Netanyahu claims social media manipulation hurt Israel’s image in the US

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday on “60 Minutes” that the radical shift in public opinion about his country could be attributed to the rise of social media.

“Israel has gone to incredible lengths to keep innocent civilians out of harm’s way,” Netanyahu said. “We send them millions of text messages – we send them millions of phone calls, brochures, flyers, etc., OK? We’ve almost seen the deterioration of support for Israel in the United States – I’d say this correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media. »

He continued: “And that in itself is not what caused this. And I don’t believe in, you know, censorship or anything. But I’ll tell you what happened. We have several countries that have essentially manipulated social media. And they’re doing it in a smart way. And that’s something that’s done us a lot of harm.”

Iran-linked influence campaign pushes anti-Israel messages disguised as American voices

A recent poll showed a decline in support for Israel following the strikes on Iran. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Netanyahu acknowledged that Israel had made “mistakes” in its war against Hamas, but stressed that these were not deliberate actions.

“Israel is under siege on the media front, on the propaganda front, and we have not done well in the propaganda war,” he said.

Netanyahu noted that even Major Garrett, the host of the event, would not be safe from negative propaganda if there was enough pressure against him.

Far-left media contributor calls for ‘wiping out Israel,’ says Israelis ‘should not feel safe’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised President Donald Trump’s actions against Iran, but said the war was “not over.” (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

“I can paint you as a monster,” Netanyahu said. “And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.”

An NBC News poll in March found that only 32% of Americans view Israel positively, while 39% of Americans view the nation in a negative light. The shift was much more pronounced among Democrats and independents, while Republicans remained largely supportive of the Jewish state.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE MEDIA AND CULTURE COVERAGE

This change in opinion follows Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as US-led military strikes against Iran.

During the interview, Netanyahu indicated that the war with Iran was “not over yet” despite significant achievements.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the war with Iran on “60 Minutes.” (Andrew Cabellero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“I think it accomplished a lot, but it’s not over, because there are still nuclear materials, enriched uranium that need to be removed from Iran. There are still enrichment sites that need to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are still ballistic missiles that they want to produce. Now we have degraded a lot of that. But all of that is still there, and there is work to be done,” Netanyahu said.