Defense: The Best Strategy Against Genocide
On both military and narrative battlefields, Israel's defensive strength is what saves lives - and reputations
Defense is the best strategy against genocide - both real genocide and the libel of genocide. Israel fights on two battlefields simultaneously: the military battlefield where actual genocidal threats must be stopped, and the narrative battlefield where the accusation of genocide must be countered. On both battlefields, defensive strength is what wins.
1. On the military battlefields:
If it weren’t for Israel’s military prowess, Israel would have ceased to exist. By now, Israel would have been destroyed by her enemies.
For more than 75 years, indeed since the moment of her birth, Israel has been surrounded by enemies who have repeatedly declared their intention to destroy the Jewish state and kill or expel its people.
Miraculously, Israel has successfully defended herself against these persistent threats. 1948, 1967, 1973, thousands of missile attacks, thousands of terror attacks, Iran and its proxies - these many efforts to destroy Israel all failed for one reason: Israel has successfully defended herself from these genocidal threats.
Military defense is the best strategy against actual genocide. Without defensive capability, threats become realities - as history has tragically shown over thousands of years of persecution against Jews. Since 1948, however, Israel’s military capabilities have saved countless Jewish lives by preventing what enemies openly declared they would do.
Imagine if Israel hadn’t defended herself in 1948, in 1967, or against Iran’s proxies. Imagine if Israel had been unable to blunt the wave of terror attacks in the Second Intifada. Imagine if Iran’s ballistic missiles had been able to reach unprotected targets. Imagine how many lives have been saved by Israel’s ability to defend her people, her homeland and her society.
The threats of genocide against the Israeli people continue. And so must Israel’s military capability to defend against those threats.
Yes, the Israeli military occasionally commits acts that fall short of its own standards. There is no doubt that there were occasions in the recent Gaza war and continue to be situations in the West Bank where Israel’s military defense slides into acts of cruel aggression. Although this would occur in any army that is conducting operations in civilian areas, it doesn’t diminish Israel’s responsibility, especially given that Israel faces uniquely intense scrutiny. The IDF must continue holding itself to high standards and acting decisively against any violations by its soldiers and officers. But individual failures don’t negate the fundamental reality: Israel’s military exists to defend, not to aggress.
2. On the narrative battlefields:
Israel is not performing as well on the narrative battlefields as she is on military battlefields, to say the least. If Israel had been as ineffective with munitions as she has been with messaging, Hamas and Iran might control Tel Aviv right now.
On the narrative battlefields, the military threats of genocide against Israel have been twisted into accusations of genocide by Israel. This is the great moral inversion of our time.
Israel’s enemies excel on narrative battlefields. Through a comprehensive, highly coordinated strategic initiative, they have focused on “genocide” as the DNA of their messaging. They exploit every Israeli mistake - mistakes that inevitably occur in complex military operations - and twist ground realities into one-sided stories. The result: much of the world now sees Israel’s defensive actions as wanton aggression.
To reverse this moral inversion, Israel and the Jewish people have one overarching narrative goal:
Reclaim the narrative that Israel is a Valiant Defender of her people, her homeland, and her society.
Defending yourself against genocide is noble. It is the first obligation of a country to protect its citizens. Only someone who doesn’t believe Israel has a right to exist would deny that Israel has a right to defend herself. People who understand the threats that Israel faces are those who recognize that Israel is a Valiant Defender of her people, her homeland and her society.
However, to people who don’t acknowledge, or don’t even know about, the grave threats against Israel, Israel’s military activity is seen as cruel aggression. Israel’s enemies have exploited this knowledge gap expertly, at great harm to Israel.
Israel and the Jewish people have one, overriding narrative goal: Reclaim the narrative that Israel is a Valiant Defender, and not a cruel aggressor.
This is how we blunt the genocide libel. We must reclaim the narrative. That we are Valiant Defenders is the best strategy against the genocide libel.
Reclaiming this narrative first requires us to acknowledge that people will pay attention both to what Israel says and what Israel does. As I’ve outlined in previous articles, going Beyond Hasbara is about ensuring that Israel’s words and actions are driven by the Valiant Defender Narrative. Everything Israel and the Jewish people do and say should aspire to fit this overarching narrative:
Israel is a Valiant Defender of her people, her homeland, and her society.
This requires a well-developed communication strategy that makes it easy for Jews all over the world to communicate complementary messages. Israel’s story will continue to be lost in space if Israel and the Jewish people keep communicating fragmented, disconnected messages. We need to match our enemies’ weapons capabilities on narrative battlefields by communicating a unified, integrated set of clear, compelling messages that support the Valiant Defender Narrative.
These messages aren’t about justifying ourselves or correcting historical misunderstandings. They’re about framing the threats Israel faces and stating unapologetically that we will defend ourselves from all threats.
What does this sound like in practice?
“We’d love to live in peace next to our neighbors. But if they continue to attack us, they’ll lose every time.”
“Israel isn’t a victim seeking sympathy. Israel is a powerful nation that will defend itself against any threat - and the world needs to understand that’s non-negotiable.”
“We’ve offered our neighbors peace many times, but they refuse us, and continue to try to destroy us. This isn’t going to work out well for them. The situation is straightforward: Live next to us peacefully, or attack us and lose every time. We will always defend ourselves from enemies who try to annihilate us.”
“We have something worth defending, we have the strength to defend it, and we will always defend ourselves from enemies who seek our destruction.”
Yes, Israel needs to continue to defend herself from actual threats of destruction and genocide. And, at the same time, the best strategy against the libel that Israel perpetrates genocide - when Israel is actually the target of genocidal threats - is to reclaim the narrative that Israel is a Valiant Defender
Defense. The best strategy against genocide.