Israel’s Strongest Army Is Still Missing: Its Story

Philanthropists and visionaries are doing what official institutions won’t – bringing discipline and clarity to the battles Israel can’t afford to keep losing

Israel is losing the perception battle, and the excuses have become a chorus: antisemitism, hostile journalists, social media mobs, a woke culture that confuses younger generations, and disengaged Diaspora Jews – some of whom will likely cast their lot with New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani, who has made no secret of his disdain for Israel and Jewish life. Each excuse contains a measure of truth, but none changes the outcome. Excuses do not win arguments, and they certainly do not win wars of ideas.

Israel’s public diplomacy has been plagued for decades by fragmentation, defensiveness, and improvisation. Every flare-up triggers a new set of hastily assembled talking points. Ministries contradict one another. Spokespeople debate phrasing while critics dominate the conversation with short, sharp slogans that spread faster than any official rebuttal.

Militarily, Israel is mostly disciplined. In communication, it is not. That mismatch is costly. The story of Israel – survival against odds, innovation that powers the modern world, joy and culture in the face of relentless threats – is powerful. Yet the telling of that story is erratic, reactive, and almost always late.

This is not a new diagnosis. In 2008, I wrote in the Jerusalem Post about the need to engage younger Jews, to inspire them with Israel’s vitality, and to bring them back to Israel in spirit and in body. Even then, I warned that the Jewish state was ceding the narrative to its detractors, losing the next generation by failing to project a clear, consistent vision. Sixteen years later, the same problems persist, and that is so sad. The audiences may have shifted from print and television to Instagram and TikTok, but the lack of strategy is the same.

It should embarrass Israel’s official institutions that a private philanthropic initiative has done more to project a coherent image of the country than they have in decades. Adam Milstein’s TalkIsrael.org does not waste time rebutting every lie or bending to the outrage of the day. It sets a tone for projecting relentlessly the human side of Israel: people cooking, building, laughing, celebrating. Where others push anger, it offers joy. Where Israel’s official channels often present confusion, TalkIsrael can show consistency.

That is not trivial. In crisis communication, steadiness builds trust. People have a hard time following those who lurch from message to message. They follow those who know who they are. TalkIsrael is brand clarity, not escapism. The fact that clarity comes from philanthropy, not its government, should be a wake-up call.

The lesson extends beyond public relations, though. Shraga Biran, through the Institute for Structural Reforms, argues that Israel cannot secure its future by firefighting one crisis at a time. His philosophy is that structural problems – whether in economics, politics, or diplomacy – require structural solutions. Gaza, in his view, is not just a humanitarian disaster (fabricated or not) to be patched up after the next war. It is a lever for reshaping the region.

Biran’s proposal is audacious. He links Gaza’s reconstruction to a United States–China partnership. Washington has leverage. Beijing has resources. Both have an interest in stability. Together, they could impose a framework that rebuilds Gaza, limits Iran’s influence, and creates an economic corridor tying Palestinian prosperity to Israeli security. To some, that sounds like fantasy. To me, the fantasy is believing that another “operation” or another reactive PR blitz will change anything. Biran’s plan is radical precisely because the status quo has failed.

In his view, Israel’s greatest danger is not rockets or UN resolutions. It is being trapped in an endless cycle of tactical responses that never add up to strategy. His China plan is one way of showing what it means to think beyond the next news cycle, the next military flare-up, or the next bad headline. It is structural thinking applied to geopolitics, and is exactly what Israel has lacked in public diplomacy as well.

The storms of hatred will not vanish. They never have. The question is whether Israel continues to drift through them, chasing every wave of outrage, or whether it finally sets a course and holds it. We have the means to demonstrate what steadiness looks like in the digital space and what can be achieved on the diplomatic stage. My own words from 2008 still echo today: unless Israel gets its kids – its message, its story, its future generations – back to Israel (literally and figuratively), the Jewish state will keep fighting on grounds chosen by others.

Israel will not win by explaining why it keeps losing. It will win by setting a vision and sticking to it – with discipline, with clarity, and with the courage to think bigger than the crisis of the day.