Israel ‘failing miserably’ in media war, warns Sylvan Adams

Etgar Lefkovits (JNS)

Published August 29, 2025

Israel media war — Sylvan Adams (right) hosts an event for Make-A-Wish Israel at his Tel Aviv home with organization co-founders Denise and Avi Bar-Aharon. Credit: @lans production, Aug. 27, 2025.

Israel is “failing miserably” in the communications war against Hamas, and needs to take this deteriorating situation, fueled by a trillion-dollar campaign by Qatar, much more seriously, the president of the World Jewish Congress’s Israel Region said on Wednesday.

“On the physical war, we have done miracles with things that seem like science fiction, but on the communications war, we are failing miserably,” Sylvan Adams told JNS at his Tel Aviv home on the sidelines of a charitable event he was hosting for Make-a-Wish Israel. “It is getting worse and worse out there for us, and this is unveiled through terrible antisemitism worldwide,” he added.

He called the media war a “strategic existential threat” that is no less severe than the actual war on the ground.

“We need to take this much more seriously,” Adams said. “We have smart people and need to harness them to fight back against a trillion-dollar campaign against us by Qatar,” referencing to the Gulf state that, alongside Egypt, has served as one of the intermediaries between Israel and Hamas.

The Canadian-Israeli real estate billionaire, who made aliyah in 2015, has worked to change Israel’s image among non-Jews through high-profile sports and cultural activities.

Also on Wednesday, the Israel-Premier Tech cycling team, which Adams owns, was targeted during the Vuelta a España in northeastern Spain, when pro-Palestinian demonstrators tried to block the Israeli riders from their path.

Several people can be seen in video footage holding a banner with the inscription “Neutrality is complicity. Boycott Israel” in Catalan, before being removed by race officials.

The Israeli cycling group was previously targeted during the Tour de France on July 16.

Adams said at the charitable event marking Make-a-Wish Israel’s 30th anniversary that despite the surge of antisemitism worldwide, Israel is safer today than it was on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched the surprise attack on the northeastern Negev that triggered the nearly two-year-old war in Gaza.

On Aug. 10, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said that Israel was losing the media war.

“We will win the propaganda war by winning the war and winning the peace,” he said.