Netanyahu Blames Social Media for Israel’s Crumbling Support in USA

Israeli Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu blamed social media on Sunday’s 60 Minutes for playing a major role in eroding American support for his country.

Correspondent Major Garrett said that a recent Pew survey found 60% of U.S. adults had an unfavorable view of Israel due to the war in Gaza — up 20 points from four years ago. Garrett said more than 70,000 Gazans were killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

“Netanyahu attributes the reputational harm to Israel almost entirely to social media, which he calls the eighth front of the war,” Garrett said.

Netanyahu reached for Garrett’s phone and held it up, saying, “Because it’s this — this is yours, right? You’re not immune either, because you can penetrate this machine, you can penetrate this little instrument, and you can say anything about Major Garrett that you want, and I can paint you as a monster. And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.”

“Do you believe Israel is at risk of losing this war on that social media front?” Garrett asked. “And this is particularly, I believe, important in America for younger Americans, Republican and Democrat, scrolling through images, and they would use words like, ‘barbaric,’ in Gaza and in Lebanon.

“Israel has gone to unbelievable lengths to get innocent civilians out of harm’s way,” Netanyahu said.

Yet, he added, “We have seen deterioration of support for Israel in the United States almost, I would say, correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media. And that, by itself, is not what caused it, and I don’t believe in censoring them or anything. But, I’ll tell you what happened. We had several countries that basically manipulated social media, and they do it in a clever way, and that’s something that has hurt us badly.”

Garrett asked if Netanyahu believed there’s nothing Israel has done to contribute to the negative impression held by some Americans.

“No, of course. Look, it’s war,” Netanyahu said. “In war, armies sometimes miss and civilians die, and these are mistakes. These are not deliberate things that happen. Israel is besieged on the media front, on the propaganda front, and we’ve not done well on the propaganda war,” he added.

Watch the clip above via 60 Minutes on CBS.

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