Inside Israel’s Media War | The PR Battle After October 7
01:07:06 Share

I don't have to like milk in my coffee to acknowledge that the milk came from the cow. So I don't have to... One doesn't have to like or admire the Jewish people to acknowledge that Jews came from Judea.

Hello and welcome to State of a Nation. I'm Elon Levy. In the first few months of the October 7th war, I had the privilege of fighting shoulder to shoulder with some extraordinary spokespeople for the State of Israel. Together in the media trenches, we gave interview after interview to hostile media outlets who were asking us tough questions about the progress of Israel's war against Hamas. One of those spokespeople was the remarkable Tal Heinrich.

Tal, just like me, was not a spokeswoman for the Israeli government when the war started. She was in New York. She got on the first plane she could after Shabbat to fly straight into Israel and start representing Israel on the international stage.

This is her first interview since finishing her role as spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's office, and she opens up about what happened in the early days of the war, what she thinks we did well, what she thinks we did less well, and perhaps some of her hopes if in future, maybe, perhaps, hopefully, if I'm being optimistic, she returns to represent Israel on the international stage.

This isn't an interview with a stranger, someone I've never met before. It's an interview with one of my closest colleagues with whom we spent hours upon hours in the darkest moments of our country's history. Tal Heinrich comes to State of a Nation to talk to me beyond the headlines.

and between the lines. Tell Heinrich, so good to see you back in front of the cameras where you belong.

Thank you. It's such an honor to be here. Elon, I've always been honored to work by your side, work with you in the media field, more so after the outbreak of the war. And now to be here, your own podcast, it's fantastic. And we're going to spend the next hour or so bringing up memories from the beginning of the war, taking a look, a retrospective and thinking what we did right, what we did wrong, evaluating Israel's media strategy as well, trying to do some brainstorming. But

First of all, for those who don't know your story, and I'll admit this is really the first time we're sitting to debrief properly, and I don't know the story. Within a week of the October 7th massacre, you were on TV, on camera, defending the state of Israel as an official spokeswoman for the, I mean, what was your official title? Spokeswoman for the prime minister's office? Yes. But on October 7th, you woke up in New York and you weren't working for the prime minister's office. October 7th, well, when the Hamas invasion began, it was a Friday night in the United States.

Okay, so take me back and tell me the story, how you became a spokesperson for Israel, because that is quite an adventurous story in its own right. Well, I think the prime minister's office knew my skills, and I got the phone call, as simple as that. On October 7th, it was, I guess, around 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., if I remember correctly. Okay.

my husband and I, some friends, we were out, we went to some restaurant. And then when we were about to book the Uber to go back home, we saw the notifications of the missiles.

And like every Israeli, I didn't realize how bad things were. When we got home, my husband turned on the TV and then we started reading, you know, the amount of casualties and the number kept rising and rising. And, you know, and then we saw the videos. We got some videos on WhatsApp to make things, you know, to...

Make a long story short, I got the call around 2, 2 a.m. They told me I was needed either there or here. Stay tuned.

I tried to sleep. It was impossible, but I knew I'll have to, you know, use my energy. So I did my best to try to fall asleep. And one hour later, they told me to take the first available flight and make it to the Kyria, the Central Command, as soon as I can. So I took the first available flight that left Newark, New Jersey, and

And I arrived in Israel October 8th. Was the plane full of reservists trying to get back home? Full of tears. Full of tears. That's the best. It was, the flight itself was, you know, a good and a terrible experience in a way. Because, you know, when a war breaks out in a certain country, everyone's trying to flee the country. In Israel, it was the opposite. There weren't available seats available.

People were trying to go back home and reservists were trying to, you know, to to go back and volunteer. In fact, my my sister's husband, it was his first time visiting New York and he spent two days in New York. The first time, I think maybe a second time in the United States.

And he's a reservist. And that's it. He took the second flight that left Newark as well, just to join the military and be part of the fighting force. So you land in Israel. I mean, this is really extraordinary that...

The massacre happens and the prime minister's office does not have an international spokesperson. The apparatus does not exist, which is how I got sucked into the vacuum as well. But you arrive in Israel on what, October 8th? October 8th. And I reported to the central command. And like, what is your job? What are you meant to do? Well, the job itself, to define it, that's not difficult. We're...

We were there to make Israel's case in the most justified war, one of the most justified wars in history to the world. We wanted to remind everyone. You make it sound like it should have been easy. No, it should have been easy, right? It should have been easy. We were there to remind everyone how this war started because as time went by and the war progressed, somehow people forgot how it started.

And we were there to remind everyone that we don't have time for our hostages in Gaza. We still don't. And the suffering is enormous for them. And we must bring them home. You say it should have been easy. It should have been easy. Why do you think it wasn't?

It wasn't because, and here I'll bring up one of the very first interviews in the war, not the one that I did, but I remember, I think it was on October 8th, October 10th, Ron Dermer, Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs, he sat in front of Fox News, CNN anchors, and he told everyone, it's great that we received this outpouring of support 24 to 48 hours after the massacre, but

But remember this moment because this support will just phase out gradually as the war progresses. And we expect people to stand by our side when we're the victims, but also when we are victors in this war. And we will be. That's what he said. Yeah, that was an excellent turn of phrase from Ron Dillmer, that it's easy to stand with Israel when we're victims and not when we're victors. Right.

But every Israeli knew exactly what he was talking about at the moment because we went through this time and again, even in the 2014 Israel-Gaza war. It's always the case. It's interesting you say that because on the one hand, Ron Doma was saying, remember this moment of sympathy because it isn't going to last long. On the other hand, one gets the impression now that Israel's leaders failed.

thought we would have a longer period of grace than we actually did and weren't expecting international opinion to turn on us as quickly as it did in a way that would hamstring our military operation? I'm not sure because history has shown that it's always this pattern and it's a repeating pattern. We get this, you know, a few weeks, a few days of grace from the media, from international leaders and so forth. The United Nations I'm not even talking about because, you know, they're...

It's a whole different story. An hour goes by and the tide is turning against Israel. By the way, you say we had everyone's support on October 7th. It's not true. It's not true. In New York, by the way, there was a protest outside the Israeli consulate. The same night.

