In a modern warfare, tanks, bullets, and missiles are no longer the sole arbiters of strength. Instead, perception building, strategic deception, misinformation, and controlling the narrative are equally important and lethal tools. As it is a digital age, millions of people watch the conflict lives using social media platforms such as Facebook, X, Tiktok, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It is in the strategic interests of the states to fight the digital battle alongside pursuing ground operations. As said by Alian Badiou, “In today’s conflict, visibility is victory, and invisibility is defeat”. What has gain the importance over time is the state-sponsored defensive-cum-offensive digital operations that blur the civilian and military domain and equally operate during the time of war and peace. One such program is Hasbara (explanation or advocacy in Hebrew) that is backed by the Zionist state (Israel) to gain the legitimacy of its genocidal operations against the unarmed civilians of Palestine, particularly in Gaza.
As IlanPappé notes, “Hasbara is not merely about explaining policy. It is about justifying it, rationalizing it, and normalizing it, especially in contexts of crisis or international criticism”. Although the term emerged in the 20th century, it gained prominence during the formative years of Israel. It was explicitly designed by the then government to not just inform the world about the Israeli perspective, but to gain the ideological support by presenting Israel as the existential and moral necessity for the Jewish people throughout the world. Also, it strategically used the Holocaust memory and the Arab-Israel Wars to validate its viewpoint. Since then, the institutionalization of Hasbara into the government departments have started.
The initial purpose of Hasbara, as advocated by Israel itself, was to work as a public diplomacy unit. From sending cultural ambassadors to distributing pamphlets abroad, it well-performed its functions. But, following the growing criticism over the brutal military actions by IDF, particularly after Intifada, and Gaza Wars (2009, 2023), it has transformed itself into multi-purpose platform to incorporate the informational warfare. As G. Baksin once commented, “Hasbara is no longer just public diplomacy. It is a national defense priority”. There were strategic ambitions behind its creation as well.
For instance, it provides an opportunity to Israeli diaspora to unite under a single platform; helps Israel move from the official briefings and diplomatic engagement to direct digital offense (via X); to counter the unidentified enemies (e.g., assertive Palestinian diaspora, and Iran’s proxy networks raising voices against the illegitimate actions of Israel using social media networks); to disrupt and divert the global sympathy towards Palestinian cause; and above all, to curb the Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
When it comes to operational dynamics, Hasbara network functions in three main layers: firstly, it offers fellowships and subsidized visits to foreign students, influencers, journalists, and general public (usually 16-35 years old) across the world. It facilitates 2-3 weeks visit to Israel (and to the occupied territories of Palestine) where the tourists get briefings from the Israeli military, government officials, frontline forces, and immense themselves into the local cultural traditions. Established in 2001 by MOFA in partnership with Aish HaTorah, this program has so far facilitated the visits of thousands of people from diverse geographical regions. It helps Israel in many ways.
For instance, when these brain-washed people go back to their homeland or university campuses, they become official ambassadors of Israel in terms of narrating its perspectives regarding the ongoing situation. This loyalty bond, coupled with the other incentives, helps Israel creating an army of manipulated people which provide a first-line of real time narrative defense to Israel’s war machinery.
Secondly, modern Hasbara leverages the social media platforms, predominantly X, by creating propaganda posts, scripted videos and personal interviews of the Israeli families affected by Hamas’s retaliatory or offensive attacks. Moreover, the use of AI bots, and centralized command units (operated by IDF) have been witnessed. In the digital realm, Israel also uses influencers. For instance, an influencer Lizzy Savetsky has publically denounced the anti-Semitic attitude by the students across Europe and the U.S., and has supported Israel in different public events, while ignoring the atrocities committed by the IDF against the innocent civilians. Her sycophancy behavior won her a “voice of iron award” and a nomination in the anti-Semitic envy to Trump’s administration.
Another prominent influencer is Nuseir Yassin (aka Nas Daily), a Palestinian-Israeli who turned to Israeli-Palestinian after the October 7th attacks. He showcased the live footages of Iran’s retaliatory attacks on his social media accounts while ignoring the genocide committed by Israel. The same is the case with Hanaya Naftali and Yoseph Haddad. This layer is gaining popularity over time as the famous influencers help Israel mold the attitude of millions within a short span of time.
The third layer is the display of selective information and coverage of the incidents related to Hamas by the government agencies and the mainstream Israeli media networks. The recent examples in this regard are following: Israel blamed that Hamas is using underground tunnels in hospitals across Gaza, particularly in Al-Shifa Hospital. The only Proof IDF showed was the paper hanging on the wall and they claimed that it is the operational planning by Hamas. However, it later turned out to be a hand-written calendar with days of the week written in Arabic.
