Edward Topol | JEWISH BRAINS NEEDED

“Today Israel is experiencing a second October 7 — this time in the communications sphere,” wrote American columnist Daniella Greenbaum in Yediot Aharonot. But I was glad: finally someone said in the Hebrew press what I had written earlier in Open the second front | Israel National News (Nov 19, 2023), YOUR MISSION, Mrs. SAAR! (ContinentUSA, Nov 13, 2024), and other articles.

But I won’t repeat either her points or mine. What’s done is done. Rather, I’d like to find an economist who could calculate what we’ve lost as a result of our total failure on the front lines of the information war.

What’s the economic toll of the sanctions imposed over the past few years on Israel by the governments of Spain, the UK, and the U.S.? How much did we lose by being banned from the international arms exhibition Eurosatory in France? How much in the failed deal where an Abu Dhabi oil company backed out of purchasing 50% of NewMed Energy? How much from Colombia halting coal exports to Israel? How much extra did we pay for weapons bought at triple the price because France refused to honor its own signed contracts? And how much will it cost us to be cut off from the “Horizon Europe” scientific community, as they’ve already promised to do?

Israel has spent billions of dollars building Iron Domes, laser domes, and other defense systems — but not a cent on creating even a modest informational umbrella to shield us from the daily downpour of filth and blood libels pouring in from anti-Semitic media outlets, from Al Jazeera to the New York Times.

As Mrs. Greenbaum rightly said — or at least meant — we’re already drowning in this flood of anti-Semitic sewage, and about to choke, despite the heroism of the IDF, the wisdom of its generals, and all our rocket, laser, ground, and air weaponry.

Because against slander, there is only one weapon: response — not with tanks, missiles, or planes, but only with truthful and immediate information.

As a result of a simple lie — that Israel is provoking hunger in Gaza — not just Islamic countries in the East, but also Christian ones now want to plant another nest of Islamist terror next to us. Yet just a round-the-clock livestream on the Internet, showing the flow of food, water, electricity, and fuel that Israel — even after October 7 — has continued to deliver to the “poor children and women” of Gaza’s murderers… This simple, low-cost stream from checkpoint cameras could have instantly debunked and destroyed that lie.

In my November 13, 2024 article YOUR MISSION, Mrs. SAAR!, I suggested to famed TV journalist Geula Even-Saar, wife of Israel’s Foreign Minister, that she take advantage of our government’s clumsy attempt to do something on the information front. The government had allocated 545 million shekels to the Foreign Ministry “to strengthen Israel’s international image.” As a journalist with 60 years of experience, I wrote to my colleague:

“Given the existential importance of this information war… even senior diplomats cannot work as journalists capable of defeating CNN, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and a hundred other anti-Israel media outlets. Diplomats work behind closed doors — journalists win by being loud.”

I proposed that Mrs. Saar use those 545 million shekels to create an Agency of Informational Influence — an urgent project. That agency, I suggested, should gather young talented journalists (like Ezra Mor) capable of quickly launching a multi-language Internet TV channel — Israel Today — that would broadcast truth about Israel to the world 24/7 in a short-form, clip-based format

Believe me, this informational “David’s Sling” would cost no more than the real one that shot down Iranian missiles during the recent war. And with its constant informational firepower, this agency could strike down more than one Goliath of Hamas lies.

But the minister’s wife responded that she couldn’t take on the project — she’d immediately be accused of corruption!

Well then. I’m sure the Foreign Ministry, with full integrity and zero corruption, spent every shekel. As for the result of their efforts to “improve Israel’s image” — we can judge that by the massive anti-Israel protests across Europe and the U.S., and by the latest declarations from Macron, Starmer, and 14 other states ready to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN Assembly in September.

I understand that instead of whining, “Oh, you didn’t listen to me,” we must act — now. So here’s what I propose:

In March 1943, Churchill gathered Britain’s brightest minds to crack the Nazi Enigma code — and they did it.
In June 1941, Roosevelt signed a decree to establish the Office of Scientific Research and Development, mobilizing top scientists to build the atomic bomb that preempted World War III.

In our current situation — after a catastrophic collapse on the information front and facing real international isolation — I see only one solution: the immediate creation of an Israeli Unit 8300 task with inventing a chat more powerful than GPT, one capable as not of defeating but at least neutralizing the global anti-Semitic frenzy online and in the media.

If a Russian programmer, Pavel Durov, created Telegram — used by 950 million people — and Chinese techies built TikTok, viewed by 1.04 billion… then surely Israel has at least one Jew capable of building a pro-Israel TokTik or GPT to counter anti-Semitic propaganda.

Let me remind Knesset members and government officials: the world has been living in the internet info-space for 30 years. Tracking down anti-Israel lies and fake news in that space — and immediately exposing and refuting them with facts and video evidence — should be a joy for any decently trained AI system.

Here’s one example.

On July 23, Daily Express ran a gut-wrenching front-page photo of a starving Gaza child named Mohammed. Within three hours, The New York Times, The Times, Sky News, CNN, The Guardian, Daily Mail, and over a hundred other outlets reprinted the image under headlines like: “Gaza gripped by famine — Israel to blame!”

That image became the final drop, tipping the scales of slander — just like the blood libel used in the past to justify pogroms. This new lie — “Gaza’s starving babies” — worked: on July 25, Macron announced he would punish Israel by recognizing a Palestinian state.

And so it began. Pogroms always attract a crowd: by July 29, Macron was joined by 221 UK MPs, Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and leaders of 14 more countries.

Yet on July 27, independent journalist David Collier exposed the photo as a Hamas fake. The boy in the image — Mohammed Zakaria Ayoub al-Matouk/Mutawak — wasn’t starving but suffering from cerebral palsy and hypoxemia.

But “no one cares about the truth,” Collier wrote. “The only question is: ‘How can this image hurt Israel?’”

Here’s my final point:

What did David Collier do? He found a medical report published in May 2025 by the Basma Aid Association in Gaza stating clearly that this boy’s emaciation wasn’t from hunger, but due to hereditary cerebral palsy and hypoxemia.

It took Collier four days to find that document.

How many seconds would it take a properly trained Israeli AI system — built in Unit 8300 — to find it and destroy the fake?

And had it done so instantly, maybe we wouldn’t be watching another diplomatic pogrom unfold — or the global recognition of a fake “Palestinian state.”

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Edward Topol
Author of international bestsellers Red Square, Submarine U-137, Red Snow, and more.