With campaign tactics, Jewish organizations can win the narrative war - comment

By the time the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023, I had already been bombarded for two years about Palestine by former colleagues from the 2020 Biden election campaign, for which I had worked as a field organizer in central Pennsylvania.

Since the campaign, I have seen how former organizers have leveraged their skills from the Biden campaign and other political campaigns to organize pro-Palestinian demonstrations and galvanize the public against Israel. These same skills and tactics should also be leveraged for pro-Israel advocacy efforts.

As a field organizer on the Biden campaign, my job was to recruit and train and build an infrastructure of volunteers in my designated counties: Bedford, Franklin, Somerset, and Fulton, where over 80% of residents were Republican. My volunteers were trained to persuade undecided voters to vote for Biden and help registered Democrats navigate the world of voting by mail in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Daily, my seven-person local team in central Pennsylvania had a start-of-day meeting and an end-of-day meeting. Every week, I had a community meeting, accompanied by a training session for new volunteers. Also weekly, the campaign had a statewide meeting, and approximately every month – and more frequently the month before elections – it had a national meeting with top leadership. At the meetings, we would discuss key messaging, shout out top performers, and discuss best tactics. Sometimes guests would speak at the meetings, including celebrities such as Cher or John Legend, and sometimes politicians such as Nancy Pelosi.

We were all so excited to be part of history and to complete our mission of getting Joe Biden elected and defeating Donald Trump. I was very progressive and extremely enthusiastic about Biden and the Democratic Party. I had been to Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter protests, even before the death of George Floyd, and was a member of College Democrats.

I remember the anxiety of November 3, 2020, after I returned from the campaign office in York, Pennsylvania. On November 3, I remember sitting on the floor of our apartment’s loosely defined kitchen (a microwave and a fridge in a hallway) with my two colleagues and roommates. When Arizona was announced for Biden, we all jumped up, screaming and hugging each other. The idea of four more years of Donald Trump had been a horror. After eight months of COVID and Trump’s inability and unwillingness to contain the disease, along with his appointments of judges, we felt like four more years would be the end of human rights and democracy.

Pennsylvania wasn’t announced until November 7, when a colleague and I transitioned to be ballot observers in deep-red Pennsylvania. When we won, we stepped outside to celebrate.

Transitioning to Israel

NOW, FOUR years later, I live in Israel and have very different anxieties that began soon after the campaign to elect Biden disbanded.

I received my first email about Gaza from former fellow staffers calling for an end to Israel firing rockets on Gaza, in May 2021, during Operation Guardian of the Walls.

It completely ignored the earlier massive barrage of rockets by Hamas and called for an end to the “Israeli occupation,” among other points. This was the only subject of any petition I ever received through the former Biden campaign email group. The petition was led by a Biden Arizona organizer who now works as a communications manager at If Not Now, a self-proclaimed Jewish anti-Zionist organization.

In 2021, most of the signatories of the former Biden campaign email groups were field organizers, though some within leadership also signed. I saw a former colleague begin demonstrating in pro-Palestinian protests at that time.

In November 2023, I received another email from that group. Although it did acknowledge the October 7 terror attack and called for the return of the hostages, the letter argued that “There will be no justice, peace, or security for Palestinians or Israelis without dismantling the status quo of the past 75 years.” It was a line that appeared to refer to the creation of Israel in 1948 as the core root of the conflict. 

Over 550 staffers signed this letter, including many of my own managers and mentors. Although 500 out of 10,000 seems relatively small, signatories included people who currently work at the White House, top talent in the communications field, and those who will go on to inform policy decisions.

Several previous Biden organizers have organized pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the United States, and many have led campaigns for ideologically progressive candidates.

Teams of professional organizers and communications experts should not be taken lightly. There is a reason national campaigns employ thousands for their field teams – it works. The field margin is approximately four percentage points and can make or break an election in swing states, counties, and districts where every single vote counts.

Talking to select undecided voters by phone or at their door is significantly more impactful than postcards or text messages, and even social media, especially when data is used to drive conversations. Organizers know how to change hearts and minds, and this is one of the reasons why the pro-Palestinian movement has been so successful.

Israel has become increasingly contentious in Democratic circles, particularly in the campaign world. Those who work on campaigns, in many cases, are on the more extreme ends of the political spectrum, as they are the ones who most feel the urgency of the issues at stake.

There are individuals equally enthusiastic about Israel and combating antisemitism both in the United States and in Israel who are passionate enough to build infrastructures of volunteers and field teams.

With the right messaging, if Jewish pro-Israel organizations used the same data-driven tactics as campaigns, over time it would be possible to make significant gains in the narrative war that Israel has been so consistently losing.

The writer is a breaking news editor for Jpost.com, and was a staffer for the 2020 Biden campaign.