Qatar now playing mediator condemned Israel as the massacre was still ongoing. South Africa did so the following day. So it's not true we had the support of the whole world, but there you are almost alone together with Mark Ragev in the early days trying to hold the fort for public opinion. Tell me what was...

is it like there in the early days? Because I joined the efforts of the prime minister's office on the Friday after the war started. You were there before me. We'd spoken by text and you said you were coming to Israel. I thought you were coming in to be part of the IDF spokesperson's unit. I didn't realize you were coming to be part of the prime minister's office. But talk to me about those chaotic days at the beginning of the war. How did you know what to say, what the message was, reliable information? Remember, this is a time where we had

all sorts of reports coming out about the atrocities. Some were true, some were not, and you didn't know what was true and what you were allowed to say because there was no functioning...

pipeline of information. How did you handle that information chaos in the early days? Well, first, I think it was important for me and also for you, correct me if I'm wrong, to always attribute a quote or a number to where we heard it from. If it was a soldier speaking to the media, we said, you know, this is what we're hearing from soldiers. This is what we're hearing from media reports and not exactly.

directly from the IDF spokesperson, prime minister's office and so forth. But I think one of the very good things that the prime minister and this government did well in Israel as a whole, or the security cabinet, I should say, was to define clear goals for this war. And it's something that we always repeated to bring all hostages back home, right, to dismantle Hamas's governing and military capabilities, right?

Which sounds like a very technical way to say remove Hamas from power and disarm it. Right, and make sure that by the end of this, the Palestinians and Hamas will no longer have the desire to hurt Israel, attack it as they did. Hang on, no, no, no. That was not an official goal of the war. The official goal of the war was that Gaza would no longer be a threat to Israel. To Israel, ever again.

Ever again? No longer or never again. I think there were two different interpretations of that. But, I mean, the Prime Minister did speak about the need for de-radicalization, but that itself wasn't a goal of the world. Right, and make sure that it's intertwined. Reconstruction of Gaza will be intertwined with the de-radicalization of the Palestinian society. That was also something that we...

Which is one of the best retorts to the ridiculous allegations of genocide, because the prime minister is talking about the day after, assuming the Palestinians are still going to be there the day after, and asking questions about how are we going to live in peace next to them the day after, right? Of course. And the truckloads of humanitarian aid that kept flowing into Gaza. Of course, it's very counterproductive to provide aid to a population if you're trying to genocide it, right? And Israel did it on a huge scale.

Yeah, so I think one of the very good things that were done on Israel's side was to define very clear goals to this war. Because if you don't have clear goals, you shouldn't be fighting a war. That's how I personally see it. If you don't know what it means to win a war, you don't define what it means to win a war, just don't go fight a war.

The goals were well defined, but the information was not. It was chaotic. We didn't know which of the reports were true, what was not, which numbers were reliable. There wasn't a functioning chain of command and pipeline of information. And it meant that you also had interviews where you would go on camera and be asked questions. And there wasn't an official document with all of your talking points or all the numbers. And you were in some ways...

Like buying time? I'm not going to say bluffing, but in some ways, you know, the media assumed maybe you're better briefed than you are in the chaotic reality of the beginning of the war. I think we were briefed in a sense. Wars are always chaotic. I don't think, you know, you can really prepare for it.

I mean, we weren't prepared for the October 7th invasion. So it's very difficult to be prepared for such situations, even on the media side, because there are so many things to handle at the same time. You know, simultaneously, you have to, you know, work on strategy on like on the battlefield strategy on like for the I'm speaking about the decision makers strategy for media strategy for that and this strategy.

And it all was happening. It was happening all together. But I think we manage if I compare this situation of what we had in 2003 to what we had in 2014 during the Israel Gaza war, it's a whole different story. If I'm speaking about, you know, the studio that we set up very, very quickly, yes, it had, you

There were a few different transformations of what it looked like, what it sounded like, but I think it was a very solid operation, the one that was set up there. It was a solid operation, but tell me, you started at the beginning of the war delivering these daily briefings, okay? Press conferences, White House-style press conferences on behalf of the government. And we never had them before. But take the viewers. I mean, I know who wrote my briefings, but take me behind the scenes. How are those briefings getting written?

I'm Imogen Folks, the host of Inside Geneva, a podcast where we tackle the big questions facing our planet.

Can UN investigations bring more criminals to justice? Does the world need a pandemic treaty? What about climate change or refugees? Should we ban autonomous weapons? Some call them killer robots. Get the answers you need with me and our expert guests twice a month on Inside Geneva, free with your usual podcast app.

Well, I think every day we were trying to think about what the media was talking about at a specific, you know, given point in time to answer or give our argument to what was discussed. But also we try to change the narrative or rather not change the narrative because, I mean, it's not an argument.

It's a narrative, but it's just reality. It's truth, right? And shifted to what we want the media to focus on or what the media has forgotten, what the people have forgotten. I'll give you an example. So throughout the war, I spent many days here, many weeks in Israel, but I kept going back and forth between New York and Tel Aviv. And I remember that the media was focusing on the narrative of starvation, which is

100% nonsense. It's poppycock, I should say. Good word. It's a word that I learned during the October 7th war from you. I never knew it before. And speaking of shaping strategy, you wrote one time for the daily briefing, you added the word poppycock. And I'm like, Elon, what's poppycock? I never heard this word before because I'm not a native English speaker. And you said, well, poppycock, it's a media bait. I'm like, really? Yeah.

One hour later, you come back to me. They took the bait. You see poppycock everywhere. I was thinking for social media as well. But yeah, I knew you have to generate a headline by greasing some creative language sometimes. So one thing that we did and I'm... It means nonsense for those who haven't clocked. Nonsense. Exactly. That's what I learned. Yeah.

So there was a specific week in which the media was focusing on the narrative. Israel is starving the Gaza population, even though we kept telling them, no, there are truckloads, hundreds of truckloads waiting on the Gaza side of the border, waiting to be distributed. At one point, there were twice as many food trucks going in as there were before the war. We were living just in a parallel universe. I remember this moment of looking at the numbers.

looking at the media reports and saying, I just don't understand how we're in the same universe. Exactly.

