Psychological Warfare

A recent post on Telegram, a popular messaging app in the Middle East, was titled 72 Virgins – Uncensored. It read like this: “Burning their mother. You won’t believe the video we got! You can hear the crunch of bones. We’ll upload it right away, get ready.” The caption under a photo of dead bodies read: “Exterminating the roaches, exterminating the Hamas rats. Share this beauty.”

The origin of the Telegram post was exposed by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. The gruesome scene probably wasn’t real, though, and it’s unclear how many Israelis heeded the call to share the video. Haaretz reporters confirmed through a confidential source that the post had been created by soldiers in the psychological warfare unit of the Israeli Defense forces (IDF). The purpose? To stir animosity towards Palestinians and suggest to Israeli citizens that the IDF was exacting revenge for the brutal October 7th attack by Hamas that killed some 1,200 Israelis and created a hostage crisis involving 240 innocent people.

Haaretz is a brave, liberal Israeli newspaper, and many Israelis view its reports critical of the IDF as betrayal in this time of war. Nevertheless, the paper’s journalists don’t back down. They reported that 72 Virgins – Uncensored has 5,300 followers. The IDF urges them to share its’ “exclusive” content about Gaza content so “everyone can see we’re screwing them.” The title “72 Virgins” is a misused reference to how Muslim extremists will be rewarded with virgins in paradise for acts of violence, a belief not shared by most Muslims.  

Getty Images

More significantly, though, the post shows how easily the twin enemies of truth – deceit and propaganda – fill the gaps created by heavy-handed censorship of the media in a bloody, directionless war that has killed thousands of innocent people and displaced millions of others. If there’s a void in solid, professionally edited media, the Telegram post shows how purveyors of propaganda will rush to fill it. We will probably see much of the same thing in America as the 2024 presidential campaign gets underway.

“The IDF denies that it operates the channel,” Haaretz reported, “but a senior military official confirmed that the army is responsible for operating it. ‘There is no reason for the IDF to conduce influence campaigns on citizens of Israel,’ said the official who requested anonymity. ‘The messages there are problematic. It doesn’t look like an awareness campaign of an army like the IDF but more like talking points for (far right rapper) The Shadow, and the fact that soldiers operate such a problematic page is egregious,” the official said.

To say that the 72 Virgins – Uncensored is problematic is to state the obvious. Less well known to audiences around the world are the policies that make legitimate media vulnerable to the credibility gaps that make the propaganda pervasive. Coverage of the Israel/Hamas war is heavily censored by the IDF and Hamas. Haaretz also reports Hamas will kill Palestinian reporters who don’t tow the Hamas line.    

I see this gap in coverage firsthand by following the reporting on the war by journalists who work for the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), Arab language news networks funded by the U.S. Congress in 2004 to promote balanced and fair news in the Middle East and North Africa, where objective news is rare. I have a birds eye view of the coverage because I am chairman of the board of the MBN.

MBN reporters experience the IDF’s ironclad control over entry to Gaza, where the war ranges most intensely. For MBN reporters or any others to gain access to Gaza, they must agree to terms required if they are to be embedded with IDF troops. Here’s some of the language of the IDF embedding agreement:

“I hereby commit to pass all the materials and footage to be examined by the military censor and not to use any of said materials until official approval has been given to me by the military censor. Censorship personnel have the right to disqualify any footage taken even after an operation has ended, without any claim or lawsuit against the IDF. I hereby commit to publicize the footage and content I’ve been exposed to during the activity, only after the embargo given to me by the IDF Spokesperson. The IDF Spokesperson has the right to postpone the embargo even after the assignment, in accordance with the operational need, without any claim or lawsuit against the IDF.”

Given the dearth of legitimate reporting created by IDF policies, the psychological warfare unit steps in to fill the gaps.

MBN reporters have not signed the embedding agreement for a range of reasons. In fact, MBN had reporters inside Gaza before the war. So, they can report without censorship. Nevertheless, they struggle to provide an accurate counter narrative. All journalists in Gaza work in extremely difficult circumstances, particularly those who work for the MBN. In the current atmosphere, Israelis view almost any Arab as the enemy, and other Arabs often view MBN reporters as enemies due to the organization’s ties to America, Israel’s steadfast ally. Credible sources say the IDF and Hamas target journalists that file reports considered unfavorable. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that sixty-eight journalists have been killed since the war started less than three months ago.

