- May 16, 2026
- 11:58 pm
- World News
When a journalist writes about war, Israel, Ukraine, Gaza, settler violence, the SBU, the FSB, October 7, or anti-Semitism, they are working not only with facts. They are working with consequences.
This is where one of the most painful rifts within the Russian-speaking journalistic community occurs today: can one write the ‘pure truth’ without considering who, where, and why this text will be used later?
Formally, the answer is obvious: a journalist must speak about injustice, check facts, expose abuses, and not become a service staff for the state, army, or any ideology. But in reality, this answer has long ceased to be sufficient. Especially after Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. Especially after October 7. Especially for Israel, where every internal investigation instantly breaks out of the local context and becomes a weapon in foreign hands.
Journalism without context turns into ammunition.
In the Russian-speaking Israeli and emigrant community, there is an increasingly frequent debate that can no longer be dismissed as personal grievances or professional competition. It’s not about whether a journalist has the right to criticize Israel, Ukraine, the IDF, the SBU, the government, settlers, or their own society. They do. Moreover, they are obliged to if they see a problem and have the facts.
The question is different: what happens to this text next?
A material written for an Israeli audience is read within Israel in one semantic field. Here there is a Hebrew-language discussion, political debate, judicial system, internal criticism of the army, the trauma of October 7, memory of terrorist attacks, debate about settler violence, fear of Hamas, distrust of the government, and simultaneously a sense of constant threat.
But outside of Israel, this complex set of circumstances often disappears.
Only a convenient fragment remains: ‘Israel committed a crime,’ ‘Israeli settlers attack,’ ‘the IDF is guilty,’ ‘the Jewish state is no better than those it accuses.’ This fragment is then picked up by those who do not want to understand Israel, but by those who have long needed a reason to equate Israel with evil.
Thus, internal criticism, if deprived of its framework, becomes not a tool for correction but fuel for hatred.
Why the Russian language is especially important here
Russian-language journalism has a separate problem. It works not only for readers in Israel. It is read in Europe, in the post-Soviet space, in emigrant circles, in the anti-war environment, among people who may not know Hebrew, not understand the Israeli political system, and not see the country’s internal debate.
For such a reader, a Russian-language text from Israel looks like a ‘voice from within.’ If an Israeli journalist writes sharply, emotionally, and without explanations, an external commentator receives almost perfect legitimation: ‘I didn’t say it. An Israeli expert wrote it.’
Then the chain begins.
One takes an article about settler violence and turns it into a thesis about ‘the fascization of Israel.’ Another quotes an investigation about the army’s actions and presents it as evidence of the collective guilt of all Israelis. A third selects from the general flow only those texts that confirm their pre-prepared position: Israel is always guilty.
Meanwhile, the materials of the same journalists about the crimes of Palestinian groups, about terror, about Israeli victims, about hostages, about the country’s internal trauma are no longer needed. They interfere with the simple picture.
After October 7, words have become more dangerous than before.
After the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Israel found itself in a state of not only military but also informational trauma. For the country’s residents, this is not an abstract date. These are murdered families, kidnapped people, destroyed kibbutzim, parents’ fear for their children, a new security reality, and the feeling that abroad, part of the world is ready to discuss anything but the very fact of the attack.
That is why the conversation about criticizing Israel has become so tense.
No one cancels investigations. No one should demand that a journalist remain silent about crimes, violence, or abuses. But an honest text must explain where it is within the overall picture. If it is about radical settlers, one cannot pretend that Israeli society as a whole supports their actions. If it is about Gaza, one cannot cut out Hamas, hostages, tunnels, rocket attacks, and October 7 from the frame.
If it is about the cruelty of war, one must show the war, not just the side convenient for the external audience.
This is the professional difference between an investigation and an emotional accusatory list. An investigation adds complexity. An accusatory list often removes it for a strong effect.
Israeli internal criticism is not equal to anti-Semitic propaganda.
