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A Dialogue Of The Deaf

Stop Blaming Hasbara for Israel's Problems

The Israeli government could spend ten times as much as it does and have every government official on speed dial for the press, and the deck would still be stacked.

Former IDF Spokesperson IDF Hagari. background
Former IDF Spokesperson IDF Hagari.
Former IDF Spokesperson IDF Hagari. (Photo: Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)

Whenever Israel ends up in hot water on the world stage due to often false and exaggerated claims against it, the first target of both pro-Israel people and even the establishment press.

"Another failure of hasbarah," we hear when Hamas successfully makes its version of events canon in the global media. "Where is our hasbarah?" cry the pro-Israel activists starved of funds and institutional support from Jewish organizations and from the State of Israel.

But hasbarah, our Israeli advocacy has hard limits. Israel could quintuple its budget for hasbarah by a few orders of magnitude and put all senior government officials on speed dial for the press to interview them, and we'd still be at a severe disadvantage when getting our side out.

One reason is that the global media believes anything said by activist NGOs or the UN is the Divine truth, no questions necessary. It doesn't matter how much evidence the IDF or Israel produces to show they are lying or spreading falsehoods. These are simply ignored.

Another is that a year and a half into the conflict, reporters and media have still refused to come around to the idea that doctors and health officials can lie in the service of defaming Israel. Hence the automatic parroting of anything the Hamas-run health ministry says without any critical thought.

In sheer numbers, too, the odds are stacked against us: There are far more anti-Israel Muslims (not all Muslims hate Israel but unfortunately enough do) to swamp the brave few who stand and fight for truth. This is to say nothing of the masses of mostly university educated youth who find Israel a convenient scapegoat to hate as a proxy for their own loathing of their homeland and heritage.

As someone who's reported on and edited stories regarding Israel's wars since October 7, I can attest that Israel actually did a very good job of getting our side out pretty fast and effectively, in a manner easily available for anyone who wants to hear it or take us seriously. But many do not, and wish merely to confirm the conventional wisdom "everyone knows" in media circles. It's a lot easier to do that than sift through different claims.

I'm not saying hasbara could not be improved. Or that Israel and Zionist and Jewish organizations couldn't do a much better job of hiring and retaining gifted spokespeople for Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish People. But it's not magic; you're only going to convince the people who want to listen, and ultimately Israel's existence will rise and fall less on fools blindly following the New York Times and the BBC and more on whether it eliminates the direct threats to its citizens and borders.

The rest, as they say, is commentary.

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