A complex media environment exacerbates the journalistic challenges created by the ubiquitous censorship and a war in the local media almost as intense as the one on the ground.

“The coverage of events has become more complex and challenging due to the intensity and long working hours and to find a way to convey accurate information amidst a flood of disinformation,” says Yehia Kassem, the MBN’s chief correspondent in Jerusalem “There is a war in the media arena no less than the war in the field and each side tries to conquer as many targets as possible. I’m not just talking about the Israeli and Palestinian media but also within the Pan-Arab media landscape.”

Military leaders of all persuasions instinctively try to control the narrative of war. The Israelis do it, so does Hamas. Controversy erupted about journalists embedding with U.S. troops during the Iraq wars. The ramifications continue today from the hostile relationship between reporters and the miliary during the Vietnam war. So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that tensions characterize the relationship between the generals and journalists.

Given the choice of embedding with troops or sitting on the sidelines, many journalists opt for accompanying the troops regardless of the strings the military attaches to any deal. After all, compromised journalists are better than none at all. “Accompanying the IDF is a problematic issue,” the MBN’s Kassem says. “Arab viewers who lean towards the Palestinian side may not like the fact that I am with the soldiers, but it has great news value. I can see with my own eyes the places where the Army claims to have found weapons and especially the hospitals.”

Kassem says he thinks the agreement the IDF demands journalists sign is reasonable compared to similar cases but that he didn’t sign it. “I would agree especially that other foreign reporters like Fox News and other international networks have,” he says. “I would really like to go there but as you know it’s not safe without an escort from someone who knows the place and understands that we came to deliver a story to our viewers.” Moreover, MBN has four journalists inside Gaza, says Marwan Athamneh, who runs the MBN office in Jerusalem.

“Our local team keeps working around the clock,” he says. “It’s not easy to work in these situations. An airstrike was made not far from the hospital where they had gone for a live broadcast position. Where to run? Wessem Yassin, our female reporter, is staying in a tent with her three kids and parents.” A single mother, she had moved her family twice when the Israeli military bombed and destroyed her family home in Khan Younis. Another journalist is sharing shelter where the rent is $250 a day because of the housing shortage created by Israelis dumb bombs that have reduced most of Gaza to rubble.

Athamneh says he admires Haaretz journalists who come under heavy criticism and threats of closure from a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister. “It is a very brave newspaper that is anti-mainstream and does its job. It is not just public relations for the IDF like the rest of the Israeli media, Athamneh says. “I keep saying to my Israelis friends I feel sorry for you since ninety-nine percent get news from the Israeli media only and you don’t have a damn idea of what you are missing.”

Foreign news operations such as the New York Times clearly disclose when it accompanies IDF forces. When the newspaper can’t independently verify the information provided by the IDF, the Times clearly discloses to readers the limitations it faces. However, many unscrupulous operators play by different rules. The IDF’s propagandists step into the void created by its censors with misinformation. 72 Virgins – Uncensored promotes itself as a news channel with exclusive content from inside the Gaza news vacuum.

Adjacent to an image of alleged captured terrorists, Haaretz reported that the Telegram channel boasted “Don’t forget that all the content here is exclusive first for you!!!!!! Share it so everyone will see what crybabies they are.” The channel’s reports can have an impact in Gaza and elsewhere.

“On October 11,” Haaretz reported, “hundreds of Israelis, including members of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team's violently racist fan club, La Familia, rioted at the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv following a rumor that Hamas terrorists who had invaded Israel were being treated there. People roamed the hospital, cursing out and spitting on medical professionals. Within an hour, a video of the riot was uploaded to 72 Virgins – Uncensored with the title, "My brothers, the heroes La Familia fans, love you!!!!!!! What heroes, came to screw the Arabs."

—James O’Shea

James O’Shea is a longtime Chicago author and journalist who now lives in North Carolina. He is the author of several books and is the former editor of the Los Angeles Times and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. Follow Jim’s Five W’s Substack here.  

Any opinions or observations in this blog are purely those of the author and do not represent the official positions of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) or of the U.S. State Department’s Agency for Global Media, which administers federal grants to the MBN.