Dr. Ron Schleifer is an Israeli expert on information/psychological warfare and military-media relations. He s a senior lecturer in the School of Communication at Ariel University, specializing in Psychological warfare, and head of the Ariel Center for Defence and Communication
Close to a year into the Swords of Iron War, some of the characteristics of the psychological warfare it contained can now be defined and analyzed.
Psychological warfare is an important aspect of the war because it serves -intentionally- to bridge the gap between Israel’s greater military power and that of Hamas.
The well-planned October 7th Hamas attack was a product of many years of Iranian investment, along with a long term and clever global deception that caused Israeli, as well as international, intelligence experts to conclude that the organization’s Islamist ideology had been abandoned and that, in sync with Western aspirations, Hamas was interested in a pleasant life of material comforts.
From the perspective gained over the two decades since it occurred, the Gilad Shalit exchange seems like an initial stage of the current campaign. The successful kidnapping tore Israeli society apart and placed those who want a hostage deal at all costs and those who are against it on opposing sides of a political divide. The Shalit Saga of 2005-2010 had long term consequences, not just the immediate ones of becoming a blue print for hostage events, but also through its influence on Israel’s fight on the ground against terror organizations. Few realize it, but the 2014 Protective Edge Operation in Gaza was hampered from its start by the army echelons' ongoing fear that a soldier could be kidnapped again. It is hard to set military goals if that fear accompanies the steps taken by every soldier and commander.
The Hostage Forum calling to "Bring Them Home" at any price was established the morning after October 7th. We now know that the salary of the main Israeli strategist behind the campaign was secretly paid by Qatar. This fact shows us the deep and insidious involvement of the many elements working on the Israeli public’s consciousness. For this reason, we must look at the hostage issue objectively and analyze what and whose interest is served by every message - every step of the way.
Hamas has continued to employ the public relations technique that succeeded so well during the Shalit episode. Its goal is to put the Israeli public’s nerves on edge by leaking another tiny morsel of information about the hostages whenever it feels that interest is moving elsewhere, ensuring it stays at the top of the agenda. In the past (Nachshon Waxman, Gilad Shalit) an entire operation was based on moving a video clip from one place to another to camouflage its source. Today that is easily accomplished on Telegram and needs only a subsequent leak to the media.
Kudos to Hamas for its success in splitting Israeli society on the hostage issue, frustrating it to the point of psychosis, and causing it to shift that frustration’s focus to the government and Prime Minister instead of focusing on the terrorist movement, its supporters and the villain who stands at its head.
The barbaric rape and mutilation that Hamas carried out on October 7th could be categorized as the waging of psychological war, but one must differentiate between two terminologies, that of psychologically waged war and that of psychological warfare. The bombing of London or Dresden in WW2 were instances of psychologically waged war, meant to lower civilian morale through violence. Psychological warfare, on the other hand, is lowering morale through nonviolent methods.
Hamas moved rapidly from Genghis Khan-style terror and repeating the terror techniques of psychologically waged war that caused the Americans to leave Vietnam fifty years ago (see Jane Fonda at the Hanoi Hilton) to another stage. Hamas brought foreign media to observe the destruction caused to Israel by the battles and rocket fire, showing the wounded and dead children resulting from tunnel warfare, realizing that a photo is always stronger than an explanation. The outer circle of the planners has Iran and its Sunni cohorts, as well as other countries, calling the shots and isolating Israel from world Jewry, and the Jewish community from the American government. In Europe, this wedge-driving goal was achieved two decades ago by awakening the antisemitism demon against Israel.
At this point in time, Hamas has raised the level of its psychological warfare a notch in order to prevent israel from conquering the entire Strip. In my opinion, Hamas and Iran did not expect Israel’s strong response to the scenes of rape on October 7th just as Nasrallah did not expect the Second Lebanon War to break out after two IDF soldiers, Goldwasser and Regev, were kidnapped.
There are two psychological warfare techniques regarding occurrences. One, called creating an opportunity, you create from scratch, like the mavi Marmara flotilla. The other is called exploiting an opportunity. When something happens, you seek to give it a twist thatsupports your cause.
When the IDF, using Shabak and its own know-how, was able to approach the place where the hostages were held, Hamas was forced to kill them quickly to prevent rescuing them, a success which would have led to hopes of freeing the rest of the hostages without a deal.
Hamas publicized previously-prepared videos of the hostages that it had saved for the right moment, showing hostages begging for their lives and the six it later executed by shooting them in the head, thereby exploiting a psychological warfare opportunity that turned its vulnerability to Shabak surveillance into an asset. It immediately launched a campaign based on what it saw as Israeli society’s belief that their murders could have been prevented had the Prime Minister accepted the Hamas demands for a deal. Hamas could have been left with the cruel image, one which it wants at the moment to downplay, so it diverted the message to blaming Netanyahu for the execution.
Filming hostages just minutes before their execution is in the style of ISIS and the only reason Hamas and its handlers do not do that is their fear of an irrational Israeli response akin to the carpet bombing of Lebanon in 2006. In the hostage clips, Hamas uses the constant theme of praising violence which other terror organizations have used in the past. It is saying “nothing will stop us” in order to demoralize the Israeli public and justify a deal that means Israeli capitulation.
It is worthwhile for armies the world over who are following Israel’s war in Gaza above and below ground to notice the Iran-Hamas doctrine of psychological warfare because it is coming to their shores, as did its forerunners.
And Israel’s use of psychological warfare, you ask? Well, we will leave that for another time.
For Caroline Glick's interview with Dr. Schleifer, The Psychological War Being Waged by Hamas, click here.