The Media Line: From West Bank Stones to Global Propaganda: Hassan-Nahoum Wants Israel To Fight Back 

From West Bank Stones to Global Propaganda: Hassan-Nahoum Wants Israel To Fight Back 

The former Jerusalem deputy mayor calls for a new public diplomacy ministry, an end to military containment, and a coordinated strategy to counter campaigns against Israel as she seeks a Knesset seat with Amcha Yisrael 

By Felice Friedson / The Media Line 

“Duck!” 

The guide’s warning gave the passengers time to lower their heads before a rock smashed through the car’s back window. They had gone to photograph Palestinian homes in the West Bank. Now they were trying to get out safely. 

“Thankfully, our guide had the presence of mind to say, duck. And we all went down,” Fleur Hassan-Nahoum told The Media Line. 

The former Jerusalem deputy mayor, now running for the Knesset with the Amcha Yisrael party, says the group came under attack as it left the Palestinian village of Turmus Aya. She had joined journalists and influencers on a Regavim tour to examine what she described as illegal construction, including mansions, and challenge international accounts of Palestinian poverty and repression. 

According to Hassan-Nahoum, two cars blocked the visitors, and people shouted at them to leave because they were Jewish. The group turned around, and she alleges that the people who stopped them then organized children to pelt the departing vehicles with stones. 

After reaching safety, the visitors contacted the army and security forces. But for Hassan-Nahoum, getting out was not the end of the story. There was still the question of how the encounter would be presented—and who would be believed. 

“Everything was recorded, because that’s what happens when you’re there with journalists and influencers,” she said, saying that she was nevertheless certain the residents of Turmus Aya had reported the incident to the UN as settler violence. 

Her assertion reflects a conviction that runs through her campaign: Israel is fighting not only over its security, but over how the world understands it. She believes the country has failed to organize itself for that second battle. “And when people say to me, Fleur, you guys lost the narrative war, I say, no, we didn’t show up to the fight.” 

A lawyer whose work has included Israel-Gulf business initiatives and the Campus Israel program, Hassan-Nahoum has spent years cultivating relationships. She is now campaigning, alongside retired IDF Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter, on a promise to replace containment with decisive victory. But she sees no contradiction between building bridges and demanding a more forceful defense policy. In her view, both require Israel to understand the people it needs to reach—and the adversaries it faces. 

The Turmus Aya encounter touched a frustration rooted in her five and a half years as Jerusalem’s deputy mayor. During Ramadan, she recalled, the municipality facilitated visits by Palestinian worshippers. “We believe in freedom of worship. We believe in people going in and enjoying the facilities in Jerusalem. But apparently that luxury or that courtesy is not reciprocal.” 

When I pointed out that the group had entered an area where Israelis were permitted to travel, unlike Area A of the West Bank, where Israeli civilian entry is generally prohibited, Hassan-Nahoum agreed. Under the 1995 Oslo II Accord, 64.7% of Turmus Aya’s land was classified as Area B and the remaining 35.3% as Area C, both generally open to Israeli civilians. Hassan-Nahoum contrasted the group’s treatment with Palestinians’ ability to work, shop, and visit Jewish communities. 

Hassan-Nahoum estimated the children throwing stones to be 11 to 13 years old and argued that the attack offered a small taste of the dangers Jewish residents encounter along Highway 60 in the West Bank, which she calls Judea and Samaria. 

Her allegations extended further. She said 80% of Turmus Aya’s residents were American Palestinians and described money sent from abroad financing large homes. She accused residents of provoking Jewish vigilantes before contacting the American Embassy to report settler violence. 

These competing accounts of violence are part of what she calls a hybrid war: military confrontation accompanied by efforts to isolate Israel diplomatically, undermine its legitimacy, and threaten soldiers with arrest abroad. 

“Today, our phone is the weapon used against us,” she told The Media Line. 

She accused the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar of supporting an international campaign reaching academia, think tanks, and journalism. Israel’s response, she argued, has been scattered across government departments without central leadership, sufficient resources, or a coherent strategy. “You can call it reputation management. You can call it cognitive warfare. You could call it information warfare, whatever it is,” she said. 

What drew her to Winter, head of Amcha Yisrael, was his recognition that military victories alone would not be enough. She also praised his commitment to putting soldiers first and bringing them home. Before joining him, she assessed his character and discussed the platform with him. “I sat with Ofer. I understood he was a man of integrity, faith, principles, courage,” she said. 

Her first priority if elected would be to help establish a properly resourced public diplomacy ministry under Yoseph Haddad’s leadership, with legal, cyber, bot and narrative departments. “We’re going to create a real strategy with real resources to fight and win narrative warfare.” 

Before building that ministry, she must win a seat. 

In response to a question about whether Amcha Yisrael would cross the electoral threshold, Hassan-Nahoum answered: “We’re definitely going to get in.” 

She cited internal polling—her party’s and, she said, its competitors’—putting it at seven or eight seats. She accused opponents of discouraging potential supporters by promoting the belief that the party would fail to enter the Knesset, making that prediction self-fulfilling. “Look, we have to see this party as a startup that is disrupting an old, and in certain ways, corrupt system.” 

