We keep hearing that Israel is losing the information war everywhere. That, supposedly, this war is hopelessly lost, that we simply do not have the means to counter the powerful and well-oiled propaganda machine of our enemies. That in the fight against the billions invested in the battle for minds, we cannot win.

And I tell all the skeptics: the war is not lost at all, it just has to be fought differently.

I have just returned from the USA. On this trip to support repatriation, I was accompanied by a magnificent Israeli delegation consisting of amazing people, true Zionists. We met with leaders and activists of Jewish communities on the East Coast, with students, young and old, religious and secular. Their love for Israel, for their brothers and sisters living in Zion, their boundless support for the Jewish state – all this cannot be shaken by generously paid propaganda or anti-Semitic professors. North American Jews convinced us that they were, are, and will be on the side of Israel.

Our problem is that Israel – including its information and clarification apparatus – hardly tries to address the general public. It addresses government representatives, the amorphous “public opinion”, journalists, but almost never – to ordinary people. And I emphatically declare: people want us to reach out to them.

At the Aliyah Fair, organized and conducted by the World Zionist Organization Department for the promotion of Aliyah, there was no room to spare. Jews from New York came to hear guests from Israel, to draw strength from them, and, in turn, to support. They eagerly listened to the story of a former Israeli intelligence service employee, learned the true state of affairs in the Middle East from the mouth of an IDF spokesperson, cried together with the mother of a fallen hero soldier, defending the homeland. They wanted us to talk to them, looking them in the eyes, without equivocation and intermediaries.

Wherever we went – to religious communities and secular clubs, to Jewish students and public organizations in North America – everywhere people eagerly wanted to learn the truth about Israel from us. Wanted to help, to support. They are all on our side.

This does not mean that the information war is over. We are still very far from that. But we must not despair. All of us – representatives of the Jewish state, National Institutes, the apparatus of agitation and propaganda, and all who can – must reach out to people. To ordinary people. Arrange meetings, get acquainted, not be lazy to reach the most remote corners of the American continent. It is no coincidence that the slogan of the Department for the Promotion of Aliyah is: “We build bridges”.

We build Bridges, through which people can pass. Bridges that will eventually lead them to Israel. Because we are one people. And we must talk to our people.