Politics has entered a new era.

The old model was simple: make a claim, defend it with evidence, and persuade people.

The new model is different: create an unforgettable image. Whether it survives careful scrutiny is almost beside the point.

Attention and truth now operate on different clocks. Attention is immediate and verification is slow. By the time the facts arrive, the emotional conclusion has often hardened.

Rep. Ro Khanna’s recent visit to the West Bank illustrates the phenomenon. He described armed settlers and Israeli soldiers detaining his delegation and suggested U.S. Embassy involvement was needed to secure their release. Israeli and American officials have disputed key elements of that account. The details remain contested.

Politically, however, the outcome may already be settled.

Millions will remember one thing: an American congressman confronting violent Israelis.

This is why fact-checks so often fail. They assume the original purpose was to establish the truth. Increasingly, the purpose is to create a narrative that people remember. Every indignant rebuttal, every television debate and every social media thread extends the life of that narrative. Even proving the story exaggerated may simply give it another news cycle.

This is not unique to Ro Khanna. It is how much of modern politics now works. Viral videos replace investigations. Emotion outruns evidence. Politicians compete less to be correct than to become impossible to ignore.

Qatar-funded Hamas propaganda outlet Al Jazeera knows it. They’re good at it, mocking Israel even when they pretend to make the country look good.

View this post on Instagram

Facts still matter. Every false or misleading claim deserves a documented response. Public officials should be held accountable for accuracy. But the correction should be concise, supported by evidence and then left to stand.

The real battle is over what people picture when they think about an issue.

If opponents reduce Judea and Samaria to images of violence, the answer is NOT weeks of arguing over a single disputed incident. It is to show a different reality: positive, possibly confrontational, and above all, memorable. Perhaps ancient Jewish history, thriving communities, vineyards, archaeology, entrepreneurship, shared workplaces, families and landscapes that tell a far richer story than Khanna’s video.

The same principle applies elsewhere. When anti-Israel extremists celebrate terrorism, intimidate Jewish students or glorify those who murder civilians, expose it. Not as a legal brief but show the human story. Show the victims. Show the consequences. Show the moral contrast.

For too long, those who value accuracy have assumed that the best response to a misleading story is a better fact-check. Increasingly, the better response is a better story—one that is equally compelling because it is true.

The choice is not between truth and attention. It is to make the attention focused on the stories you want.