Does Israel Have a Public Relations Problem?
“Israeli public diplomacy efforts are characterised by disorganisation.”
I’m not so sure that they do, but I’m certainly no expert on the subject or the history.
Aurele Tobelem writes at Quillette:
Horrible Hasbara: Israel’s Poor PR Efforts
There’s an old saying, often misattributed to Albert Einstein, that insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In Israel, they don’t call this insanity. They call it hasbara.
Israeli public diplomacy efforts are characterised by disorganisation. The employment of multiple lines of argument and incoherent or overly complex narratives, together with the fact that Israel possesses no single body responsible for PR—these factors stymie the country’s attempts at effective messaging. As Gil Hoffman, Executive Director of the media watchdog HonestReporting, wrote in June 2024:
When it comes to messaging, Israel has three separate audiences: domestic to make the public feel safe; its enemies to deter them; and the international community. The messaging that is effective for audiences one and two repels audience three, causing constant damage.
Historian Ron Schleifer traces the modern Israeli failure to effectively argue the country’s case to the Jewish diaspora experience: “One thousand and eight hundred years of submissive Jewish hasbara, which was not combined with any military operation or threat of one, has left its mark upon the Jews.” Zionist hasbara, Schleifer explains, was founded on the idea that collective Jewish self-determination must achieve international legitimacy. It has therefore adopted a moralistic narrative in which the Jewish right to statehood is justified on the basis of historical dispossession, diasporic suffering, and the monstrous evils perpetrated by Nazi Germany. The early Zionists, Schleifer writes, rather than showcase the everyday dangers they faced as a result of the intransigence of the Palestinian Arabs and the rejectionism of surrounding Arab nations, preferred to rely on what Schleifer calls the “underdog doctrine.”
But the idea of Israel as an underdog lost credibility in 1967, when the country acquired new territories in the Sinai, West Bank, and Golan Heights during the Six Day War. As Israeli historian Yoav Gelber has documented, Israel was transformed overnight from underdog to occupier in the eyes of global public opinion. As Gelber relates, within a week of Israel’s victory, Western media outlets were publishing sensationalised reports of Egyptian soldiers stranded in the Sinai desert, firebombings by the Israeli Air Force, and a growing Arab refugee crisis provoked by the war.
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“Western media outlets were publishing sensationalised reports of Egyptian soldiers stranded in the Sinai desert, firebombings by the Israeli Air Force, and a growing Arab refugee crisis provoked by the war.”
And there’s your problem.
Western media outlets publish what western media outlets want to publish regardless of the messaging or narrative that the Israelis are trying to get out.
They lost their status of underdogs after the six days war because they had the temerity to win. Decisively.
Had Israel been destroyed, perhaps western media outlets would have been kinder to their memory. Probably not…probably would have tut-tutted for a day or so and then forgotten them.
I don’t think it’s any disorganization or “complicated narratives” that is keeping Israel from getting positive press; I think it’s the western media’s penchant for taking the Arab’s side. They report information from Hamas and “Palestinian authorities” as if it’s gospel but everything coming from Israel is treated as suspect.
Case in point: propaganda from Hamas or the PA is regularly reported on as if unquestionably factual, while anything coming from the Israeli government is characterized as “Israel claims…”
Sorry, poor editing. I had to take a break in the middle of writing this comment and when I came back to it, I kind of lost the plot…resulting in the redundancy at the end. Apologies.
“Israel was transformed overnight from underdog to occupier in the eyes of global public opinion.”
Surely a culture originating the archetypal legend of David and Goliath should be able to handle these optics.
The problem is that the Arabs have appropriated the role of David & assigned Israel the role of Goliath. And the press, the church (especially the Presbyterians, the ELCA and the other liberal churches) and academia are only too eager to help them.
Ha ha! That would require them to win, something they’ve never been able to achieve.
“ multiple lines of argument and incoherent or overly complex narratives”
Dexter Van Zile, a Christian, is one of the more effective spokesmen for Israel. He suggested a simple strategy: when somebody accuses Israel of killing chickens or other civilians, respond by agreeing that their deaths are tragic and ask “But what would you have Israel do?”, explain the risks Israel is faced, the many times it has offered peace and the extraordinary steps Israel takes to reduce the risk of civilian casualties in the face of the enemy’s willingness to maximize them. Done properly, this can be done in 90 seconds.
I once had the privilege of becoming
That should of course be children not chickens.
Curse you, autoimmunity . I mean autocomplete. And your monkey back guarantee, too.
The MSM release the stories they want which may or may not have any connection to reality. Given the MSM are Left-Far Left, and thus pro-Arab pro-Muslim, anti-Jew etc they reliably condemn Israel for not meekly submitting to genocide whilst defending Hamas albeit with a minor ‘terrorism is of course bad BUT …’.
Similarly college campuses are filled with Far Left and Left activists and militants – both staff and students, promoting outright pro-terrorist anti-Jewish narratives, or watered down pro-Gaza anti-Israel narratives.
Given the number of treasonous types and useful idiots in place, it appears as though Israel has a PR problem – the truth doesn’t get past such types. But given the majority of people still support Israel, does that count as a PR problem?
It does. Lies that go unchallenged long enough have a way of eventually being accepted in place of truth. And the challenges need to be effective, immediate, consistent & easy to understand.
Support for Israel has been declining among younger Americans. Taking Americans’ support as a perpetual given is not sound strategy.
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