She sees entrenched interests in both politics and the economy. “And what I want to say is that we need to break all monopolies in this country. We need to break economic monopolies. We also need to break political monopolies.” 

Asked what distinguished her party, she recalled the demands after October 7 for all 120 Knesset members to leave. She described Amcha Yisrael as the only completely new party still standing and questioned what refusing new leadership would tell the next generation. “We’re going to play musical chairs again and have the same old tired politicians with the same old tired promises and messages.” 

Her promise of change includes more equal service obligations. She pointed to Winter’s experience recruiting ultra-Orthodox soldiers into two battalions as evidence that he could help deliver that change. 

On security, her rejection of the existing approach is unequivocal. “Containment doesn’t work. Why? Because if you contain, you basically erode deterrence,” she told The Media Line. 

She argued that Israel had recovered only part of the deterrence lost before October 7. “We need to have a victory that is so absolute that our enemies don’t want to mess with us.” 

Hassan-Nahoum cited what she described as Hamas’ renewed strength and authority in Gaza, including control over food distribution. Referring to 600 aid trucks a day, she questioned why the organization retained that position after years of war. Her party had a strategy to finish the war, she said, without explaining its operational details. 

For all her criticism of established politics, she is clear about where Amcha Yisrael would sit. In response to a question about joining a Netanyahu-led coalition, she said the party wanted a broad right-wing government capable of pursuing decisive victories. “Netanyahu is the leader of the biggest right-wing bloc. So, we have already said that that’s who we will sit with.” 

She wants Lieberman and Bennett to join that coalition, arguing that dependence on Arab parties would prevent a government from finishing the Gaza war. Her challenge was blunt: “Do you love your country more than you hate Bibi?” 

Hassan-Nahoum’s own language can be blunt at times. However, she also calls for a political culture in which disagreement does not become contempt. “You know, ultimately, I think we need to develop a different way of speaking to each other.” 

Asked about Israel’s internal divisions, she invoked the Jewish tradition of vigorous argument conducted for a higher purpose. She contrasted that ideal with what she described as lies about herself and Winter, insults against Lali Deri, whose son was killed in the Gaza war, and attacks on Haddad that she said bordered on racism. “Why? We’re better than that. We need a healthier discourse.” 

She expressed pride that her party had maintained respectful disagreement. The question of whether she would publicly challenge Winter, however, brought a more qualified answer. She had spent 10 years in politics and worked under different leaders in City Hall and the Foreign Ministry, she noted. Joining a new leader was not something she did casually. 

“If I do disagree with him on something in the future, which I think is very possible, I will certainly discuss it with him because I also believe that in parliamentary politics, you also have to keep towards discipline of the party. That’s the way things work,” she asserted. 

Her preferred tool would be persuasion. “But I will do my utmost to do what I think I know how to do, convince people.” 

She also wants more women in positions of political authority. Asked whether Israeli politics remained a boys’ club, Hassan-Nahoum replied: “Yep. We’re going backwards.” 

She said women’s representation in the Knesset had slipped from a peak of 30% to 25%, with few female ministers and almost no women serving as ministry directors general. Women held 40% of her party’s top 10 positions, she noted, despite its substantial military contingent. “We need to have many more women around the decision-making table.” 

On this issue, her ambition reaches beyond her own party. “I will work very hard to encourage other women to join the fold, whatever political beliefs they hold.” 

Despite her warnings about international isolation, Hassan-Nahoum remains optimistic about Israel’s regional relationships. Recalling the hope surrounding the Abraham Accords in 2020, she pointed to expanding ties with the United Arab Emirates, noting that trade was growing by almost a billion dollars annually and that the UAE purchased 15% of Israel’s defense exports. 

She described cooperation against Iran involving Israel and Gulf countries and anticipated further normalization, whether announced publicly or pursued quietly, citing Saudi Arabia as an example of the latter. 

Her optimism reflects her conviction that Iran’s Islamic Republic will fall. “And we’re looking forward to, I think, please God, without the IRGC, without the Islamic Republic, I do believe that it’s a matter of when and not if they’re going to fall.” 

When talking about the bridges she most wanted to build for Israel’s people, she turned from neighboring countries to people who might soon make Israel their home. 

An immigrant herself, Hassan-Nahoum believes a major wave of immigration is approaching. She questions whether the country’s infrastructure and bureaucracy are prepared. “And if I could wave a wand, I would love to be the immigration and absorption and diaspora minister.” 

Combining those responsibilities, she said, would help strengthen ties between Israel and Jewish communities abroad while making integration easier for those who come. 

She wants fewer bureaucratic obstacles, and a different understanding of what immigrants bring: not a burden, but talent that could help drive the economy. “This can be a huge engine for our economy if somebody actually sees it that way,” she argued. 

Asked what she wanted the public to know about her, Hassan-Nahoum described herself as “a warrior of my people,” and said that she does not serve narrow political agendas. 

Her understanding of public office, she said, began with the values she learned at home. “I’ve grown up with a very strong education and culture in my home of what it is to be a public servant, which means that the public is not here to serve me. I’m here to serve the public.” 

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