Hasbara/History

Hasbara is the Hebrew word for 'Explanation' and is a term used by the State of Israel and by independent groups to describe their efforts to explain Israeli government policies, and to promote Israel to the world at large. Others view hasbara as a euphemism for propaganda.

Hasbara tends to portray Israel as fighting on two fronts:

1. A hostile, native, non-Jewish Palestinian population and Israel's surrounding Arab States
2. World opinion.

The latter is the province of Hasbara. All problems in public relations may be put down to inadequate hasbara.

Wikipedia's Hasbara

Wikipedia has been a battleground for this topic and hasbara dominates the narrative. See Wikipedia's Hasbara.

Hasbara Manual

Two official manuals of Hasbara are known to have been issued, presumably intended for use by opinion-forming Zionists:

1. 2002 Manual: "Defending Israel and Zionism" was issued by the World Union of Jewish Students in 2002.
2. 2009 Manual: The "2009 Global Language Dictionary" is a 116 page document from "The Information Project" (TIP) April 2009.

Hasbara since 1977

The Wikipedia article on hasbara is misleadingly entitled "Public diplomacy (Israel)" but is remarkably open on Israel's support for hasbara and it's history. In 1977 recently elected Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin (hard-line fascist according to Einstein) chose fellow ex-terrorist Shmuel Katz d.2008 to become "Adviser to the Prime Minister of Information Abroad". Shmuel Katz had already earned the title "the father of hasbara in America" with the publication of "Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine" in 1973. The book was said to be "an encyclopedic source-book for those involved in Israel's hasbara effort" and was distributed in thousands by AFSI and other groups for decades across America. 24 years later, Katz published a retrospective of Israeli hasbara efforts and said that the task of Israel's hasbara "must be tackled not by occasional sudden sallies but by a separate permanent department in the government." Sharon did increase hasbara efforts, but did not create a cabinet-level ministry for that purpose.

In May 1992, the Jerusalem Post reported that American Jewish leaders hardly reacted to news that the Foreign Ministry's hasbara departmen would be eliminated as part of a sweeping reorganization of the ministry. Malcolm Hoenlein noted there had been talk of streamlining the ministry's hasbara functions for some time. He said that merging the department's functions with those of the press department did not portend any downgrading in the priority the Likud government gives to hasbara abroad. Abe Foxman of the ADL reacted similarly, saying he was "not distressed or disturbed", and noted that disseminating hasbara has always been the responsibility of every Foreign Ministry staff officer, especially those working abroad; if eliminating one department means everyone will assume greater responsibility for his or her own efforts in distributing hasbara then he is all in favor. It also reported that personnel in foreign hasbara departments would be shifted to press departments, which is where much of the work currently done by hasbara officials properly belongs. He explained that Israel's efforts to provide hasbara abroad would focus on media communications.

In August 2001 (during the Second Intifada) the Palestinian-American professor Edward Said identified several hasbara methods used by pro-Israel groups: "This has included an entire range of efforts: lunches and free trips for influential journalists; seminars for Jewish university students who over a week in a secluded country estate can be primed to "defend" Israel on the campus; bombarding congressmen and -women with invitations and visits; pamphlets and, most important, money for election campaigns; directing (or, as the case requires, harassing) photographers and writers of the current Intifada into producing certain images and not others; lecture and concert tours by prominent Israelis; training commentators to make frequent references to the Holocaust and Israel's predicament today; many advertisements in the newspapers attacking Arabs and praising Israel; and on and on.

In 2002, funding levels for the hasbara effort were said to be modest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent about US$8.6 million that year and the Government Press Office was only budgeted at US$100,000. The Israeli State Comptroller's office issued a report critical of Israel's PR efforts, "lack of an overall strategic public relations conception and objective" and lack of coordination between the various organizations were mentioned.

In 2005 an article in the Jerusalem Post the Deputy Director-General for Media and Public Affairs (reprinted by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs), entitled "What 'Hasbara' Is Really All About" said that "public diplomacy is not a cure-all for all of Israel’s problems in the arena of public opinion" and "Israel’s image is largely event-driven, rather than argument-driven". Other information from this source is the "Guide to the Middle East Peace Process" with claims such a "Since its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel has sought peace with its neighbors through direct negotiations".

