On Sunday, an image of an Israeli soldier operating in Lebanon spread rapidly across social media.
It so perfectly encapsulated some of the worst tropes about Israel and Jews that many instinctively assumed it was an AI-generated product meant to slander the Jewish state.
Friends of Israel who thought the photograph might be real prayed it wasn’t, so damaging was the picture.
Their prayers went unanswered. An IDF soldier had indeed taken a hammer to the face of a statue depicting Jesus in the Christian town of Debel in southern Lebanon. There was no AI, no manipulation, no getting around an image that points to a deep moral morass in the IDF and in broader Israeli society.
It is hard to think of an image that could be more damaging to Israel on the world stage right now.
The emergent “woke right” in the US — led by figures like Tucker Carlson — contends that Jews are enemies of Christians, who are persecuted by Israelis in the Holy Land. Carlson has devoted multiple episodes of his popular podcast to speaking with local Christian figures about hardships imposed by Jerusalem.
Published originally on April 20, 2026.
Read the full article at the Times of Israel.
