Mark Lavie has been covering the Middle East for major news outlets since 1972. His second book, Why Are We Still Afraid?, which follows his five-decade career and comes to a surprising conclusion, is available on Amazon.
Israel’s prolonged war in Gaza has caused damage on many levels: military fatigue, societal division, personal tragedy, and international condemnation. Many pro-Israel activists say there’s a magic pill to cure the criticism and overcome the rest: hasbara!
Hasbara is a Hebrew term that blends explanation, counterarguments, and propaganda. The notion is that if Israel’s government would only do its hasbara well, the problems would disappear.
If only it were that simple.
I’ve lived in Israel for 53 years, and for about that long, I’ve heard how bad Israel’s hasbara is. To a large extent, it’s true. But to an even greater extent, hasbara has failure built into it — especially in the post-truth age of antisocial media.
By definition, hasbara is reactive. If Israel does something and the world criticizes it, the government’s response is to counter with effective hasbara.
Even if that worked in past decades — and even then it was incomplete and short-sighted — today hasbara is a waste of time and money. Once lies are out of the proverbial toothpaste tube, they can’t be put back in.
Alongside thoughtful, legitimate criticism, Israel now faces fake photos, outright lies, misleading narratives, and blatant antisemitism. These are backed by a well-oiled, Iran- and Qatar-funded propaganda machine pouring millions — billions — into universities, Middle East studies programs, anti-Israel groups, terrorism, and more. Simply putting out the truth in response is almost meaningless.
So, what would work?
What’s missing from this list — and it’s no accident — is the simple “explaining” of Israeli policies and actions. Israel needs to start way before that.
Kids: Too many shallow, TikTok-influenced youngsters believe Israel is a state of European colonizers that displaced most of the native Palestinians and is systematically killing the rest. Countering that does not mean a long, boring history lecture. It means showing photos of attractive, dark-skinned and light-skinned Israelis together, doing modern, relatable things.
That also means building a massive presence on TikTok, Instagram, and whatever antisocial media platforms kids use, speaking in terms they can relate to. The message does not always need to be the heavy truth. It should include naming and shaming, sarcasm, satire, even an occasional made-up photo or narrative. Israel must start acting like the small country it is. Small countries fight down and dirty.
Confront: Israel and its supporters are outnumbered and out-financed, but there is enough energy in the Jewish world to make sure not a single anti-Israel demonstration goes unchallenged — even if it’s 10 demonstrators facing 10,000. Antisocial media, like TV, is a close-up medium. A small, quirky group can get as much coverage as a large, conventional one — maybe more. Israel needs to learn how to be small and quirky.
Confronting anti-Israel groups also means tracking them online and harassing them within the limits of the law. (I had to say that.) They should start worrying about their cybersecurity. The Jewish world is full of young experts who could take this idea and run with it — if only Jewish leadership, in Israel and abroad, would adopt the policy. If that means fewer self-congratulatory dinners and awards for Jewish leaders in New York, so be it.
Word: This is as close to traditional hasbara as we should get. A single billboard in New York’s Times Square can be worth its weight in gold if it carries the right message. With hundreds of thousands of billboards worldwide, why not a contest offering free trips to Israel? Or fun video games with a message? Once free of the old “just tell the truth and it’ll be fine” mindset, the possibilities are endless.
But, like hasbara, none of this will work if Israel’s actions are indefensible.
Not wrong, mind you — indefensible. That means if Israel’s 21-century wars are fought according to 20-century rules, Israel loses.
Most of what Israel has done since the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7, 2023 — when Gazan terrorists breached the border, murdered, raped, and burned more than 1,000 Israelis, and took 250 hostages — can be legally and morally justified. In the post-truth world of antisocial media, that doesn’t matter.
Selling a war that lasts nearly two years in an impoverished territory where society glorifies victimhood was never possible. There is too much raw material for distortion, lies, and fabrications — too much to counter or explain. In a world of short attention spans and narrative-driven “truth,” Israel needed to end this war in weeks, not months, certainly not years — pull out, and prepare for the next round. After two years of combat, that outcome looks likely anyway.
Allowing nonstop anti-Israel propaganda to flood the world for two years, engulfing allies and threatening to turn Israel into a pariah state, is the greatest failure of the Gaza war. And that’s saying something, considering the monumental failure that marked its beginning.
The conclusion: By reordering its priorities and focusing on methods that bring results, Israel can turn back the tide of antisemitic propaganda, even if it takes years.
But none of this will succeed unless Israel’s leadership makes strategic decisions with the world in mind — not just domestic politics.