The other incident involved the forced dictation to a Palestinian civilian to walk in front of a camera to apparently surrender to IDF. But, it was exposed when the complete video surfaced where the background voices of IDF could be heard dictating the person and even forcing him to do the similar actions twice due to some disruptions in the recording. The man was latterly identified as an innocent civilian. It portrays the vulnerabilities in the network despite heavy funding and years of training.
This network of organized disinformation campaigns played a key role in shaping the international public opinion towards Israel’s military operations after the recent attack by Hamas. For that purpose, Israeli cabinet increased the funding of Hasbara from $30 million to $150 million to merge the public diplomacy with the operational communication; incorporating foreign think-tanks and NGOs particularly in the Western countries to gain support for its genocide. The IDF’s “War-Room” dedicatedly uploaded 50-60 short videos on daily basis to change the public sentiments (particularly from October 8, to December 20, 2023). Not just theoretically, Israel also hired professional organizations, as Harvard report concluded, to analyze the real-time public sentiments and response of the public using AI-enabled systems. Also, Israel’s military spokesperson Masha Michelson posted the doctored pictures of tunnels to justify the ongoing genocide.
The framing of Hamas as terrorist and Israel as defender of democracy and peace is a part of narrative building technique by Hasbara. In this realm, it relies on hashtags, such as Hamas is ISIS, and discourse creation. Moreover, this organization also helped Israel in its alleged propagation of UNRWA (United Nations Reliefs and Works Agency) as a terrorist supporter. For instance, it publicized the reports showing that there is a link between the 12 UNRWA workers and Hamas in the October offense that resulted in suspension of its funding by the U.S., the U.K., and the Western European states. Apart from that, Pro-Israeli groups coined the terms “Pallywood” to question the authenticity of the suffering scenes in Gaza in order to reduce the global criticism.
However, the Hasbara techniques are not unique to Israel. A comparative analysis can be drawn between Israel, China and Russia in their soft approach towards information warfare. As discussed in detail, Hasbara merges public diplomacy with the state sponsored propaganda to help Israel gain legitimacy over its actions. Similarly, China relies on the “discourse power” using economic coercion to shape the global narrative towards the key issues (i.e. Xinxiang, Taiwan), focusing on the long-term outcomes. In this realm, Confucius institutions, state-owned social media platforms (i.e. TikTok, WeChat), global collaborations over content generation, aid diplomacy, and digital surveillance play an important role. Russia, on the other hand, uses similar techniques for slightly different purpose: disrupting and fragmenting the public opinion over a particular issue (i.e. Ukraine War, Crimean annexation), and strategic manipulation (i.e. negative use of Facebook during the U.S. presidential elections of 2016).
Beyond direct impacts, the propaganda machinery of Israel influences the Western media narrative. Most of the U.S. media outlets, such as New York Times, and Wall Street Journal directly quoted the Israeli media sources and adopted the Pro-Israeli stance in their editorials on the ongoing genocide against Palestinians. Al-Jazeera exposed this hypocrisy in its 2024 report. For instance, it concluded that few days after the October War begun, more than 83% Western mainstream channels adopted Pro-Israeli terminology to describe the ongoing war. Only 21% contextualized the event, and less than 10% referred to civilian casualties on both sides.
Apart from that, Hasbara driven propaganda undermines journalistic neutrality as most of the journalists rely on the Israeli sources (74%) instead of Palestinian media (12%). On the other hand, if one writes against Israel, he or she has to face backlash from the Israeli lobby groups (i.e. AIPAC in the U.S.) or else the person is forced to leave that particular institution, think-tank, or media outlet. Over the passage of time, Israeli funding to the political campaigns and utilization of the civil societies have shifted the foreign policy stance of many states.
For the sake of reference, the foreign policy of Germany and the U.S. can be analyzed. In the case of Germany, Israel has capitalized upon the Holocaust incident, and by manipulating the Berlin’s guilt, Tel Aviv successfully lobbied to alter its legal framework (i.e. implementation of Laws criminalizing anti-Semitism). Some outlets such as Bild and Die Welt regularity monitor the content to check if it is against Israel. In some cases, anti-Zionist posts are also declared anti-sematic. The funding of the election campaigns is in addition to it.