In May 2007, the Hasbara Fellowships of Aish HaTorah (co-sponsored since 2001 by the diplomatic arm of the Government of Israel, Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry) is said to have written that "Wikipedia is not an objective resource but rather an online encyclopedia that any one can edit. The result is a website that is in large part is controlled by 'intellectuals' who seek re-write the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. These authors have systematically yet subtly rewritten key passages of thousands of Wikipedia entries to portray Israel in a negative light. You have the opportunity to stop this dangerous trend! If you are interested in joining a team of Wikipedians to make sure Israel is presented fairly and accurately, please contact [our] director". (A similar advocacy campaign on Wikipedia was later launched by the CAMERA but was caught in improper activities in May 2008, see above).

In 2008, Yarden Vatikay was appointed to coordinate Israel’s domestic and foreign media policy as a new "Hasbara czar", heading a "unit to coordinate Israel’s domestic and foreign media policy".

In 2009, Israel's foreign ministry organized volunteers to add pro-Israeli commentary on news websites. In July 2009, it was announced that the Israeli Foreign Ministry would assemble an "internet warfare" squad to spread a pro-Israel message on various websites, with funding of 600,000 shekels (c $150,000).

In 2011, the Jewish Foundation has an apparently updated listing of "Israel Education Resource Center: Web Links" though with some dead links.

The Israeli government continues to offer such training as the 2009 "Ambassador's course" to community leaders, educators, students and activists in the Diaspora ... an opportunity to acquire both a comprehensive overview of the conflict, tools to understand Palestinian propaganda/media bias and the means to advocate Israel's policy.

Further efforts to improve Israeli public relations include such as the Israel Citizens Information Council (ICIC): The purpose of the ICIC is to assist efforts to explain Israeli life from the vantage point of the average Israeli citizen. Towards that end, the ICIC enlists Israelis from all walks of life to participate in its various projects ... One of our major activities is the production of special Powerpoint presentations which we post on our website. These presentations review specific aspects and issues related to Israel and the Middle East.

Hasbara resisted successfully?

In June 2010, respected blogger Mondoweiss detailed these examples of hasbara successfully resisted. He says "One of the most striking trends following the flotilla attack has been how quickly Israeli hasbara has been exposed and discredited by internet journalists. Robert Mackey has a post on the Times Lede blog highlighting some examples today - Max Blumenthal's reporting on the doctored IDF audio of the attack and Noam Sheizaf's work on Turkish photos of the Mavi Marmara attack which contradict IDF claims. To these two I would add Lia Tarachansky and Blumenthal's work disproving the IDF's claim that the flotilla was linked to Al Qaeda, Jared Malsin's work confirming the doctored audio, and Ali Abunimah, who has been in the lead on many of these stories and lately has been reconstructuing the path of the Mavi Marmara to show it was actually fleeing at the time of the Israeli attack. All of this has appeared on the internet and are helping to shape the story, despite the Israeli Foreign Ministry's best efforts".

Some favorite techniques

1. Smearing/defaming critics of Israel, all criticism of Zionism is "the new antisemitism".
2. Use of sources often so poor as to be completely discredited.
3. Attacking credible sources and witnesses, inventing or distorting trivial incidents.
4. Selective discussion of issues.
5. Controlling the language, towns instead of settlements, "disputed" instead of occupied.
6. Framing of issues, the siege of Gaza as a response to terror.
7. Harassing media about its coverage.
8. Challenging the portrayal of an alternative narrative, and attempting to keep the Zionist narrative as the dominant one.

External resources

• Fadi Kiblawi, Israel's Campus Concerns, The Palestine Chronicle, Oct. 23, 2003. Quote: "The Hasbara Handbook prescribes fascinating instructions on attacking the messenger and avoiding the message at all costs ‘in ways that engage the emotions, and downplay rationality, in an attempt to promote’ their cause. In a section entitled ‘Name Calling,’ Israel's Jewish Agency writes, ‘Creating negative connotations by name calling is done to try and get the audience to reject a person or idea on the basis of negative associations, without allowing a real examination of that person or idea."

• Conal Urguhart, Israel uses TV show to find its best spin doctor, The Guardian, Nov. 27, 2004.

• Gary Rosenblatt, "Hasbara’ Goes Prime Time", The Jewish Week, December 3, 2004.

• Hilary Leila Krieger, Expert: Israeli PR improving, but..., Jerusalem Post, December 16, 2004. Interviews Frank Luntz during the 2004 Herzliya Conference.

• Gary Rosenblatt, "Inside Israel’s Image War", The Jewish Week, January 19, 2007.

• Laura Knight-Jadczyk, Hasbara, Shmuel Rosner and the Israel Factor - sott.net 11 January 2007