Failing on the 8th front: The mounting cost of Israel’s dysfunctional public diplomacy

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/failing-on-the-8th-front-the-mounting-cost-of-israels-dysfunctional-public-diplomacy

While it fights Iran, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and groups in the West Bank, Syria and Iraq, Israel is also engaged in an information war — and on that battlefield, it is losing.

Major international news outlets have increasingly portrayed Israel as a heartless aggressor in Gaza, running front-page images of skeletal children suffering starvation in the Strip.

Evidence showing that some of them were misleading or staged has done little to repair Israel’s image.

On Monday alone, US President Donald Trump, his deputy JD Vance, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer all cited these viral images in their calls for drastic policy changes in Gaza.

Donald Trump Gets Asked Why Jeffrey Epstein 'Stole' Girls From Mar-a-Lago

 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-asked-why-jeffrey-epstein-stole-girls-mar-lago-2107297

Earlier this week, Trump was asked on board Air Force One whether one of the workers "stolen" from Mar-a-Lago was Giuffre. Trump responded, "I don't know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so, I think that was one of the people, yep. He stole her, and by the way she had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever."

Giuffre's family reacted to Trump's comment on Wednesday, calling his remarks "shocking."

"It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been 'stolen' from Mar-a-Lago," the family said in the statement.

"We would like to clarify that it was convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell who targeted and preyed upon our then 16-year-old sister, Virginia, from Mar-a-Lago, where she was working in 2000, several years before Epstein and President Trump had their falling out," Giuffre's family said.

"The government and the President should never consider giving Ghislaine Maxwell any leniency," the family added.