In the case of the U.S., as John J. Mearsheimer famously writes in his book “The Israel Lobby and the U.S. Foreign Policy”, White house follows pro-Israeli stance. This behavior is reflected in the provision of asymmetrical aid to Israel (despite thousands of casualties voluntarily committed by Israel), diplomatic protection to Tel Aviv (veto to the UNSC resolutions), and the adoption of pro-Israeli policy in the academic institutions (drawing parallels between Zionism and anti-Semitism). This is the prior reason that the U.S. is often seem propagating that “Israel has the right to defend itself”. But, it is a digital age. As Pew Survey shows, more than 65% of the U.S. populations object with this unwavering support to Israel and the people have shifted towards social media for the unbiased and timely news.
Apart from that, Hasbara has deeply penetrated into the institutional framework of the supra-national structures i.e. organizations at the regional and international level. The state sponsored propaganda serves dual purpose: being offensive and defensive simultaneously. For instance, Israel propagates to be the only democratic state (though dysfunctional democracy in reality) in the Middle East and is situated around barbarian neighbors. Through words such as “human shields”, “terror tunnels”, and “preemptive strikes” alongside its narration of “shared democratic values” and security narrative; it has malfunctioned the diplomatic efforts of Palestine for the two-state solution at the UN.
Moreover, through its lobby groups such as Friends of Israel Initiative, and Elnet, Israel has built strong and robust connections with the European MPs. Using its layer 1, it has invited more than 150 members to visit Israel (2023-25). As said by Dr. Ben Hayes, “These visits are not fact finding missions. They are perception-engineering exercises”. This helped Israel maintain its trade relations with EU despite human rights violations (exposing the double standards of EU too).
In its defensive posture, following ICC warrants against Netanyahu, Hasbara linked platform released a video titled “Justice Hijacked”. This was shared by the Israeli embassies in more than 30 countries. Moreover, the anti-ICC content and OPeD was produced by the different media outlets and news channels to undermine the jurisdiction of ICC. On the one hand, it helped Israel gain blind support from its decades old allies, on the other hand, it manipulated the narrative of that there is diplomatic immunity for the Head of State under International Law to avoid the immediate shocks amid Netanyahu’s foreign visits. This reveals the double purpose Hasbara serves.
Surprisingly, the educated youth in different Muslim states such as Pakistan is a victim to this propaganda despite the fact that neither they are the primary targets nor relevant in the disinformation campaign. Many young scholars are seen to cherish Israel’s military power or criticizing the states (i.e. Iran) fighting for their self-defense. This matter need serious attention by the governments as the manipulated youth could become a strategic asset for the enemy otherwise.
However, there is another side of the coin as well. Despite the unwavering support by the governments, the public in most of the states is not supporting the on-going genocide in Gaza. For instance, recent survey by YouGov Poll shows that public support in many Europeans states has decreased below 20%. Given the strong public pressure, different governments are rethinking their stance on the Gaza War. Most of the European states, by now, have also recognized Palestine as a state despite strong pressure from Israeli lobby groups. It shows the cracks in the system.
Moreover, several Palestinian media outlets are using social media campaigns and showcasing a real time videos, pictures, and documentaries of the ongoing genocide in order to curb Hasbara. Several journalists, such as Azaiza, Owda, and Al-Dahrouh have become a symbol of resistance. They are risking their lives to show to the world and human rights agencies the massive atrocities Israel is committing. As the Palestinian journalist BisanOwda says, “The most powerful weapon in Gaza is not a rocket but a phone camera”. The documentation of these atrocities against civilians has been helpful in the judicial proceedings as evidence showcasing the war crimes, and crimes against humanity by Netanyahu in ICC.
Additionally, the civil society and solidarity movements, such as BDS, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Student for Justice in Palestine, are organizing real time counter-propaganda rallies, seminars, and social media awareness to curb Israel’s “Pallywood” offensive against the innocent souls. But, there are some limitations that are hindering the counter measures. For instance, Al Jazeera Media Freedom Index of 2025 shows that the Pro-Palestinian posts or videos get 43% less outreach as compared to Pro-Israeli content. Still, there is a hope that the counter-narrative will prove effective.
In conclusion, one can say that Hasbara is a state sponsored disinformation campaign, blending public diplomacy and the strategic communication. It operates at three levels. Its success can be analyzed by the Pro-Israeli foreign policy stance of different states. It has also penetrated into the international institutions to pursue the defensive and offensive operations of Israel. However, Palestinian digital activism is being seen as a counter offensive to this information warfare, but with some limitations.
