Firsthand from Brazil: Watching the world get Israel wrong
Brazil has more than 200 million people and a Jewish community of roughly 100,000. Yet much of what Brazilians read about Israel and the war in Gaza is not originally reported here. It comes from international news agencies and major foreign media outlets whose reports, headlines and framing are reproduced by Brazilian news organizations, often reaching millions of readers within hours.This creates a powerful effect: When international reporting is accurate, Brazilian readers benefit from the work of news organizations with correspondents and resources that local outlets could hardly replicate. But when the original reporting is wrong, incomplete or prematurely presented as fact, the error travels just as efficiently. Brazilian media does not necessarily create the distortion; often, it imports it.I have spent years working at the end of this information chain. There is an expression in Portuguese, enxugar gelo—literally, “wiping ice”—for an endless effort whose results seem destined to disappear.…
The author, a journalist and PR CEO in Brazil, highlights how international news agencies often misrepresent Israel, with these inaccuracies being amplified by Brazilian media. This issue, exacerbated since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, leads to distortions like the initial reporting on the Al-Ahli Hospital explosion. The author notes a blurring line between journalism and activism in Brazil, where Hamas claims are often reported with insufficient skepticism, while Israeli accounts face greater scrutiny. Consequently, the author has shifted focus from merely correcting errors to actively participating in narrative construction through op-eds in influential publications, aiming to introduce evidence-based perspectives into mainstream discourse. This is crucial as distorted narratives contribute to a rise in antisemitic incidents in Brazil and become embedded in the broader information ecosystem.
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