Hoffman: The fight against disinformation must continue, justice is on Israel’s side

“Justice is on our side,” says Israeli journalist Gil Hoffman in an interview for The Geopost, talking about the challenges Israel is going through, both on the military battlefield and in the fight against disinformation from various media.

He also points to the danger from the media that misinform, and he takes “Russia Today” as an example, the media that he considers propagandistic.

“Monitoring the media is important,” Hoffman considers, and in this respect he sees as useful the existence of the “Honest Reporting” organization, whose strategy is to combat disinformation in the media.

In the end, Hoffman also speaks briefly about Kosovo, saying that the people of Kosovo deserve to be treated better around the world and adds that Kosovo should have the opportunity to be able to open media in countries around the world, even in Serbia and Russia and just report the facts.

Full interview

What are the biggest challenges of disinformation in Israel today?

Israel is right now fighting multiple battles for its existence, it’s fighting in military battlefield, where the Jewish currently has an advantage over the terrorist and the enemies who want to wipe one Jewish state of the map.

It has a disadvantage on college campuses around the world, and it’s fighting on mainstream and social media where the fight could be pretty even, where you’ve got anti-Israel bias in countries around the world, and yet, it’s winnable.

If we fight the fight in a proper way, if we hold media outlets around the world accountable, we will gain that deterrence where they would know that there is a watchdog and they have to be more careful to get their facts right and then there will be a lot more pro-Israel coverage around the world because justice is on our side.

Today we are living in the world where fake news and disinformation is more read than real news, from which countries of the region you have more disinformation coming from?

Look, around the world they are reporting incorrectly about Israel, I remember we had an election here that Netanyahu won and I was put on Russia Today as an expert, and the other person they brought on was Noam Chomsky, who is noted anti-Semite, he was the other expert about Israel.

And he said, why are Israelis voting for Netanyahu, because Netanyahu fights with Obama and therefore Israelis are racist against black people? That’s what he said and that is laughable, but they actually took that seriously.

So that is Russia Today, we are Russian propaganda television station, it happens in free and democratic places like United States and in England where they should really know better, where they should have more accurate coverage and not get things wrong.

What is the strategy of Honest Reporting fighting this phenomenon in Israel, how important is cooperation with other media in Israel?

Sure, we need to constantly monitor the media, making sure their reports are accurate, there are people around the world who care about wanting to make sure that the Israel is portrayed accurately, supporters of Israel, Jews, Christians around the world who care about Israel, constantly sending us information that is incorrect to make sure that we can do our job and get them to correct it. It’s a challenge, there is media around the world that looks at us.

You know, there is a prophecy in the Bible, that Jews will be a nation that dwells alone, meaning it won’t have allies, and that has been true unfortunately too many times in our history, and the end of the verse in the Bible says, these people, the Jews won’t care about what the world says about us!

Well that has never been true, that’s a prophecy that has not come true, we care deeply about what the world says about us and that’s why an organization like “Honest Reporting” has to exist.

For the end, do you have any message for the people of Kosovo?

The people of Kosovo deserve to be treated better around the world, be able to open up media outlets in countries around the world, even in Serbia and Russia and just have the facts reported.

I can only hope for the best for the people of Kosovo. /The Geopost/