Alex Traiman
International institutions, hostile movements, demographic changes and digital manipulation have created an environment where Israel’s battlefield victories in the war on terror translate into diplomatic defeats in the war for public opinion.
The American flag flies at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, July 20, 2018. Credit: U.S. State Department.
This week at the U.N. General Assembly, more than a dozen countries, led by France, are preparing to recognize a Palestinian state less than two years after the Palestinians carried out the worst massacre of Jews in modern history on Oct. 7, 2023. Palestinian statehood would represent the ultimate reward for the most horrific terrorism, the very antithesis of the land for peace formula.
How could this happen as Israel fights a bitter war against Hamas and Iranian terror proxies on seven fronts, and with Israel’s greatest diplomat, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the helm?
Early diplomatic successes
At the beginning of the war, Netanyahu demonstrated his longstanding diplomatic acumen.
Immediately following the Oct. 7 massacre, Israel’s longest-tenured prime minister lobbied world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and others, to show their support for the Jewish state as Israel prepared its military response to eliminate Hamas.
These visits demonstrated that, in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas and Palestinian atrocities against civilians, Israel could command sympathy, solidarity and public support of the Western world’s most powerful leaders.
Battlefield victories, diplomatic backlash
But as Israel shifted from defense to offense, the diplomatic tide quickly turned. Israel’s unprecedented military campaign has devastated Gaza, displaced hundreds of thousands, dealt severe blows to Hezbollah, eliminated Iran’s nuclear program, demilitarized Syria and struck hard at terrorists in Yemen and Qatar.
Yet these decisive battlefield victories have not generated any admiration abroad. Instead, they have provoked an unprecedented campaign of delegitimization and demonization of Israel.
The United Nations and institutional bias
The crisis is amplified by the longstanding hostility of international institutions toward the world’s only Jewish state. The infamous 1975 U.N. resolution declaring “Zionism is racism” was orchestrated by the Arab League, which continues to dominate bloc voting in the General Assembly. Decades later, Israel remains singled out more than any other nation, condemned in resolutions year after year, while true aggressors are ignored.
Since then, U.N.-affiliated bodies have repeatedly denigrated Israel. For example, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has acted as a front group for Hamas, sustaining Palestinian refugee status indefinitely, unlike any other refugee crisis anywhere else in the world. The U.N. Human Rights Council reserves a permanent agenda item against Israel, the only country to have such status. The U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) routinely attempts to erase Jewish ties to Jerusalem, the Cave of the Patriarchs (Machpelah) in Hebron, and other holy sites.
Just this week, a U.N. investigative commission alleged that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, following the International Court of Justice hearing a case against Israel for genocide. This comes despite Israel taking steps never before done by any military in the history of urban warfare to reduce civilian casualties and to feed an enemy population. The International Criminal Court has gone as far as to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu himself—to prevent Israel’s prime minister from traveling freely to defend his nation abroad.
The United States is one of only a few countries where Netanyahu can safely disembark without fear of arrest. When the prime minister flies to New York, the “Wing of Zion” plane will have to take an extra-long route to avoid flying in the airspace of countries in Europe and elsewhere that have pledged to arrest him. As a result, journalists and members of his entourage are being made to fly commercially to New York City for Netanyahu’s upcoming address at the United Nations. This is to reduce the weight of the flight and ensure that there is enough fuel onboard in case of the need for an emergency landing.
The diplomatic assault on a democratic country and an ally of the West is unprecedented. It is the product of institutionalized hostility and a carefully plotted plan to isolate Israel.
The long delegitimization campaign
For decades, Israel’s enemies have invested heavily in delegitimizing the Jewish state. Gulf states, in particular, Qatar, have funded Middle East studies programs at top North American universities. Oftentimes, Title VI universities were selected, as they receive taxpayer funding to create social studies textbooks for grade schools.
Palestinian-organized “Israel Apartheid Week” has been a fixture on campuses for more than 25 years. Rather than confront this adversarial behavior head-on, major American Jewish organizations, including Hillel, instructed Jewish students to ignore the anti-Israel spectacle, arguing that it was just a fringe element on the campuses. Soon after, Hillel, which is on campus to serve Jewish students, opted for what it called an “open tent,” welcoming organizations actively partnering with anti-Israel campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine.
