Truth Alone Won’t Win — Hashbara Must Evolve

Hashbara Must Evolve: Why Israel Needs a Professional Public Diplomacy Strategy Now More Than Ever

Anyone who knows me personally is fully aware: I am, and always have been, a devoted and passionate pro-Israel advocate. From the moment I first stepped onto Israeli soil in 1978, I knew I had found something extraordinary—a nation built on resilience, innovation, compassion, and an unbreakable will to survive against all odds. Since then, advocating for Israel has been more than just a cause for me. It’s a calling, nearly a full-time job parallel to my official career.

Over the years, I’ve posted thousands of times online in support of Israel. I’ve read countless books, watched hundreds of documentaries, spoken at events, written articles, and countered antisemitic narratives wherever I encountered them. My love for Israel goes beyond admiration—it’s adoration. I could write volumes about Israel’s immense contributions to the world: its breakthroughs in medicine, technology, agriculture, cybersecurity, and its unmatched humanitarian outreach in disaster zones across the globe.

But yesterday… something happened that shook me to the core.

I logged into a fake “pro-Palestinian” Facebook account I’ve maintained for years—an account I use strictly to monitor anti-Israel propaganda and rhetoric. What I read disturbed me not only because of its content, but because of how convincing it was. I found myself, just for a moment, doubting the truth I know so well. The narratives, the images, the carefully edited videos—they seemed real. Women allegedly being humiliated by IDF soldiers. Children being harmed without warning. Disabled civilians caught in the crossfire. It was raw, emotional, and powerfully manipulative.

And that’s when it hit me: if I, someone who has lived among both Israelis and Arabs, someone who understands the inner workings of media manipulation in the region, someone who was there during the genesis of Al Jazeera’s “Palestinian Remix” narrative, could feel shaken—then how can we possibly expect the average person to know the truth?

This is not just a PR problem. This is a full-blown crisis in the information war that Israel is losing—not because truth isn’t on our side, but because our methods are outdated, fragmented, and tragically underfunded.

The truth is, Israel has been too complacent, too arrogant in assuming that truth alone is enough to win hearts and minds. It’s not. The pro-Palestinian lobby is not a grassroots movement—it is heavily funded by foreign governments and political interest groups, including support from Qatar and radicalized mosques across the world. Their strategy is professional, aggressive, and relentless. They know how to appeal to emotions, to create viral content, and to manipulate narrative through victim imagery and repetition.

Meanwhile, most pro-Israel organizations operate on shoestring budgets, driven by unpaid volunteers. Accusations fly online that we are Mossad agents, funded by the Israeli government—but the irony is, we often receive zero support from the very country we are defending. Groups like “Time to Stand Up for Israel” don’t receive a dime from the Israeli state. Not because they wouldn’t accept it, but because it simply doesn’t exist. The Israeli government has failed to understand the necessity of investing in Hashbara—public diplomacy—as a critical front in the modern battlefield.

Israel is not only fighting a war on the ground in Gaza. It is fighting an equally important war in the digital space, and it’s a war we must win. We cannot allow the lies of “Pallywood” to dominate global discourse. We must counter every lie with truth—immediately, powerfully, and repeatedly.

But this isn’t just about fighting lies. It’s also about telling our story—the real story of Israel. The story of a pluralistic society where Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Druze live, work, and serve together. The story of Israeli doctors treating Palestinian patients. Of Israeli search and rescue teams saving lives in Turkey, Haiti, and Nepal. Of humanitarian corridors opened even in times of war. The world rarely sees this Israel because we’ve failed to show it.

The solution? Professionalize the Hasbara effort. Create well-funded, independent, and global pro-Israel media initiatives that are non-political, fact-based, and emotionally intelligent. Use social media the way the opposition does—but use it to tell the truth. Invest in influencers, in digital content creators, in video production, translation services, and cross-cultural education.

If we fail to act, if we continue to rely solely on old-school diplomacy and outdated press releases, we risk losing an entire generation to lies. It’s not enough to win the physical war. Israel must win the battle for perception—on Instagram, on YouTube, on TikTok, and beyond.

We have truth on our side. Now we must fight for it.