WhatsappIn the battle for podcaster Joe Rogan’s audience, a false narrative on Israel resonated stronger than facts.
Podcaster Joe Rogan recently hosted a debate between journalist Douglas Murray and comedian Dave Smith about Israel. While Rogan likely intended to facilitate a productive dialogue, what unfolded was a moral tragedy because Smith wasn’t just dangerously misinformed about Israel and the war we are fighting—he’s Jewish.
And that’s what makes this so painful.
Smith used one of the most influential platforms in the world—“The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast has more than 19 million subscribers—to amplify some of the most toxic lies about Israel. Among his lies, Smith accused the Jewish state of “genocide” while minimizing the true evil we are facing—a genocidal terrorist regime, funded by Sunni Qatar and Shia Iran, that massacred innocent Israelis, burned babies alive, raped women and took hostages in the name of “resistance.”
It’s bad enough when ignorant activists make such accusations. But when a Jew, someone who should understand the historical and moral weight of the word “genocide,” turns it against his own people during a war for their survival, that’s not ignorance, it’s betrayal.
Murray, by contrast, is one of the most eloquent voices of truth and moral clarity in the world today regarding Israel. He also understands what is happening to his native Britain under the weight of unchecked Islamist influence. He came to the podcast with facts, context, and a clear understanding of the region, the stakes and the consequences.
He leaned heavily on the “trust the experts” approach. However, much of Rogan’s audience is deeply skeptical of “experts,” seeing them as mouthpieces for the mainstream media narratives on issues like climate change and the COVID pandemic. So when Murray stressed the need to listen to real experts, it triggered an immediate sense of distrust among the listeners, making them roll their eyes and instinctively lean toward Smith’s side, helping him with the emotional battle for the hearts and minds of Rogan’s audience.
You don’t need a Ph.D. to understand what happened during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Iranian- and Qatari-backed terrorists slaughtered civilians, paraded the dead and the kidnapped through Gaza, and celebrated their actions with an eager public. They kidnapped babies. They took Holocaust survivors. They raped, tortured and murdered in the most depraved ways imaginable. And 59 innocent people are still being held hostage in Gaza.
If I were in Murray’s shoes, I would have asked Smith and the audience just two questions: What would you do to bring the hostages home, and what would you do to ensure that Oct. 7 never happens again? Because that is the moral and strategic challenge facing Israel.
Israel has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties. Hamas, on the other hand, has done everything in its power to increase them—firing weapons from hospitals, hiding weapons in schools and using civilians as human shields. They built a vast terror tunnel empire beneath Gaza while failing to provide a single bomb shelter above ground for its people.
What about the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the so-called “humanitarian” agency that employs Hamas operatives as teachers and aid workers, some of whom took part in the Oct. 7 massacre? The world continues to fund them.
Israel’s response is not genocide. It is restraint in the face of barbarism.
Murray had the truth on his side. Unfortunately, the truth alone doesn’t win hearts. It must be delivered with clarity, moral fire and emotional resonance.
This isn’t just about a war against Hamas. It’s a war against a global campaign of lies—a psychological war meant to delegitimize Israel and erode support for the Jewish state.
Smith’s ignorance is symptomatic of a much larger problem. While anti-Israel sentiment has long been entrenched on the far left, we are now witnessing its spread into the populist Trump-aligned right. That should alarm every American who values freedom and civilization.
Some on the right are now parroting the same “oppressor vs. oppressed” narrative being pushed by the radical left. They are buying into the propaganda of the green-red alliance, the Islamist-Marxist coalition that seeks to destroy the West. Israel is just their first target. America is next.
If American conservatives and libertarians truly believe in truth, freedom and Western civilization, they must stand with Israel. Not just because it’s morally right but because Israel’s battle is their battle, too.
