The following is an extract from a speech delivered by Dr. Dan Diker, President of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), at the JNS Policy Conference in Jerusalem on June 21, 2026. Dr. Diker argued that Israel’s greatest challenge today extends beyond the battlefield to a global war of narratives, disinformation, and political warfare.
Military Victory Is Not Enough
Israel has demonstrated extraordinary military capability in confronting the Iranian-led axis. Together with the United States, it has significantly degraded Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear infrastructure while weakening Tehran’s network of terrorist proxies. Yet even as Israel secures remarkable achievements on the battlefield, another struggle is intensifying beyond the reach of tanks, aircraft, and missile defenses.
The decisive contest increasingly centers on influence, legitimacy, and public perception. It is a war fought through political warfare, psychological operations, legal campaigns, media narratives, and disinformation. Success in this arena may prove just as consequential as success on the battlefield.
For nearly five decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has perfected deception as an instrument of statecraft. It concealed elements of its nuclear weapons program, obscured its sponsorship of terrorist organizations, and simultaneously projected an image of victimhood while openly calling for Israel’s destruction in Persian-language speeches directed at domestic audiences. This dual messaging is not accidental. It is a central component of Iran’s broader strategy of ideological warfare.
The Long Campaign Against Israel’s Legitimacy
The assault on Israel’s legitimacy did not begin after October 7, nor did it originate solely with Iran.
Its ideological roots stretch back nearly a century, combining the eliminationist rhetoric of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the revolutionary Islamist doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood, Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda, and later the geopolitical ambitions of the Islamic Republic. Over time, these distinct movements converged around a common objective: portraying Israel not merely as a state engaged in conflict but as an inherently illegitimate political entity.
Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union transformed the Palestinian issue into a symbol of anti-colonial struggle while depicting Israel as the embodiment of Western imperialism. China supported Palestinian militant organizations politically and militarily. Arab states institutionalized diplomatic campaigns against Israel in international organizations, culminating in the 1975 UN General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism.
Although that resolution was eventually revoked, the underlying narrative survived. Today it has re-emerged in accusations of apartheid, settler colonialism, genocide, and systematic racism. Israel’s exercise of self-defense is routinely reframed as aggression, while terrorist organizations increasingly portray themselves as resistance movements.
The Convergence of Three Ideological Forces
The campaign against Israel is no longer driven by a single ideological current. Rather, it reflects the convergence of three distinct forces.
The first is revolutionary Islamism, represented by Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The second consists of segments of the radical progressive left that frame Israel through the language of colonialism, intersectionality, and anti-imperialism.
The third includes elements of the extremist right whose antisemitism increasingly overlaps with anti-Zionist narratives.
These movements frequently disagree on almost every other political issue. Yet they reinforce one another in their opposition to Jewish sovereignty and, more broadly, to the Western democratic order. Their cooperation is often informal rather than coordinated, but its cumulative effect has reshaped public discourse throughout much of the Western world.
October 7 Was Also an Information War
The October 7 massacre demonstrated that terrorism today operates simultaneously on the physical and informational battlefields.
While Hamas carried out unprecedented acts of mass murder, the accompanying global narrative rapidly shifted from documenting the atrocities to portraying Israel as the primary aggressor. International institutions, human rights organizations, university campuses, and social media platforms became arenas where Israel’s legitimacy itself was placed on trial.
The objective extends beyond criticism of Israeli policy. It seeks to isolate Israel diplomatically, weaken its alliance with the United States, divide Israel from Jewish communities abroad, and erode Western public support for its security.
Recent polling illustrates the challenge. Fewer than half of Americans identify Iran as an enemy of the United States, while substantial portions of the public fail to recognize the ideological connection between radical political Islam and attacks such as September 11. Such knowledge gaps create fertile ground for hostile disinformation campaigns and ideological manipulation.
Lessons from Oslo
Israel’s experience since the Oslo Accords underscores the dangers of confusing tactical agreements with strategic transformation.
The expectation that terrorist organizations could be fundamentally moderated through political processes proved misplaced. Rather than abandoning their long-term objectives, organizations such as Hamas continued pursuing Israel’s destruction while simultaneously benefiting from enhanced international legitimacy.
The consequences became increasingly evident through the Second Intifada, the rise of Hamas in Gaza, repeated rounds of conflict, and ultimately the October 7 massacre. These experiences reinforce the importance of evaluating adversaries according to their ideology, capabilities, and declared objectives rather than their diplomatic rhetoric.
Building a National Information Security Strategy
Israel has traditionally devoted enormous institutional resources to military preparedness, intelligence collection, and homeland security. Comparable attention has not been devoted to defending the country’s legitimacy in the information domain.
This imbalance should be corrected through the establishment of a permanent national strategic influence and information security directorate reporting directly to the Prime Minister’s Office. Such an institution would coordinate the messaging of the IDF, intelligence community, Foreign Ministry, diplomatic missions, cyber capabilities, and other relevant government agencies.
Beyond crisis communications, it would monitor hostile narratives, identify emerging influence campaigns, employ artificial intelligence and open-source intelligence to detect threats, rapidly expose disinformation, and coordinate strategic communications with democratic allies.
During the Cold War, the United States developed institutions dedicated to exposing Soviet disinformation and defending democratic narratives. Israel now faces a comparable strategic challenge requiring similar institutional innovation.
Winning the Eighth Front
The military campaign against Iran and its proxies has demonstrated Israel’s operational superiority. Whether those achievements translate into lasting strategic gains will depend increasingly on success beyond the battlefield.
The struggle over legitimacy has become Israel’s eighth front. Military victories can remove immediate threats, but they cannot by themselves prevent the erosion of political support, diplomatic standing, or international credibility.
Winning this conflict requires recognizing that information warfare is no longer an auxiliary component of modern conflict. It is one of its principal theaters. If Israel hopes to secure the achievements won on the battlefield, it must become as effective at defending the truth as it has proven at defending its borders.
