Jonathan Cornicus addresses the crowd at MFI’s November 13 event. Courtesy of Jack Bleichmar.

Maroons for Israel (MFI) hosted an event featuring former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Jonathan Conricus at the Chicago Loop Synagogue on November 13. The event was a collaboration with DePaul University’s Students Supporting Israel, Northwestern University’s Wildcats for Israel, and national organizations StandWithUs, the American Jewish Committee, and the Israel on Campus Coalition.

Conricus was on a 10-day speaking tour of the United States and Canada to promote pro-Israel politics and respond to questions about Israel and the war in Gaza.

A member of the IDF from 1997 to 2021, Conricus served as a company commander before becoming the IDF’s chief spokesperson. He later returned to the IDF after the attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023 as a reservist in their spokesperson unit for three months. He is currently a senior fellow at the American pro-Israel foreign policy think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and runs his own press relations firm.

During his remarks, Conricus argued that the American media has fueled a growing criticism of Israel among American students. “The filters in the news are very heavy. There’s reality on the ground, and then there is reality as it is shaped in American media,” he said.

“Events will be presented [in American media] from a very one-sided narrative. It’ll be supporting the Palestinian side and portraying the Israeli side as arbitrary, violent, reckless, and cruel,” he added. “I think that in most cases, reality is exactly the opposite, whereby Israel is fighting to defend against people and organizations that are sometimes void of humanity in how they act.”

Conricus further articulated the motivation for the tour in an interview with the Maroon before the event. “I see it as somewhat of a mission, a calling, to reach out to American students—Jewish, Israeli, anti-Israeli, whoever—and to try to have a dialogue with people who are willing to have a dialogue, and to inform them about the situation in Israel, especially things that they probably won’t get in the news,” Conricus said.

A study of American newspapers conducted in early 2024 found that they were consistently biased against Palestinians in their coverage of the first six weeks of the war in Gaza. The IDF also routinely censors journalists who are covering their activities.

During his speech, Conricus singled out a recent viral photo of a boy affected by malnutrition as a result of famine in Gaza during the war, claiming that the media had misrepresented the image by failing to provide context about the child’s background. He argued that the boy had a pre-existing medical condition and was photographed standing beside a healthy-looking mother.

“Not a single journalist cared to do a little bit of investigative journalism and ask: ‘Who’s this family? Who’s the mother? What’s the pre-existing condition? Why is one boy unhealthy while the other isn’t?’” he said. “That was apparently above and beyond what journalists would be expected to do, and it had tremendous effect. That was a very powerful moment of high pressure on Israel.”

The boy, Mohammad Al-Motawaq, suffered from muscular dystrophy; the war had restricted his access to solid food, resulting in an inability to speak and walk, according to NPR. World Health Organization reports have confirmed that Gaza is currently in a state of famine, with more than 640,000 Gazans currently facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity, and 39 percent going multiple days without eating.

Conricus ascribed negative coverage of Israel to Arab antisemitism. Israel is “an entity that annoys and humiliates lots of Muslims by just existing,” he said. “Jews living in their ancestral homeland is an insult to the sensitive self-respect of many Muslims. Therefore, almost no matter what Israel does, many people will have issues with Israel just by existing.”

That antisemitism is “strengthening left-leaning ideologies, extremist ideologies in the West… [and they] are converging in their hatred against Israel and their annoyance with the Jewish state,” he said.

The Anti-Defamation League found an increase in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. in 2024, 58 percent of which were tied to anti-Israel activism, though many student groups engaged in campus protests that year publicly denounced antisemitism.

Israel’s public support around the world has declined over the last few years, with countries including France, Germany, and the UK seeing majority-negative sentiments on both the left and right. In the United States, 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, including large majorities of both independents and Democrats.

Conricus said that international perception of Israel is rooted in an inaccurate understanding of the conflict: “They speak of colonialism and view it through a colonial perspective, but really at the root of it, it is a religious battle between Jews and Muslims. The topic is land and the right of Jews to exist in their own ancestral homeland. Muslims view the land of Israel that they call Palestine as land that is, and should forever remain, Muslim territory.”

“For me, what’s happening now on U.S. campuses… is part of a bigger plan of radical political Islamism to expand their control and eventually take over institutions in the West. Like with so many other things, Israel is just a distraction. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is just an off-Broadway kind of event. The real show is about the future of America and the West.”

Students for Justice in Palestine chapters from UChicago, DePaul, and Northwestern organized a counter protest across the street from where Conricus was speaking, attended by a few dozen protesters who waved Palestinian flags.

During the event, Conricus expressed hope for a peaceful settlement but said that the Palestinians prevented any from taking place: “Israel has offered the Palestinians four different peace offers presented by Israeli prime ministers to the leaders of the Palestinians, saying, ‘You know what? Let’s make a deal and let’s end the conflict,’” he said. “So far, those four offers have been rejected by the Palestinians, and that is very sad because we could have maybe solved the conflict some time ago.”

He was likely referring to the 2000 Camp David summit, the 2001 Taba Summit, the 2007 Annapolis Conference, and the 2013-14 peace talks as led by then-Secretary of State John Kerry.

At the end of the event, Conricus was asked about what ideas he wanted to leave students with. After reminding students to remain critical of media narratives and continue upholding their Jewish values, he explained the importance of why they should continue to support Israel.

“[This] is a battle for your future, for America,” Conricus said. “I hope that good sense, common sense, and love will prevail, and that good people will… keep people like that [who misrepresent Israel] in the fringes—screaming and made irrelevant—while good people continue…  to focus on prosperity [and] doing good indeed. They will lose.”

Editor’s note, November 27 9:30 a.m.: This article was updated to include that there was a counter protest to this event across the street.