Projective Psychological Warfare (PPW): an analysis of Hamas Hebrew videoclips as part of its propaganda campaign against Israel (2007–2014)

Hamas invests vast resources in propaganda for a number of diverse audiences, harnessing the communications channels it operates on different media platforms. Over the course of the many years of the Israel-Hamas confrontation, the organization has waged psychological warfare and an ongoing propaganda war against Israeli society, seeking to influence Israelis’ perceptions and feelings. However, there is reason to doubt the effectiveness of this activity. This essay examines Hamas’s psychological warfare activities by analyzing videoclips the organization produced with content in Hebrew, clearly designed for an Israeli audience. Based on an in-depth analysis of the videoclips’ contents, both textual and visual, Hamas’s activity may be defined as Projective Psychological Warfare (PPW), that is, psychological warfare that reflects the beliefs and feelings of the entity operating it rather than targeting its messages to the culture and worldview of its target audience. It is in light of this phenomenon that we seek to explain the inefficacy of Hamas’s psychological warfare against Israel.