What is hasbara? Israel's public diplomacy explained

What is hasbara? The question comes up whenever a Middle East conflict spills onto social media. The Hebrew word hasbara means 'explanation', and in Israel it refers to the efforts of the state, and of groups close to it, to explain its policies to international audiences. To some it is simply Israeli public diplomacy; to others, a euphemism for propaganda. Both readings are part of the subject.

This article describes the concept, its institutional history and the academic and political debate around it, in a descriptive way and without taking sides in the conflict.

Hasbara: meaning and usage

• Literal meaning: 'explanation' in Hebrew. As The Guardian noted in 2009, it is used variously for information, spin or propaganda, depending on who is speaking.
• Official usage: the Israeli state uses it for its external communication; there is, for example, a hasbara coordination body in the Prime Minister's Office.
• Critical usage: in international debate it is often used pejoratively for messaging seen as self-serving or misleading.
• Roots: scholar Ron Schleifer traced its Jewish and contemporary origins in a 2003 article, placing them before the founding of the state.

Public diplomacy, propaganda and hasbara compared

The term public diplomacy was coined in 1965 by US diplomat Edmund Gullion, and historian Nicholas Cull defines it as an international actor's attempt to manage its international environment by engaging with foreign publics. Where it ends and propaganda begins is contested, but specialists tend to look at three things: whether the source is identified, whether the messages are truthful, and whether the aim is to persuade or to manipulate.

The gap between the first two rows is mostly one of emphasis. Modern public diplomacy, shaped by Joseph Nye's idea of soft power, stresses listening and relationship-building; hasbara, as its own analysts describe it, has tended to focus on explaining and rebutting, especially in wartime.

How hasbara evolved

1948–1967: an image that came easily

According to political scientist Eytan Gilboa of Bar-Ilan University, Israel enjoyed a positive international image from 1948 to 1967, and again during periods of constructive negotiation such as the 1977–1979 talks with Egypt. In those years external communication rested mainly with the Foreign Ministry.

After 1967: a more contested image

The occupation of territories after the 1967 war, the first intifada (1987) and the second (2000) changed how Israel was seen abroad. In 2006 Gilboa described public diplomacy as 'the missing component' of Israeli foreign policy, pointing to a lack of strategy and coordination.

2006–2009: building institutions

The 2006 Lebanon war was the turning point. A State Comptroller audit found that the absence of a national concept and of coordination between agencies had led to a persistent communication failure. In July 2007 Government Decision 1936 created a national hasbara body in the Prime Minister's Office to coordinate messaging, and in 2009 a Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs was set up. In December 2021 Naftali Bennett's government re-established a Public Diplomacy Directorate with the same coordinating role.

2012 onwards: the social media era

During Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson's unit announced military action on Twitter and Hamas's armed wing replied in kind — one of the first wars fought on social media too, as the press put it. Since then the battle for attention on digital platforms has been part of every conflict, involving Israeli and Palestinian actors, regional states, NGOs and media worldwide.

The hasbara toolkit

• Official spokespeople: the Foreign Ministry, the Prime Minister's Office and the IDF spokesperson's unit.
• Digital diplomacy: official accounts in several languages, videos and in-house visual material.
• Message coordination: the national hasbara body aims to keep all spokespeople on a consistent message.
• Civil society and diaspora: organisations and volunteers, sometimes state-supported, who join public debate.
• Nation branding: campaigns presenting Israel through technology, culture or tourism rather than the conflict.

Two readings of the same phenomenon

The debate about hasbara is largely a debate about the conflict itself, so the positions are best set out without endorsing any of them.

• Supporters see it as a state's legitimate response to what they regard as delegitimisation campaigns, comparable to any country's public diplomacy.
• Critics argue it is used to justify military action and occupation policies, blurring the line between information and propaganda.
• Many communication scholars frame the issue as one of effectiveness rather than morality: explaining is not enough if the policies being explained provoke opposition — a central theme in Gilboa's work.

When it stops being public diplomacy: the STOIC case

The clearest line is transparency. In June 2024 The New York Times reported that Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs had commissioned and funded, with about $2 million, a campaign by Tel Aviv firm STOIC that used hundreds of fake accounts to target US lawmakers with messaging about the Gaza war. The ministry denied any link to the firm and called the report false. Weeks earlier, Meta and OpenAI had said they had taken down a network of accounts they attributed to STOIC.

However the question of responsibility is settled, the case shows the practical distinction specialists draw: a spokesperson speaking under their own name is doing public diplomacy; a network of accounts that hides its origin has moved into influence operations — a practice found among many states and covered in our articles on disinformation.