I’ve stood close enough to violence to feel it register in my body before my mind caught up. The unnatural quiet that settles after the first explosions, when everyone instinctively braces for what comes next. Blood pooling on the pavement, creeping toward the street.
And then I’ve watched those moments – precise, deliberate, and real – be quietly judged as insignificant.
As a journalist, I once suggested to an editor that we cover an attack in Israel, and I was told it wasn’t necessary. Not because it wasn’t terrorism, not because it lacked intent, but because “only three people had died.”
I understood the real reason. It didn’t fit the news angle of that media outlet. Israeli deaths often fail to fit within an existing narrative, and without mass casualties they are rendered narratively invisible.
Such moments have taught me something essential about modern conflict: Psychological warfare is no longer confined to the battlefield. It plays out in newsrooms, on screens, and in the assumptions embedded in editorial judgment about whose deaths count, who is allowed to act, and who must explain.
Truth exists, but not every truth is granted public weight.
Psychological warfare
That is why the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, caught my attention. It wasn’t about Venezuela itself, nor about the fact that leaders haven’t been removed before – they have – but rather about what this moment revealed about how significance is assigned.
The global shock that followed the overthrow of Maduro was telling. Legal experts rushed to debate precedent. Governments issued carefully calibrated statements, condemning the act while hedging on its implications.
Media coverage oscillated between outrage and quiet acknowldgement that a stalemate many assumed would simply endure had been broken. Whatever one thinks of the legality or politics involved, the event could not be ignored.
Israel, by comparison, lives at the other end of the spectrum. Many of its actions – such as preventing attacks, limiting strikes, avoiding escalation, and even fatal incidents – never reach the point where they are treated as significant at all.
In psychological warfare, what matters is not just what happens but whether it is allowed to register as an event.
In the Maduro case, importance wasn’t measured by numbers or images but by disruption: who it happened to, which long-held assumptions it had unsettled, and how many actors were forced to respond.
What counts
In Israel’s case, importance is usually measured far more narrowly: how many people died and how dramatic the pictures were. Anything that doesn’t meet that bar is quietly treated as if it doesn’t matter.
That difference isn’t random. It’s structural, rooted in how we, as humans, make sense of events. We look for patterns, familiarity, and continuity, and these instincts are mirrored and amplified by the media. Israel’s actions are familiar in a way that makes them feel continuous and expected, even when they are serious or deadly. Palestinian suffering is familiar in a different way: Its repetition doesn’t dull it; rather, it reinforces the sense of outrage.
That is why the Maduro episode mattered: It showed the opposite dynamic to Israel’s experience – an event whose meaning and importance were imposed from the outset, despite the absence of mass casualties, dramatic imagery, or a long build-up of expectations.
The lesson here is that psychological warfare today is not fought over facts or legality alone but over what is allowed to count. That decision is made before persuasion begins – by editors, platforms, and audience expectations. Israel often assumes that clarity, restraint, and explanation will carry meaning on their own. But in an information environment where attention is scarce and roles are already fixed, events must first be recognized as significant before their meaning can take hold or be defended.
PR failure
We often ask why Israel fails at public relations, and why it can’t seem to explain itself in a way that lands. But the problem isn’t the explanation. Israel usually explains itself clearly, factually, and in detail. The problem is that many Israeli realities never become stories at all. They don’t cross the threshold where they are treated as significant, and explanations only work once that threshold has been passed. When something hasn’t first been recognized as significant, even the most accurate explanation is void of meaning.
Prevented attacks, intercepted rockets, and avoided escalation matter profoundly on the ground – lives are saved, and crises are contained – but they rarely matter in the information space. They produce no defining images, no clear moment that demands attention. Without that moment, there is nothing for the explanation to attach itself to.
What keeps Israelis alive often leaves no trace in the story the world ends up telling. As a result, Israel often finds itself explaining actions that barely registered, arguing for the importance of moments that were never permitted to matter.
This does not mean Israel should abandon restraint or seek drama for its own sake. It means recognizing that psychological warfare today is less about convincing people and more about whether an event is acknowledged at all – whether it demands a response or is simply allowed to fade away. Israel’s challenge is not that it is wrong, unclear, or unable to explain itself, but that it treats explanation as the main fight.
If there is a lesson here, it is that Israel must think earlier, not louder. It must identify which moments are made to register, and carefully choose when to force recognition rather than waiting to justify itself afterward.
This does not mean responding to every incident, nor does it guarantee that Israel’s framing will be carried by the media, but it does ensure that silence and absence do not define the event by default when Israel has chosen to speak.
It means clearly saying what choices were made, showing that restraint or prevention was a decision, and framing a strike or non-strike immediately. For example, stating at the outset that an attack dismissed as “only three Israelis dead” was, in fact, a mass-casualty attempt that failed because of intelligence and interception, rather than allowing the absence of deaths to define the event later.
This is not about constant messaging but about selective intervention at the point where significance is still being decided.
None of this points to a communications fix or a better messaging strategy. Israel cannot win by explaining better. Accuracy alone carries little weight. Context arrives too late if the moment itself was never permitted to matter.
The psychological terrain Israel is operating in now is not a battle over truth versus lies, but over meaning versus insignificance. Not a fight to convince, but a struggle to be recognized. Until that is understood, Israel will keep speaking clearly – and being heard too late.■
Paula Slier is a veteran journalist and foreign correspondent who has covered conflict zones across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. She focuses on the intersection of media, geopolitics, and information warfare.