The decisive battle for Israel today is not unfolding in Gaza’s streets but across the global imagination.
Hamas may have suffered severe military setbacks, yet it has accumulated something far more potent: a narrative capable of shaping international perceptions, polarizing public discourse, and fueling a new wave of antisemitism around the world.
Militarily, the trajectory of the war is grim but predictable: Israel will likely succeed in dismantling much of Hamas’s physical infrastructure. The confrontation is a clear one: a professional army facing armed groups deeply embedded beneath hospitals, schools, and residential neighborhoods. It is a war Israel can win, albeit at immense human cost.
But the far more complex struggle will not end once the fighting subsides. It cannot be won with precision strikes or ceasefire negotiations. It is a war of ideas: silent, emotional, and fought across media ecosystems, university campuses, cultural institutions, and political arenas. It is a battle Israel, and Jews everywhere, will be confronting long after the ceasefire holds.
War over perception, not territory
For decades, Hamas has understood something essential about modern conflict: wars are no longer decided solely by military strength but by global perception. And it prepared meticulously for that front.
Its leaders invested heavily in shaping coverage from Gaza – restricting journalists’ access, imposing conditions on reporting, choreographing scenes of devastation, and ensuring that the images reaching the world aligned with its political goals.
So, while Israel focused on destroying tunnels and conducting urban operations designed to minimize civilian casualties – efforts acknowledged by military experts but seldom reflected in mainstream coverage – Hamas pursued another objective: embedding in global discourse the gravest moral accusation available, that Israel is committing genocide. It is a potent narrative, one that is emotionally compelling despite the lack of legal or historical grounding. And it is proving remarkably effective.
While Hamas’s military capabilities erode, Israel finds itself facing a global public increasingly inundated with decontextualized videos and sweeping historical analogies. In many spaces, the symbolic war is shifting toward moral simplification: Israel is cast as an unmovable oppressor; Hamas, as a romanticized resistor. The line between aggressor and victim blurs – often reversing completely, with the aggressor recast as the victim.
The consequences are not abstract: across the world, schools and prestigious campuses have reported a rise in intimidation against Jewish students. Synagogues and Jewish community centers have heightened security amid threats and vandalism.
The recent attack at Bondi Beach in Australia underscores this reality with chilling clarity. Far from any battlefield, violence erupted in a public space meant for everyday life, reminding us that the targets of contemporary terrorism are not governments or military installations, but civilians chosen simply for being Jewish.
These developments are not accidental. The resurgence of antisemitism is not a side effect of the narrative war; it is an intended outcome. When Hamas accuses Israel of genocide, it is not only targeting a state. It is tapping into centuries-old myths that cast Jews as malevolent, powerful, and fundamentally suspect. The rhetoric travels easily, mutating into hostility on the streets, in classrooms, in political arenas, and across social media.
Rebuilding Israel’s image – and defending historical truth – will not be achieved through public relations campaigns or diplomatic statements alone. It will require consistent, courageous, and informed engagement in the public sphere. It will demand a willingness to explain what seems obvious and to rebut the implausible.
The narrative war outlasts the battlefield
The military war will end; the narrative war will not. And if Israel fails to confront that front, the consequences will reverberate far beyond the Middle East – affecting Jewish communities, democratic norms, and the very way the world interprets truth itself.
What is at stake is not simply Israel’s reputation; it is the integrity of how we understand violence, responsibility, and history itself. A world that cannot distinguish between a democracy defending its citizens and a terrorist organization hiding behind its own civilians is a world that has surrendered its moral compass.
This moment requires clarity – the kind that resists easy slogans and demands intellectual honesty. If Israel and its supporters fail to assert the truth, the vacuum will be filled by those who weaponize suffering, distort reality, and turn tragedy into ideology. This is already visible in classrooms where Jewish students silence themselves, in streets where vandalism reappears with chilling familiarity, and in institutions that shape the next generation of thinkers.
The world’s imagination has become the new front line. And it is a battlefield where silence is not neutrality – it is surrender.
This is because the narrative that prevails today will define how future generations understand not only Israel and the Jewish people, but also the principles of justice and the responsibilities of any free nation under threat.
This is not just Israel’s battle – it is a reckoning for all democracies. It is a battle Israel cannot afford to lose and one that the world cannot afford to ignore.
The writer is a Brazilian journalist, CEO of the Brazilian PR agency Art Presse, VP at the MIT Alumni Club in Brazil, and author of A Sisyphean task (translated from the Portuguese Enxugando Gelo), on media coverage of the war between Israel and terrorist groups.