And then I went back to New York and suddenly we managed to move the conversation to focus on sexual abuse of women and men, by the way, during the October 7th war. And that was done in a very wise way by the Israeli mission to the United Nations that set up this, arranged for, and Sheryl Sonberg, Sheryl Sonberg, right? I don't know.

I hope I'm pronouncing it correctly. When they established this conference, this convention that focused on sexual abuse during October 7th at the United Nations, I had the honor to to emcee this event. It was a very, very difficult event, but.

After it happened, suddenly the issue got some attention. And yes, some media outlets focused on what's happening, allegedly happening in Gaza because there was this gap that you're talking about. But suddenly we managed to get it on the daily agenda. And that was, I think that was one achievement. I don't know how to call it, but really it was a very difficult event. I think it was one of the...

most somber moments for me during the war. I remember that Gilad Erdan, then the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, he told me, well, you have to say a few words in the beginning. I'm like, I don't want to ruin it. You know, what, what,

what's going to be told, what people will hear. Like how do you make it powerful enough and put it on the agenda, but you also don't ruin the speeches that are going and the revelations that are going to be told after you at this conference. So I remember what I said, and I just thought about it the night before, that some of the women on October 7th, women...

were murdered twice. The first time when bloodthirsty Hamas terrorists committed shocking acts of sexual violence against them. They abused Israeli women. They mutilated Israeli women. They raped Israeli women. The second time these women were murdered was when terrorists put a bullet in them. We will not allow for a third time to take place

through denial and neglect, a refusal to acknowledge and grieve them. Today, we will scream their story, for there cannot be silence in the face of such atrocities. I think this conference was, this session was a big success. Of course, I'll just say it, I'll just explain that it wasn't arranged by the United Nations, but on behalf of

the Israeli mission to the United Nations. And of course, that wasn't the bread and butter of your work. No, no. The bread and butter was giving media interviews. And I wonder, you know, I have a most memorable interview for me. It was the famous eyebrow interview where Kay Burley asked me on Sky News whether the fact that Israel was willing to release more Palestinian prisoners than hostages it was getting back meant that it valued Palestinian lives less. And I answered with my eyebrows. I wonder from hundreds of interviews that you gave, which one stuck out most for you? Whether there was any that resonated

made you raise your eyebrows or made your jaw drop where you're just holding your head in your head and saying I can't believe this stupid question where is this coming from

I think it wasn't one of the most watched interviews because it wasn't given to any American and British media or British media outlet. It was one I did and it was a prerecorded interview from which they cut an excerpt for a package or so. And it was with an Italian outlet, an Italian reporter.

And I remember myself, you know, making the case for total victory, explaining exactly what Israel is doing and the goals of this war. And she asked me, you know, about the concept of total victory. And I brought up World War II, where, you know—

Which is something that we've never done before, right? Until October 7th. I mean, we never used World War II comparisons to make Israel's case. No, we never framed the conflict in terms of an existential struggle against pure evil, which is how Israelis understand the October 7th war.

And it was, you know, even in real life, forget about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a second. You never, you know that you never compare, you never use World War II arguments, you know, even every day. It's just something that we don't do. It's too hackneyed, too cliched. It's just inviting resistance. And there's nothing like it.

But I think that has changed after October 7th. And I made the case for Israel winning this war against Hamas. Hamas can no longer exist, can no longer be in Gaza. We just refuse to live next to monsters.

And I did it through World War II. I don't remember exactly what I said. I said, well, what if the Allies hadn't sought total victory against Hitler back then? And that Italian correspondent told me, well, it wasn't okay back then, too. What wasn't okay? To crush the Nazis? Yeah, the way they handled it. And I'm like, how can you even argue with that? How can you even, you know, what?

What do you mean? So World War II could have lasted for one more hour? So it's one thing if she's pushing back against the comparison to World War II, but the other thing is to say that defeating the Nazis may have been the wrong thing to do. And I remember asking her, so you mean...

Jews should have been in extermination concentration camps for what? Another hour? Another year? Yeah, although let's be fair. The Allies were not fighting World War II in order to stop the Holocaust. No, of course, of course. But that was one of the outcomes, you know. That was one of the outcomes. Like, do you want more battles in the Pacific and on European soil to this day? Like, what's your point?

And apparently it's not just this Italian reporter, now I understand, pushing this that, you know, we were like the allies weren't exclusively the good side on World War II. People are asking, but, you know, what about the Germans? What about the German population?

They make this separation. People in the U.S., I mean. And I see these arguments specifically coming from a very strange stream that has developed since October 7th on the American right. Right, because you're a kick-ass spokeswoman, but I think you were especially effective on right-wing media. Always the first call to go on Fox, for example. But now we're seeing the rise of an alternative right. Some call it the woke right, an anti-Israel,

anti-Semitic right in America. Talk to me about what you're noticing in those undercurrents of how the narrative is shifting against Israel on the right of American politics, how that concerns you, maybe some thoughts about what we should do about that.

So James Lindsay, he's an American intellectual. He coined this term, the woke right. We can talk about it a bit later what it means. But I would say that it was one of the biggest surprises specifically that I encountered after the October 7th Hamas invasion. Yes, that came as surprise. But then my second biggest surprise, I would say, maybe even bigger, I dare say, was that...

Support didn't come from that stream of people on the American right who always, you know, they're very vocal, very tough on crime, tough on immigration, tough on border security. But there you have it. The biggest criminals in the world, Hamas, are crossing a sovereign border of the state of Israel. And they, wait, they don't support us? How come? This doesn't align with their other, you know, with their entire set of beliefs or what they...

What they always preach for. And I'm like, holding my head. What's going on? How could this happen? And I'm talking about a bunch of media figures in the United States and social media influencers who are, should I name them? Go for it. Well, you have Candace Owens was a big surprise to me personally. A surprise? A surprise. Why? Again, because she's tough on crime, tough on border security.

And but also an anti-Semitic wacko. But we learned this after October. Well, she came here for the opening of the American embassy, you know, in Jerusalem. It's it. It wasn't always the case. If you look up previous interviews that she did. Well, she. What do you think happened that you just suddenly noticed that it was lucrative and clickbait to start spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories?

