‘Voice of Yaakov’: When will Israel fight back in the war for public opinion?

Since Israel was created, we are told, the Jewish people are no longer defenceless. Those who attack us will pay the price. No longer is Jewish blood cheap.

And yet, while thank G-d Israel has a strong record on the military battlefield, it abdicates its responsibility on the battlefield for public opinion.

On social media, we are virtually defence-less. There, those who attack us certainly do not pay the price.  For them, Jewish blood has become increasingly cheap.

I watched an interview recently with former Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, on the excellent podcast, The Brink, with Jake Wallis Simons and Andrew Fox.

The two strongly pro-Israel presenters asked Cohen, why, when Israel does so well on the military battlefield, it fails so badly in the battle for public opinion. “It’s not that we’re losing the battle”, Cohen replied, “it’s that we’re not even bothering to show up”.

This is an inversion of Jewish belief. We stand for the ‘voice of Yaakov’ over the ‘hands of Esav’.

If there’s one reason beyond others why Prime Minister Netanyahu should resign and this government should fall, this is it.

But it’s not just government. Whenever there’s some story in online media about the deficiencies of Israel’s public diplomacy, the comments section below will invariably flood with sighs about the inevitability of antisemitism and how everything is in the hands of Hashem.

These attitudes, unfortunately, seem widely prevalent. After all, doesn’t the Torah say so itself? Aren’t we destined to be “a people that dwells alone” (Numbers 23:9)?

Rabbi Sacks ztzl rightly blasts this attitude as anti-Torah pseudo-theology that has caused huge destruction to Jewish communities worldwide in the past, and sadly now also in the present.

Lehavdil, last week, Jewish communities around the world started the cycle of weekly Torah readings from the beginning, creation.

In each of the first five weekly Torah readings – Bereishit, Noach, Lech Lecha, Vayera and Chayei Sarah – the argument for human action, against inevitability, against leaving everything to Hashem, comes through loud and clear.

In Bereishit, the Torah tells us “No tree of the field was yet on earth, neither did any herb of the field yet grow, because the Lord G-d had not brought rain upon the earth and there was no man to work on the soil.” (Genesis 2:5). Jews cannot leave it all to G-d. We too must make an effort.

In Noach, the Torah details the instructions that G-d gave to Noah about the huge scale of the ark that he must construct, a project that would take him 120 years.

The great Torah commentary by the Ramban (R Moshe ben Nachman) observes, “Even so, this Ark could never contain (all the species and food), nor could even ten arks like it! It was a miracle for a small space to contain such a large volume.”

The Ramban continues: “You might then ask: could not Noah have made a smaller ark and relied on the miracle? The answer is that this is the norm for all miracles in Torah or the Prophets: man must do whatever is possible for the human hand, and only the rest is done by the hands of Heaven.”

In Lech Lecha, Vayera and Chayei Sarah, our beloved patriarch, Avraham Avinu, is shown to be a man of action no less than a man of faith.

When Avraham’s nephew, Lot, is taken hostage by the five world powers of the day, even though four kings of the Land could not defeat them, Avraham, with just 318 men, springs into action and brings Lot home (Genesis 14:1-16).

When G-d tells Avraham about His plans to destroy Sodom and Gomora, Avraham does not sigh about everything being in the hands of Heaven. He challenges G-d using the most robust language imaginable. “It would be a sacrilege for You, for the righteous to perish with the wicked… It would be a sacrilege for You. Shall the Judge of the World not perform justice?” (Genesis 18:25).

And that is not even the most astonishing part of the story. The most astonishing part of the story is what happens next: G-d backs down.

When Avraham needs a burial plot for his beloved wife, Sarah, even though G-d Himself – directly, mouth to mouth – had promised him the Land many times, Torah tells us it was not G-d that Avraham petitioned. Rather, “Avraham rose and he bowed down to the people of the region, the Hittites” (Genesis 23:7).

He most certainly did not dismiss them as camel-riders, which Avraham himself no doubt also was.

We may ask, in the style of the Talmud, why does Torah teach us this lesson about the necessity of human action five times when once could have been enough?

If we’d been told only about the necessity of man working the earth, we might have thought that human action was established within the laws of the natural order but had no bearing on specific human decisions.

If we’d been told only about why Noah had to build such a large ark, we might have thought that human action was necessary only when miracles are required, but not in ordinary circumstances.

If we’d been told only about Avraham’s heroic efforts to rescue the hostage, we might have thought that human action was necessary only to thwart the machinations of the wicked.

If we’d been told only about Avraham’s negotiations with the Hittites, we might have thought that human action was a mere courtesy in preparation for G-d’s action.

But when we are told about Avraham’s dialogue with G-d Himself, we can understand that human action is always necessary, under any circumstance, and there is no predetermination or inevitability. Even G-d Himself can back down.

So what can Israel do?

Here’s a principle I’d like to suggest: Israel can do what our enemies are doing, but bigger and better.

Let me give just one example.

There’s an army of evil bots delivering antisemitic lies to millions daily through social media. So Israel should create an army of righteous bots, delivering the evidence of Jewish righteousness daily to billions through social media.

The IDF has been accumulating so much evidence about the malignant evil of Hamas and its fellow islamist jihadis. How they embed their military facilities fully in the civilian infrastructure. How they store weapons in childrens’ bedrooms and surgical theatres. How they attack Israel from schools and hospitals. How they steal aid from ordinary Gazans, and torture and murder them in their thousands. How they prevent civilian evacuation. How they actually force innocent Palestinian civilians into the line of fire while their propaganda teams stand hiding in corners to video the gruesome events.

The IDF also has similarly copious amounts of evidence about exactly how far Israel goes to protect the civilian population of Gaza – leaflets, SMS, phone calls, roof knocks and more. We also understand there are many times that missions have been aborted due to civilian casualty risks.

Little of this evidence sees the light of day. A review of IDF websites is a lesson in under-explored potential.

Images count. Repetition counts. Pervasion counts. The network effect counts.

If people see these images over and over again – of Hamas’ evil, and Israel’s best efforts;

If their friends, colleagues and family members are also seeing these images over and over again;

And if the media republishes these images over and over again (and in so many countries, there is pro-Israel media and there is a large pro-Israel public just waiting for this evidence);

Then this is how we start to reverse the tsunami of anti-Israel and antisemitic hate in the world.

And this is how we act as a light to the world, re-establishing the fundamentals of moral thinking about who truly has responsibility for a tragedy like the one that has afflicted Gaza, establishing a precedent that could save hundreds of thousands of lives in the future, including among our Palestinian neighbours.

There’s so much more that can be done, but it starts with a commitment to human action.

It starts by recognising that antisemitism is not inevitable.

And it starts with the faith that even the hands of heaven are waiting for us to make the first move.