Trump warns Israel 'losing the PR war'

"[T]hey put out tapes all the time. Every night, they’re releasing tapes of a building falling down. They shouldn’t be releasing tapes like that," he said.

By Ben Whedon

Published: April 4, 2024 4:53pm

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday warned that Israel's international public image was faltering amid mounting scrutiny of its invasion of the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces invaded the region in a bid to oust Hamas from power following an Oct. 7 raid in which Hamas forces killed roughly 1,200 civilians and took more than 200 hostages. The IDF's tactics in the region have prompted international outcry over the reported civilian death toll and contributed to a growing diplomatic rift with Washington.

Trump, for his part, indicated in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, that Israel was turning off the international community by releasing footage of its own strikes.

"[T]hey put out tapes all the time. Every night, they’re releasing tapes of a building falling down. They shouldn’t be releasing tapes like that. They’re doing, that’s why they’re losing the PR war. They, Israel is absolutely losing the PR war," he said. "They’re releasing the most heinous, most horrible tapes of buildings falling down. And people are imagining there’s a lot of people in those buildings, or people in those buildings, and they don’t like it."

"And I don’t know why they released, you know, wartime shots like that. I guess it makes them look tough. But to me, it doesn’t make them look tough. They’re losing the PR war. They’re losing it big," he went on.

Trump's response to the issue has differed somewhat with that of President Joe Biden, who the same day urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to conclude an immediate ceasefire in the region.

The former president, however, has urged Jerusalem to swiftly end the conflict.

"You’ve got to get it over with, and you have to get back to normalcy. And I’m not sure that I’m loving the way they’re doing it, because you’ve got to have victory. You have to have a victory, and it’s taking a long time," he further told Hewitt. "But they've got to finish what they started, and they’ve got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.