It's a combination of things. And I'm just bringing her name up, but there are other people on this list. Just this week, you know, Joe Rogan did an interview with Ian Carroll. I just saw that he's about to do another interview with Daryl Cooper. Tucker Carlson is doing a plethora of interviews with, you know, people who are anti-Israel for a reason.

And and these people, suddenly some of them, Candace specifically, they're like suddenly they hate Israel or hate the Jews so much right now after the outbreak of, you know, the October 7th war that they even try to just not justify. But when they speak of World War Two, they say, well, but but but we dropped bombs. We we we bombed Dresden. We bombed Japan.

and we weren't exclusively on the right side of things during World War II. And they say it because they hate Israel, they hate the Jews so much, but they also hate what the American establishment so-called stands for. And this is usually, you know,

I mean, traditionally, I would say, with Israel, with the Western world. And these people think that the Western world has lost its cause, I think, in a way that makes them even... I don't want to go into Russia and Ukraine, but even in...

in a way that makes them doubt who started what, who's on the wrong side. Like more clarity is gone. And this was a war in which you were trying to make the case that actually this was about moral clarity, that this was a fight between good and evil. It's so simple. Between a democratic state and between jihadi monsters. I wonder, did you have other interviews with the traditional media organizations

where you were also holding your head in your hands because the interviewer didn't seem to get that distinction? And were there any other interviews that really stood out to you? Maybe something on CNN? Yeah, I think there was one point, I think, not in the beginning of the war, rather, but I spoke to Jim Acosta, a CNN correspondent, anchor, maybe previous, I don't remember now, who

And it was a weekend program, and he asked me something about the prime minister's approach to money from Qatar that was funneling into the Gaza Strip. And you know that Israel did it so that the Palestinian population will have –

we'll have infrastructure we'll have uh humanitarian resources and whatever is needed for the palestinian people not for hamas yes hamas is the governing power in in gaza but throughout but israel thought that it could basically buy hamas off israel thought i don't israel thought that it could buy hamas off they thought okay they're evil anti-semitic monsters but but

even most tyrants at some point just enjoy the luxuries of governing so if we give them enough money if we show them that food and trucks are going in that workers are coming out then they will be deterred from attacking Israel because there will be a price and this is the way of keeping a lid on things

Okay. And also, so he asked me about money from, cash money from Qatar going to Hamas and to Gaza. Some of that really, you know, trickled down to... It's all fungible. Okay. Money's fungible. But here, and I remember I told him, you know what? Um...

money went into Gaza throughout decades, you know, and bad people controlled Gaza from its inception. And we're talking about money that came from the Palestinian Authority, money that, you know, money, resources, humanitarian resources that went from Israel into Gaza, from the United States, from the European Union, from Qatar as well, from Arab countries other than Qatar as

And then when I said the United States, even U.S. taxpayer money, money that went to the United Nations and funneled in through UNRWA. And we know what happened to this money after all, you know, much of this sort of terror purposes and incitement against the Jewish state and whatnot happened.

and created this terror enclave. And when I said the United States, he suddenly twisted my words. He said, well, you're blaming the United States for October 7th. And I hated when it happens. And no, I'm not blaming... Well, you know, on the one hand, you're not blaming the United States. On the other hand, American money in UNRWA has been one of the most counterproductive policies. I don't think any American policy has contributed so much to...

instability and division and conflict in the Middle East as the well-intentioned idea of giving money to refugees that actually just went into fueling the Palestinians' forever war against Israel. I think we need to be honest with our allies. And not just UNRWA. No, not just UNRWA. Also USAID. USAID. USAID.

ways that they ended up supporting, because basically what you had in Gaza was a massive welfare state funded by the international community that allowed its government, the jihadi Hamas regime, to focus on how to kill Israelis. Tal, I wonder, in all those interviews that you gave, what did you find the hardest to explain? Whether it's you didn't have the numbers at your fingertips, or maybe there was a question where it clashed with your own personal belief, or you weren't sure how to answer it. What

I mean, there must have been some tension between tell the Spogs woman and tell the woman who on October 6th was not a Spogs woman for Israel. Well, first, I'm not a good, I'm not so good with saying out loud numbers. So that's one thing, you brought up numbers. But I think to make the case for total victory without resorting to World War II comparisons.

I think World War II is the ultimate example of what, for us, you know, it's the ultimate example of what total victory should be about and why we should try to reach it. And I always, you know, with...

What happened with this Italian reporter, it happened again and again and again. You know, some people, yes, but the way we carried it out back then, you don't do it today. You can't seek total, the West, not only Israel, by the way, the West can't seek total victory as we did before because now the rules have changed. What do you mean by the rules have changed? No, the rules have changed. There was a whole system of international law that was put in place after the Second World War. Okay, but once it's your kids in Gaza...

as hostages, right? You seek total victory. You want them back and you want the enemy eradicated. What can you, I mean, otherwise it will happen again and again and their kids would be at the same risk of getting kidnapped into Gaza again if we don't put an end to this. It's been about a year and a half since the October 7th massacre. Do you believe in total victory? I do.

What does total victory mean to you? I have no choice. What does it mean? I think total victory is the way the Israeli security cabinet, the government defined it. That will be total victory. Okay, but tell the moment one hostage was murdered in Gaza, you don't have total victory because the goal was to bring them back alive, right? The moment the October 7th invasion happened, you don't have total victory because, I mean, it's very, very difficult to, I mean... Do you believe there is a way to bring back all of the hostages alive?

and remove Hamas from power and make sure that Gaza never poses a threat to Israel again? What is the path to that? I think we have to strive. I think this is what we have to strive to achieve, you know, and we have to say it. Sure, but I'm asking if you think it's realistic because it hasn't happened in the last year and a half. Why do you think the Netanyahu government has not succeeded in achieving total victory in 18 months?

