The Blogs: Israel Needs a Speakers Bureau, Not More Spokespeople

Too often, Israel’s official spokespeople come across the way Afrikaner officials did during the apartheid years: defensive, brittle, legalistic. Even when their arguments are strong, their tone doesn’t connect. On television, in press conferences, and especially on social media, Israel’s message sounds more like courtroom testimony than human conversation.

Israel is a country with a compelling story, but it has a chronic communications problem. While its enemies frame the conflict in simple terms of human rights, suffering, and liberation, Israel leans heavily on security, legality, and history. The facts may be on Israel’s side, but facts alone don’t move people—stories, empathy, and human voices do.

The Problem: One Voice for Every Audience

The Israeli government tends to rely on a small group of diplomats, IDF officers, and politicians to speak to the world. They may be brilliant in Hebrew and effective in the Knesset, but international audiences hear them as combative or unfeeling.

The result is predictable:

In the UN, Israel sounds lawyerly and isolated.
On CNN or the BBC, it sounds blunt and hard-edged.
On social media, it barely registers compared to the emotional, viral content from its opponents.

Different audiences require different messages, but Israel keeps using the same voice everywhere.

A Model: Think “Speakers Bureau”

Toastmasters clubs and professional associations use a simple tool to get their message across: a speakers bureau. Instead of relying on one person, they assemble a roster of voices, each trained and deployed for the right occasion.

Israel could benefit enormously from the same model. Rather than one overworked government spokesman repeating the same lines, imagine a chorus of voices, each authentic, each speaking to a different audience in the way that audience understands.

Who Could Be in Israel’s Speakers Bureau?

1. Security and Crisis Communication

Calm, authoritative ex-generals or IDF figures to explain military operations without bravado.
Paired with doctors, nurses, or mothers who can give a human face to Israeli suffering during attacks.

2. Humanitarian Moments

Female voices, community leaders, and everyday Israelis to express empathy when civilians are caught in conflict.
Someone like journalist Lucy Aharish, an Arab-Israeli who is passionately Zionist, could completely upend the “apartheid” narrative abroad.

3. Diplomatic and UN Settings

Intellectual heavyweights such as Einat Wilf, or seasoned diplomats like Tzipi Livni.
People fluent in the rhetoric of international law, but able to frame Israel’s dilemmas as human and moral choices, not just legal rights.

4. Diaspora Jewish Voices

Historians like Deborah Lipstadt, journalists like Bret Stephens, or writers like Dara Horn.
These figures remind the world that Israel is not just a government—it is the expression of a global Jewish story.

5. Sympathetic Non-Jews

Arab and Muslim voices from countries with peace treaties or Abraham Accord partners.
African or Asian leaders who benefited from Israeli aid in agriculture or medicine.
Non-Jewish intellectuals or clergy who can defend Israel without being accused of bias.

6. Social Media and Youth Outreach

Charismatic cultural figures such as Gal Gadot or Maya Wertheimer, who can reach audiences that don’t follow foreign policy.
Young Israelis and even Palestinians who support coexistence, countering the idea that every voice in the region is locked in hatred.

Why This Matters

Israel’s challenge today is not only on the battlefield but in the court of global opinion. In Europe, on college campuses, and across the Global South, Israel is too often cast as the Goliath rather than the David. That perception may be unfair, but public opinion shapes diplomatic space, economic partnerships, and the legitimacy of Israel’s right to self-defense.

A speakers bureau would not be about slick marketing or spin. It would be about matching authentic voices to the right audience. A general can explain security. A mother can express grief. An intellectual can frame law. An Arab-Israeli can embody diversity. A celebrity can humanize Israel for people who otherwise wouldn’t listen.

The Payoff: A Choir, Not a Soloist

Israel has never lacked for voices. What it has lacked is a strategy to use them effectively. Instead of sending the same combative spokesmen into every setting, Israel could present a diverse roster of messengers: men and women, Jews and non-Jews, soldiers and civilians, celebrities and scholars.

The world already hears a chorus of criticism. Israel should respond not with one lonely violin, but with a full orchestra.

Because in today’s media world, the messenger matters just as much as the message.