to fight open societies unless we develop the means to diffuse their narratives and win the information war. Israel can lead in that fight, but it has to come clean first. We must begin with our truthful counting of the threat of famine in Gaza, and continue with a commitment to live up to the narrative we would like others to believe.