18 months is not a long time to achieve total victory against, you know, this murderous regime. I remember over a year ago, the prime minister said we were a heartbeat away from total victory. What happened? I think now with a new administration in Washington, it's becoming more and more feasible. I'll just put it this way because I don't want to... Go on, explain. Explain why. How do you think the Trump administration changes things for Israel? Well, first, even before...

officially starting his second term, well, not consecutive one, in office, Trump has made very clear that things are going to get very bad for Hamas if they don't

They don't come up with a new framework of releasing the hostages. Sure, he promised all hell would break loose. But as we're recording this, Hamas has achieved two weeks of essentially an unconditional ceasefire. Maybe hell is about to break loose. Well, phase one ended and they promised this is your last chance. This is your last chance. This is your last chance. As we record this, phase one has ended. They haven't released any hostages and they've managed to buy themselves time. They've managed to buy themselves quiet.

Well, the hostages who were supposed to get released on the first phase did come out. Yeah, but phase one is out. Phase one is out. And now they're getting an unofficial ceasefire. And while they're negotiating that, there's an unofficial ceasefire. We haven't gone back to the war and they're not releasing hostages. Well, but things are underway. You know, there's a delegation that's leaving to Doha at the moment. It sounds like they're stringing us along.

I don't think you can do it with President Trump. Not only us, because the U.S. administration is shown verbally and is acting upon it, right? Showing full support to Israel. And that's real moral clarity. From a communist perspective. First on the rhetoric. The rhetoric is important here. And you understand it more than anyone else, I think.

The way President Trump is saying it, the way his entire administration is putting it out and also sends the right message to Iran, by the way.

I like it. I think this is exactly what we need. This is exactly what we needed. I think, you know, even if there wasn't so much daylight, so to say, between the current government and the previous Israeli government, I think, and the previous American administration, Hamas interpreted it in a way that there is a big daylight and they played along these lines. Do you think the Biden administration stood in the way of an Israeli victory?

I think things could have been done in a better way. Answered like a true spokeswoman. No, no, no, but really. And there's the backdoor channel, you know? There's what we see and what we don't see, what we hear, what we don't hear. I think when you're talking about the communication through the media and, you know...

I think this could have been done in a better way. From a commerce perspective, do you think that the Trump administration is making it easier to make the case for Israel or harder? Easier.

Easier. Why easier? Because it's a no-brainer. It should be a no-brainer. And President Trump treats it as a no-brainer. There's the good guys and the bad guys. Same goes with Iran. And he did it throughout his first time in office as well. Right, but at the same time, Trump is saying things that he doesn't necessarily mean.

and then the following day will backtrack. And, you know, he holds a press conference with the prime minister and talks about the deportation of all the Gazans. And then the following day clarifies that actually it, you know, it's only for the purpose of reconstruction. And then they're going to come back and he's moved the Overton window in such a way that Israeli leaders don't know what they're meant to say because they don't know what's consistent American policy and what's off the cuff coming from the president.

I think I can only, you know, assess what this administration is doing, what's in Trump's heart and mind. We can only judge it by looking back at his first term in office. And what I saw there is that every time he tweeted a threat, repeated a threat, or, you know, said he will do something, promise something, he carried it out. Eventually, he followed through. So he's been in office, what, 15?

And we're not even six months or first 100 days there. So I'm giving him the credit that he knows the strategy that he's playing. Sometimes you don't have to see the end game of things right away. But as long as he has an end game and he's trying different strategies, I hope he'll help us get to where we want to be. Tal, you did a fantastic job as a spokeswoman. Oh, thank you. Why are you not there anymore?

Well, I recently gave birth. I recently gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, a chunky, beautiful baby boy. His name is David Golan. And I think I stopped doing the interviews when I got really heavy. And...

Heavy is an interesting way to describe it because you feel physically heavy, but also mentally heavy as you try to do these interviews when you're really pregnant into the third trimester. And it became...

tougher and tougher by the day. I remember going to do interviews early weekend morning, morning shows, interviews. You know, you almost want to throw up, but you're sitting there and you're trying to answer all these difficult questions that are difficult to they're not difficult to, you know, to answer, but they're difficult in a way that you want to convey your answer and finding the right way. Are you on maternity leave now?

sort of. We'll see. Maybe I'll go back into doing these interviews on... Wait, what do you mean maybe? No, because now I want to understand, am I interviewing in capacity as former spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's office, spokeswoman for the Prime Minister's office who is on maternity leave? I promise you that once I go back into doing interviews, everyone will know, but right now that's not... It's a once, not an if. Are we going to see you back in uniform as a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister? Not sure. In some sort of capacity...

It's a maybe. That's what I can give you right now. Tal, the Israeli government isn't taking Hasbara public diplomacy, national communication seriously, is it? I think it is. I think it is. I think storytelling... We've established you're answering in a personal capacity now. No, no, no. I think it is. I mean, I know it is because storytelling is important. I think nobody does it better than the prime minister himself and Ron Dermer. But they're not doing it.

Because they have other things to do that are just as maybe more than important. But that means nobody is doing it. Tal, at the beginning of the war, we set up a system in which we had a whole production line of interviews. No, that's true. We were going, you'd be on TV on CNN and I'd be like, Tal, cut it. I've got a BBC interview now. And then you quickly wrap up and we'd talk. But it's not happening now. Sometimes 10 interviews a day. But it's not happening now. That system we built has...

has unraveled. I was forced to leave political reasons, put that to one side. You left because you had a baby. That system is not happening anymore. We have crisis after crisis and there is nobody whose job is to go and man the airwaves and give interview after interview. David Mensah is still there. He is giving press briefings as the government spokesperson, but he's not giving back-to-back interviews in the way we did at the beginning of the war. That system has unraveled. Nothing's replaced it. And I'm wondering why...

Why doesn't Israel take this seriously? Well, you don't want to get into political reasons and I don't want to get into political reasons, but I can say that there are political reasons behind it because, well, also the media interest, of course. What political reasons? No, no, no. I can't. We can't get into political reasons behind it because there are reasons that this that Israel as Israel does not take seriously the mission of changing public opinion around the world.

I think Israelis take it seriously. I think the Israeli government does take it seriously. The prime minister himself, for sure, he takes it seriously. No, come on, Tal, you're not serious. Okay, there's nothing... And now let me speak from a personal point of view. I think story... Have you watched Game of Thrones? Of course. I hope our audience, people watching this, have watched Game of Thrones. If you haven't, well, then no, no. Um...

