Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on “60 Minutes” Sunday that the decline in U.S. support for Israel “correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media,” and he blamed foreign manipulation of online platforms for much of the shift.
“Israel has gone to unbelievable lengths to get innocent civilians out of harm’s way,” Netanyahu said, listing text messages, phone calls, pamphlets and leaflets as efforts to warn civilians. He said the spread of social media has coincided with reduced support and accused “several countries” of manipulating online content, saying that effort “has hurt us badly.”
Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel has made “mistakes” in its war against Hamas but said they were not deliberate. He said Israel was “besieged on the media front, on the propaganda front,” and added, “I can paint you as a monster. And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.” He said even the show’s host, Major Garrett, “would not be immune to negative propaganda” under sustained pressure.
An NBC News poll in March found 32% of Americans viewed Israel positively while 39% viewed it negatively. The poll showed the shift was more pronounced among Democrats and independents, while Republicans remained largely sympathetic to Israel, according to NBC News.
On broader regional tensions, Netanyahu said the campaign against Iran was “not over,” citing remaining enriched uranium, enrichment sites to be dismantled, Iranian proxies and ballistic missiles. “We’ve degraded a lot of it. But all that is still there, and there’s work to be done,” he said.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