There is an important line that is constantly blurred.
Israeli journalists, human rights activists, opposition activists, military observers, and experts can harshly criticize their state precisely because they are within Israel’s democratic space. They argue with the government, demand investigations, write about violence, protect institutions, and sometimes do so sharply, painfully, even unfairly.
But when their texts fall into a foreign environment, they can begin to live a different life.
There they are no longer part of the Israeli debate. There they become a brick in the wall of someone else’s hatred. And this is especially dangerous for Jews in Europe, for Israelis abroad, for students, tourists, children, families who are already learning ‘not to stand out,’ not to speak Hebrew too loudly, not to show symbols, to calculate the route and risks in advance.
The problem is not that you cannot write about the bad.
The problem is that you cannot write as if the word has no route after publication.
In this sense, NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency considers such disputes not as an internal quarrel among journalists, but as a broader question for the Israeli audience: where is the line between honest criticism and a text that, without context, begins to work against the people the author did not intend to put at risk.
Ukraine, Israel, and the mistake of ‘above the fray’
A similar debate arises around materials about Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Especially when Russian-language exiled publications publish investigations where Ukrainian state structures are compared with Russian ones in terms of methods, repressions, or abuses.
The facts themselves may be important. Abuses during war do not disappear just because a country is defending itself from an aggressor. Ukraine also needs journalistic oversight, a human rights perspective, investigations, and memory of those who became victims of injustice.
But here again arises the question of time, language, and context.
When the Russian army conducts an aggressive war against Ukraine, when the occupier speaks Russian, when Russian propaganda daily seeks evidence for the thesis ‘they are the same,’ a Russian-language text claiming that the Ukrainian SBU is allegedly no different from the Russian FSB ceases to be just an investigation. It falls into an already charged field.
Yes, a journalist can say: ‘I cannot remain silent.’ This is an honest position.
But society has the right to ask in response: does the author understand who exactly they are helping with their text, even if they did not intend to help?
War does not cancel the truth, but requires precision.
During war, it is especially easy to hide behind the beautiful formula: ‘the journalist is above sides.’ It sounds noble. But in reality, a journalist does not live in a sterile laboratory. Their text is released not into a void, but into a space where there is already an enemy, propaganda, fear, fatigue, hatred, and people who will use any phrase.
This does not mean that one must lie for ‘their own.’
It means that truth without scale can become a lie by effect.
If writing about Ukraine’s problems, one cannot erase the main fact: it is Russia that started the full-scale aggression, it is Russian troops that occupied territories, it is Ukrainian society that survives under attacks. If writing about Israel, one cannot exclude October 7, Hamas, hostages, the rocket threat, anti-Semitism, and the real vulnerability of Jews outside the country.
Context does not justify crimes.
Context explains to the reader why a single fact is not equal to the whole picture.
This is often lacking in texts that may formally be professional but politically and humanly turn out to be blind. They are carefully assembled, verified, written in strong language, but after publication, they begin to work not as a tool for understanding, but as permission to hate.
The main question is not ‘can one criticize,’ but ‘how exactly.’
Criticizing Israel is possible. Criticizing Ukraine is possible. Criticizing the army, special services, authorities, radicals, courts, politicians, and journalists is also possible. In a normal society, this is not a crime, but a part of life.
But journalism, especially in Russian and especially in 2026, can no longer pretend that it is enough to simply ‘write the truth.’ It is necessary to understand where this truth will be read, by whom it will be picked up, what headline will be made from it, what quote will be taken out, what words will be turned into a slogan.
After October 7, an Israeli text on the Palestinian issue cannot be written as if there is no new wave of anti-Semitism in the world.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a text about the shortcomings of the Ukrainian state cannot sound as if there is no fundamental difference between the aggressor and the victim.
And after all these years of war, terror, and propaganda, a journalist can no longer hide behind the phrase: ‘I just asked questions.’
Sometimes a question also shoots.