Can I fast forward to the last episode of Game of Thrones? You know, at the start of the war, when the hostages came out in the first hostage release deal and there were the crowds of Garzens braying and banging on the windows of the Red Cross vehicles as they were being taken out, I said in an interview, I was very proud, I got it on the stripe, that the scene was like an episode of Game of Thrones and everyone knew exactly what I was referring to. So I want to talk about the ending, the way Game of Thrones

Anyone who hasn't watched the end of Game of Thrones, here is your spoiler warning. Spoiler alert. You can skip. Skip ahead. Okay, so...

Everyone's dead. Okay. Okay, no, but I want to... Who's taking the throne? Do you remember the moment that Tyrion Lannister, he gives the speech about story being the most important thing, the most powerful thing that there is? It's not about looks. It's not about money. It's not about... Story is the most important thing after all. And the person who got to sit on the throne eventually is...

is the one, and I don't want to repeat, you know, who had the most meaningful, powerful story. That's why...

And he kept the stories of, you know, the world and generations in it. I'm not going to, you know, this is, you remember this speech? He said the story is the most powerful thing in the world. And I think it really, this is really the case in this war or in every war. Because Israel and Israelis, we need to learn how to tell our own story. This is the most important thing. And unfortunately, I think... What are we doing wrong then? Okay. Yeah.

When people ask me what's the... Rant. Go on. I'm giving you license to rant. Go on a rant. I know. I know. What's the biggest challenge of Hasbara? You know, I hate this word. I don't know what's your feeling about the word Hasbara. What's the biggest challenge in making Israel... I hate it because when Israelis use the word Hasbara, it's a word that doesn't have a translation into English because it includes a bunch of things that aren't normally lumped together. When Israelis say Hasbara, they're linking together influencer delegations with bots online. And what we did, which was...

Like traditional media relations and government comms. And they lump all of those things together. So people often ask me, you know, and Israelis ask me, what's the biggest challenge to you personally as you try to make Israel's case to the world during this war? And I say, well, you know what? What I recognize is that Hasbara or, you know, making Israel's case to the world is

making it outwards would have been much easier if we knew how to do it inwards. If we were closing the gaps, standing all together, knowing how to tell our story, our narrative, our story,

you know, our perception in one voice and we don't know how to do it. And that's exactly the biggest challenge because that's what the Palestinian side has been doing. Because they have a very consistent story and we've always been people who have stories. Exactly. And they have

One line, and it doesn't matter, of course it's not true, and the one line, the one narrative they keep pushing together is that Jews came after the Holocaust, they took land that wasn't theirs, they kicked everyone out, killed people, and established the state of Israel. That's the entire Palestinian story in a nutshell. What's our story? And this is why I also say that the Palestinian cause, it's a political movement.

It's not. This is what it is, you know, because the entire cause is, you know. What do you think our story is then? Our story? Well, it begins. How do you tell it? I will say I will. Well, Zionism is our story. The story of Israel is a story of Zionism. Right. But the story that you just said, how the Palestinians tell it, that's their interpretation of what Zionism is. So what do you think this word is?

I think that, and it's also something that I repeated one time during an interview, somebody asked me about being an anti-Israel and anti-Zionism and what I think about anti-Zionist. And I said, well, I don't have to like milk in my coffee to acknowledge that the milk came from the cow. So I don't have to, one doesn't have to like or admire the Jewish people to acknowledge that

Jews came from Judea. That's all I need. And apparently some people are just, you know, so deranged in their hate for the Jewish people that they refuse to acknowledge our connection to this land. And the right to be here. And yet, even if we as a country are able to agree on a single narrative, and it sounds like we do. I mean, that is the Israeli story. So we do agree on what our own story is, don't we?

I wish it was so easy the way you describe it. But when I sit with friends, sometimes they, my Israeli friends, I'm saying, some of them can't articulate why it's okay that they are in Tel Aviv, that another person lives in Judea and Samaria, another person lives in the Golan Heights or in Jerusalem. You know, sometimes I think we could have done

a better job of telling their story inwards and educating Israelis to know how to tell their story outwards. Okay, and yet if we're talking about Hasbara as this catch-all term that includes many things, okay, fine. Maybe the country needs better internal education and cultivating a sense of national ethos. And understanding the enemy. And yet our national comms suck because they don't exist. Right.

Because they've fallen apart. Because there is no one who's going on TV now and manning the trenches in a way that we did at the beginning of the war because it was an emergency wartime response. And so I'm wondering if you, Tal Heinrich, were in charge of the nation's communication strategy, what would you do? How do we fight the information war better? How do we structure our comms in order to fight back against the misinformation? Because it's not just a question of how we tell our story internally.

Again, you stood on that stage with Mehdi Hassan when he did the debate, and I noticed a pattern on his behalf that I have been noticing all over the place. Remember, I think...

Most of its arguments was quoting us to ourselves, was quoting Israeli media, was quoting Israeli figures. Even this, even that. I just have a text message from Gershon Boskin. Even he said that. Even, you know, this Israeli outlet once said this and he's twisting it in a way. So I think our job would have been so much easier if we were more united. And I know that it sounds like a cliche, but Jewish unity, you know, Ilan Carr, by the way, he now

he's the head of yes but he used to be the the uh trump the former administration uh anti-envoy uh to combating anti-semitism and i remember way before october 7th was even i don't want to say even in the planning because now um but way before the war i think uh began three years four years before i heard him once speaking at the united um at the united states in some event and um

And he was asked about the challenges of, you know, how do you combat anti-Semitism? This is your job. So he said that the biggest challenge is Jewish unity. That's what he said. And I very much agree with that. But if you ask me practically, give me some examples. Because yes, unity is a challenge. But we have to operate within the reality that says we live in a pluralistic democracy where there are lots of different opinions and it's good that we voice them. And we know that our enemies are very good

at weaponizing our strengths. They weaponize the fact that we care about each other so much and are concerned for the hostages against us. They weaponize our strengths against us. And they twist the internal debate. Fine. But given that there is an internal debate, given that we will disagree, given that there is lively disagreement, and I'm glad that we live in a country where there is lively disagreement. Oh, of course. Tomorrow, you're the head of the public diplomacy directorate. You're in charge of the nation's comms.

