Mitch Schneider October 10 at 12:09 PM “I keep hearing that Israel “lost the PR war.” And you know what? Fine. Sure. Whatever. The world thinks we’re monsters. The UN passed over 30 resolutions condemning us. College campuses exploded with protests. “Genocide” trended on Twitter for 700 days straight. We lost the PR war. Congratulations to everyone who won it.
Now let me tell you what we won instead. Two years ago, my country was surrounded. Hezbollah had 150,000 rockets aimed at us from the north. Hamas controlled Gaza with an army in tunnels beneath it. Iran was months from a nuclear weapon. The Houthis were firing missiles at our ships. Assad’s Syria was an Iranian highway. Iraqi militias were itching for war. We called it the “ring of fire.” Iran spent 40 years building it. Billions of dollars. Endless weapons. Thousands of fighters. All of it designed for one purpose: to destroy Israel in a coordinated attack. October 7th was supposed to be the beginning. Hamas attacks from the south, Hezbollah from the north, militias from the east, Houthis from the sea. The final war. You know what happened instead? Israel dismantled the entire thing. Piece by piece. Threat by threat. Not in some distant future. Not “eventually.” In two years. Nasrallah spent 32 years building Hezbollah into the most powerful non-state military in the world. Israel killed him in his bunker and took out his entire command structure in weeks. Hezbollah isn’t weakened. It’s finished. Iran built a nuclear program for decades. Israel set it back years. Killed their top scientists. Destroyed their facilities. Made the regime so weak that its own people are revolting. Assad survived a civil war, Russian intervention, and American strikes. He couldn’t survive losing his Iranian backers. His regime collapsed. The land bridge is gone. The Houthis thought they could close the Red Sea. Israel crippled their long-range capabilities and neutralized the threat.
Hamas? Sinwar died in rubble clutching a stick. Haniyeh was eliminated in Tehran. Deif is gone. The tunnels are destroyed. And this week, Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and the release of all hostages. Read that again. The terrorist organization that started this war by massacring 1,200 people just agreed to release every hostage and accept a ceasefire on Israel’s terms. So yeah. We lost the PR war. I’ll take that loss. Because here’s what we gained: My kids don’t have to run to bomb shelters anymore. The north is being rebuilt. Hezbollah’s rockets are gone. Iran’s nuclear threat has been pushed back years. The tunnels under Gaza are rubble. The “ring of fire” is extinguished. And now? The hostages are coming home. There’s a ceasefire. The fighting can finally end. Two years ago, we were facing an existential threat. Today, we’re the dominant power in the Middle East. Here’s the thing about the “PR war” – it’s a luxury. It’s what people with security worry about.
It’s optics. It’s perception. It’s whether someone with a blue checkmark likes you. Israel doesn’t have that luxury. We never did. When people scream “genocide,” we’re preventing one. When they cry “disproportionate,” we’re stopping rockets. When they demand “ceasefire,” we’re rescuing hostages. While the world was busy judging us, we were busy surviving. And not just surviving. Winning. Fundamentally, decisively, historically winning. Iran’s 40-year plan to surround and destroy Israel? Over. The axis of resistance? Shattered. The greatest coordinated threat in our history? Defeated. So let me ask you something: Would you rather win the PR war and lose your country? Or lose the PR war and secure your existence for the next 50 years? Because that’s the actual choice. And Israel made it.
Again. The world can have its hashtags. We’ll take our sovereignty. They can have their protests. We’ll take our security.