What began as a fringe has turned mainstream. Soon after Oct. 7, violent intimidation of Jewish students on campuses across America reached dangerous levels that continued through the 2023-24 academic year.
The boycott Israel movement
More than a decade ago, Palestinians launched the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to lay the groundwork for cultural and economic boycotts against Israel. The Jewish state has pushed back hard against efforts to promote boycotts, but not hard enough. The idea has taken hold.
Western governments are now beginning to institutionalize boycotts, including but not limited to arms embargos. The situation has grown so dire that this week, Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel may need to become a “Super Sparta,” an isolated economy.
Europe’s demographic transformation
Also this week, in an address to American legislators, Netanyahu asserted that the rapid turn against Israel in Europe is in part due to mass Muslim immigration over the years. Across the continent, virulent pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations attended by thousands have dominated public squares since Oct. 7.
Weak European leaders, including a lame-duck French President Emmanuel Macron, are increasingly shaping foreign policy to appease growing domestic constituencies that are hostile to Israel. Such leaders fear unrest in their own cities if they appear to be closely aligned with Israel or indifferent to Palestinian suffering.
It is demographic and political pressures—not faulty diplomacy —that explain why European states like France, Belgium, Spain and Malta are now leading the push for Palestinian recognition at the United Nations.
Digital warfare
Israel also failed to prepare the digital battlefield for a major conflict. Netanyahu calls the information battlefield the eighth front of the war. In reality, it may be the first front—specifically because this is the front where the enemies of Israel believe they have an advantage.
Mainstream media, including most of the world’s largest news agencies, have long displayed anti-Israel bias. Qatar’s Al Jazeera news network leads the charge, funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Major news agencies like the Associated Press and Reuters have footholds in Gaza. Together, these organizations provide articles to thousands of publications around the globe.
Yet today, these news agencies are supported by the world’s most powerful algorithms on social media. Anti-Israel actors manipulate algorithms and flood platforms with bot-driven content. These viral campaigns spread faster and more widely than any official diplomatic rebuttal, creating an overwhelming chorus of condemnation that traditional statecraft cannot match.
Internal divisions
Compounding the challenge is Israel’s own internal disunity, coupled with harmful and counterproductive messaging. Amid an existential battle for survival, former prime ministers, generals and intelligence officials routinely undermine Israel, its war aims and the government on the world stage.
How can Israel contradict claims of genocide and war crimes when disgraced left-wing leaders go on international news programs and make those same claims? Some of the world’s worst antisemites are simply letting left-wing Israelis do their work for them.
The Israeli left has intentionally aligned itself with international critics, motivated less by national defense than by the political aim of removing Netanyahu, as well as religious and nationalist parties from government.
Turning the tide
Israel is confronting not a failure of diplomacy, but the success of its enemies’ long game. International institutions, hostile movements, demographic changes and digital manipulation have combined to create an environment where Israel’s battlefield victories in the war on terror translate into diplomatic defeats in the war for public opinion.
Israel’s international troubles are not likely to be solved by acrobatics on the foreign-policy stage. Israel’s real challenge is to mount its own well-funded, long-term, multifront campaigns—diplomatic, cultural, technological, digital, legal—to defeat its attackers.
The spectacle of the United Nations preparing to reward Palestinians with statehood recognition after the atrocities of Oct. 7 is not the result of failed diplomacy by Israel’s government. On the contrary, it is evidence that Netanyahu alone cannot overcome the decades-long campaigns, demographic shifts and institutional biases that have been carefully cultivated to ensure that Israel would lose the diplomatic battle before it even began.
Alex Traiman is the CEO and Jerusalem bureau chief of the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) and host of “Jerusalem Minute.” A seasoned Israeli journalist, documentary filmmaker and startup consultant, he is an expert on Israeli politics and U.S.-Israel relations. He has interviewed top political figures, including Israeli leaders, U.S. senators and national security officials with insights featured on major networks like BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, NBC, Fox and Newsmax. A former NCAA champion fencer and Yeshiva University Sports Hall of Fame member, he made aliyah in 2004, and lives in Jerusalem with his wife and five children.
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