And you are told there is a vicious propaganda war that is being waged against us that seeks to turn us into a symbol of pure evil. How do we fight it? You're in charge. What's your solution? So I think one thing, what moves the needle? What helps to move the needle? And now I'm not just talking about Israel. I'm talking about, you know, just what moves one's opinion to the other side? What can start a trend of, you know...

And what I've recognized that the best way to do it, I don't know if it's the best way for a government to do it. That's my point here.

the best way to move the needle is through intellectual debate. It's not through censorship. It's not through, you know, free speech. I'm a free speech radical, and I have to say it here. I'm a real free speech radical. So please speak freely. Exactly. Oh, well, to the extent that I can on camera. But I think that an intellectual debate, and you did it, you did it, is the best way to move the needle. Why? Why?

Because people watching the debate, if they agree with you, right, if they're on your side, Elon, when you took that stage in the U.S., you strengthened their own arguments and you helped them get more and more united to close the ranks between them and, again, fight.

You give them good arguments. You give them ammunition once they hear you. You strengthen their beliefs and what is already in them, what they feel, what they know, what they maybe can't articulate, but then they repeat it to others, right? Have you noticed it? Yeah, no. I agree intellectual debate is important. Part of the reason that I agreed to debate Mehdi Hassan in New York, not only because I wanted to be able to turn around to...

The youth I speak to at universities and the ones I say, you need to stand up to bullies and say, look, I stood up to a bully on stage. I took a bullet. Look at the abuse I'm getting on social media. Look at the abuse I got on stage. I'll take it because I believe in our cause and you need to do the same. But also because it empowers people by giving them the sharpest form of argument when it's put under the most pressure. But Tal, I want to ask you, looking back...

a year and a half since the beginning of the war, when you see how quickly we lost so much of the world's support, especially within liberal circles, I'm wondering, what do you think we did wrong? Like, if God forbid tomorrow there were another October 7th, or there isn't another October 7th, but hey, this conflict is dragging out, okay? What are we doing wrong now in the fight for global public opinion that the prime minister's office, like, what should our national strategy be? How do we fight this? Who's meant to be fighting this?

Well, I think, you know, not only government, but also private initiatives. First, I have to say, we're doing much, much better than we ever did in Israeli wars. There's only so much that civil society can do. We're trying to do it as a citizen spokesperson's office. We know how challenging it is, especially from a fundraising perspective. You know me as a big capitalist. I think the civil society can do anything better than this. Civil society can do amazing things, but at the end of the day, there's a limit. But no, but there's a limit to how much

the impact that I can have as someone who isn't speaking with the authority of the prime minister's office or the state of Israel. And at the moment, there is no one who is going on CNN with the authority of the Israeli prime minister's office. So I'll come back to the question. Tell tomorrow you're in charge of the nation's communications. How do we fight this? How do we do the media world better? You need to do it. What does that mean? I think the way we did it, first, a consistency played a big part. Every day that we went out there and we stood and we were the address for question time.

for questions that the daily briefing we were available there were media availabilities you know we we if it was on air on stage behind behind the scenes if it's media briefings behind the scenes and and just keep being consistent at it and have a very very clear definitions as we had at certain stages not say anything you know that we don't know for sure and and just

Keep being out there. Keep being out there. I think that's what's needed and being consistent about it, being consistent about your messaging and just speaking truth,

speaking the truth and working along with other bodies that exist, you know, like the Israeli military, the IDF spokesperson's unit, but also, you know, trying to shape the strategy together in a way and always coordinate what's right to push, what's not right to say. Do we have to say everything? Do we have to answer everything?

Do we have to say this now? What happens if we wait for later? What happens if we preempt, you know, some media report and try to push our side of the story before or after? Like, you know the work. So I think we...

I think this is something that has to be done, must be done. I think the government understands that why storytelling is important to go back to Tyrion Lannister. A story is the most powerful tool, the most powerful thing in the world. Um,

But for political reasons, maybe it's not happening at the moment, but things are underway. Political reasons, so mysterious. No, no, no, I'll say it off record. But as they did in the beginning of the war, when you, myself, Mark Regev, Avi Hyman, and then eventually David Menser, who joined the team, were doing it every, every day. Tal, when you look back at the beginning of the war, do you think it made a difference?

I think we did. I think we did. Do you think we changed minds? Do you think we bought Israel time? Did it matter? I think we bought Israel time. First, the way I define the role, you know, it was to buy Israel time to operate and to remind everyone that the hostages have no time left.

So I think we did it. I think we did it. I remember, you know what really drove me crazy sometimes? That you know how you're being interviewed and sometimes they don't ask you about hostages. They don't, they're trying to, you know, shift things.

And I shift the questions in a different direction. And you want to answer the question that you're being asked by a certain anchor, but at the same time, they're not asking you about the hostages. And I remember there were very few times in which I finished an interview and I'm like, oh, my God.

I didn't... They didn't ask me about the... Like, I couldn't... And I didn't shove it in. And I didn't shove it in a way... Right. You remember these moments of frustration? On the one hand, the October 7th war cannot be reduced to a hostage crisis that can be solved with a ransom payment. But on the other hand, the discussions around it as if the hostage crisis were not at the core of it were surreal and were detached from reality. Of course. Because... And you try to... And sometimes you try to...

explained to the anchor, the interviewer that, yes, this is the leverage that Hamas has, but Hamas has another by holding the hostages, but Hamas has another major asset in this war. And that's the questions that you as an interviewer ask.

That you ask me. What do you mean? Okay. So they always ask you about, you know, civilian casualties. And you explain how Israel is trying to reduce civilian casualties to taking all these steps to the very minimal extent.

and that we don't want to see any civilian casualty on the Palestinian side. But Hamas makes it very difficult, you know, to operate in a way that you can completely avoid civilian casualties. If you don't want civilian casualties, don't start a war. Don't start a war. Exactly. It's very simple. And then don't fight that war from inside civilian buildings. Exactly. Don't start a war with Israel. There will be no war. Exactly. But then you have the anchors, the media is asking you, but aren't you falling into this trap?

The fact that you are responding, that you're dragged into this war that Hamas won, means that you're falling into their trap and you're serving their cause. And then he tried to explain to them, no, the fact that you are asking me this question now means

means that you are falling into their trap. That's the leverage that they have. Right, because Hamas has put us into this damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you do get sucked into fighting a war in a dense urban area where civilians get killed, you fall into their trap. If you pay the ransom and allow them to stay in power, you pay their trap. We're falling into the trap one way or the other because they caught us with our pants down in a situation that we didn't want to believe was possible. And there must be a commission of inquiry at the end of the war in order to give us answers about that.

But the journalists also have a responsibility to understand how they slot into Hamas's media strategy. I mean, yes, you and I were journalists. We used to work together in the media field before getting to the, you know, national public diplomacy operation in the beginning of the war. And yes, as a journalist, there are certain questions that you have to ask, that you want to ask.

But there's also a way to ask them, you know, I would say, that you don't serve the... that you don't give Hamas incentive to use civilians as human shields, you know? If you put the pressure on Israel, then you're just...

incentivizing their methods of war, of carrying out war. And that's a critical point, really, the international media strategy. And by the way, they should rightfully ask questions about whether military action is appropriate and in accordance with international law. And I think these questions are entirely legitimate. Remember my video that went semi-viral, sort of viral, thanks to you, that I said, well, that I have some suggestions to the media of what questions have to be asked? For those who don't remember.

Before I address your questions today, as we've been doing here for nearly eight months now, hundreds and hundreds of media interviews and daily briefings, I have a question for you. How come Palestinians are never asked the tough questions? How did their society and under-education system groom such terror monsters like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad? Why do so many of them, according to recent internal polling, still support terrorism?

Why did they reject every peace initiative since 1937? Why are they more committed to the notion of destroying Israel than building themselves and investing in the future? What did they do with billions of dollars that poured in from all over the world for decades? More dollars per capita than the Marshall Plan. How come they are the only group in the world to inherit a fraudulent status of refugees from wars that they themselves started?

How come ammunition, terror infrastructure, terror content are found in almost every home across the Gaza Strip? Of course, these are just a few suggestions to anyone interested in promoting peace in the region or reporting the truth about it. So at a certain point in the war, I realized that as spokespeople for Israel, we are being asked, and rightfully so, tough questions by the media, and that, you know, uh...

Those who try to negotiate if it's Egypt, it's Qatar and United States and the Israeli government are also being asked tough questions here and there.

Really? Egypt and Qatar are being asked tough questions? I mean, at a certain point, they're... Tough questions. Not tough questions, but, you know, about the negotiations. Qatar owes the news channel that is doing the one asking the question. No, no, but by Western media, about the negotiations to release the hostages and cease fire. But again...

questions. The Egyptians closed off Rafah. They literally choked off humanitarian aid to Gaza by refusing to allow the crossing. No one asked them questions. But even less than that, the Palestinians were not being asked any questions. Sometimes the

was a Hamas spokesperson in, you know, in the West Bank, so to say, that went up and gave interviews and people were quoting them. And sometimes you had some pushback or, you know, when people came on, you know, people... Yeah, but by and large, they were exempted from responsibility. And Piers Morgan, for example, always asked, you know, pro-Palestinians appearing on his program, do you condemn Hamas? Do you condemn the October 7th massacre? But these are not the tough questions.

What are the tough questions? The tough questions, as I said in the video, is how come the Palestinian society made its cause to destroy Israel? How come you raise generation after generation to glorify the act of murdering Jews and killing Israelis? How come that's the...

The one thing that you have in mind when you wake up in the morning, that's what, when you and I went into this tunnel, okay? It was the... January 2024. Oh, you remember this? January 2024, we visited a tunnel that ended about 400 meters away from the Arras crossing at the top of the Gaza Strip. Right, the one that a vehicle could drive through. It was so big. It was wide enough that you could drive a train through it. And I mean,

I mean, I remember standing there thinking, oh my goodness, how much concrete, how much engineering talent and skill went into building this necropolis of military tunnels and what could the Palestinians have achieved in Gaza with all these resources if they weren't single-mindedly determined to destroy Israel? And I remember, you know, thinking, you know, standing there and thinking the same thing. And I was...

I was thinking actually, I mean, I kept thinking about World War II throughout this war. And I remember standing inside this tunnel and I say, how sick of the mind it has to be that you're, you know, you're, you're, you're,

your society, your youth, your education is so much focused on that. It's like, it reminded me, you know, Hitler was like losing the war at a certain stage, but still not diverting the resources from, you know, from concentration camps, extermination camps until like the very last moment of the war. Killing Jews was a priority, not necessarily fighting the war on the front. Like the murdering of the Jews didn't stop

even when the Nazis were losing the war. It has to be such a sick ideology that creating this tunnel, the concrete, was more important than putting resources into your education, the well-being of your future generations. Because the United Nations took control of that so that Hamas was free to build this tunnel that way. So, yeah, how did we get to the tunnel? Why did I...

I don't know. I don't remember. But yeah, but that was something that went through my mind. Going down memory lane. And sometimes that lane is a Hamas tunnel. Tal Hanrik, I really hope to see you back in an official capacity as a spokeswoman for the Israeli government, for the Israeli prime minister's office. Absolutely.

I gave you a solid maybe. You gave me a solid maybe, and I hope that that maybe becomes a yes. And if it doesn't become a yes and it's over, then you'll come back on the show and speak a little bit more freely. You were being sort of tiptoeing around political reasons. That's true. Well, right now I'm focused on a fully nursing baby, David Golan. David Golan. What an amazing name. He could only be more patriotic if you called him like...

Judah. David Judah Golan. Tal Heinrich, how can people follow you on social media? Are you active on social media? Sort of active on social media. On Twitter, Tal Heinrich, and Instagram. And that's it. Tal Heinrich, thank you for coming on State of a Nation. Of course.

And that brings us to the end of today's episode of State of a Nation with former and perhaps future spokeswoman for the Israeli Prime Minister's office, Tal Heinrich. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a like on social media and send a link to just one friend, just one friend who will be enlightened and entertained by our conversations beyond the headlines and between the lines. I'm Elon Levy. Thanks for joining us.