After more than two years of intense warfare in an urban environment thick with phone cameras, perhaps Israel’s image crisis was inevitable. Other Western countries, confronted with similar conditions of guerrilla warfare and consequent blurred distinction between civilians and combatants, suffered deep unpopularity. Think of the US entanglements in Indochina and Latin America, for example.
Another contributing factor is the current level of global polarization, in which the progressive Left finds itself incapable of speaking out against the shooting of protesters in Iran and struggles to acknowledge the extent of Hamas’s atrocities against Israeli women and civilians. Perhaps, in this predicament, Israel’s isolation is a foregone conclusion.
Our contention is the opposite. Israel must not accept isolation or come to terms with it. In our analysis of the country’s public diplomacy efforts on behalf of the Israel Institute for National Security Studies, we found that Israel’s public self-defense has been badly mismanaged.
Clearly, Israel’s international standing has been severely harmed by the harsh images of widespread destruction and death in Gaza. Still, the country has dealt with image crises in the past without the current level of dysfunction that has marked the past two years.
Ineffective communications
The Israeli information effort is not working because it is diffuse and undirected. The essential position of head of the National Information Directorate has been vacant since May 2024. The directorate is responsible for shaping the Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy) response in all fields, and for the coordination of the various information arms in Israel to ensure that the Prime Minister’s Office, IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Foreign Affairs Ministry, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, and other bodies are working in unison according to a strategic plan.
But no such plan exists and, as such, the international media has been terribly neglected. Official Israeli spokespersons are largely absent from television screens (one of the central complaints in American political activist Charlie Kirk’s letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), and requests for information are often unanswered.
The social media challenge is extremely significant, given Israel’s numerical inferiority and the global prevalence of Muslim and anti-Israel users – and likely hostile foreign influence. Israel’s new media effort is being handled by at least four separate government ministries, meaning that it is not being handled at all; nothing near the required sophisticated and resourced response has taken shape.
Israel did not adequately present its target selection policy and the legal process that accompanied its conduct of war. Nor was the humanitarian effort to provide food and medicine to Gazan civilians properly communicated. At times, it was even concealed from public knowledge for the sake of ministers opposed to aid provision.
Aid provision was also mishandled. Israel believed it sufficient to meet its legal requirements by enabling supplies to cross the border, when the global expectation was that Israel, as the dominant military power, would ensure that supplies reached those in need. There was no national information director to raise this concern before the government and the IDF with the necessary urgency.
Likewise, there is no adequate plan for confronting Israel’s challenges on the university campuses, for attempting re-engagement with the Democratic Party, and for enlisting the Jewish world and Israel’s Christian friends in combating Israel’s isolation.
Hasbara efforts
The persistence of Israel’s hasbara dysfunction is due to the deep politicization currently plaguing its public diplomacy efforts. Government ministers made repeated calls throughout two years of war, calling for the destruction of Gaza, expulsion of its residents, and its Judaization. The ministers were neither disciplined nor called to order, and provided the most incriminating materials in the genocide accusation.
The Israeli government lacked the ability to proactively present its conduct of the war – even as the IDF sought to follow the laws of war and minimize civilian casualties – because elements in the government disapproved of these explanations.
It was similarly difficult for the government to deal with the charges of intentional starvation. The government could have combated these claims by providing full documentation and making necessary adaptations in policy, but it found it difficult to do so when specific cabinet ministers supported the idea of starving Gaza.
Required remedies
The Israeli government must take immediate steps to stop the hemorrhaging of international support and confront Israel’s image crisis:
Appoint a head of the National Information Directorate – an apolitical senior professional with strong media presence in English and Hebrew. He will take up the budgetary and leadership reins of Israel’s hasbara apparatus to design and implement a national plan for recovery, which will guide all government bodies and ministries.
Initiate a public diplomacy campaign to combat the charges of genocide. The decision of the International Court of Justice will shape Israel’s image over the next decade, hence Israel’s legal defense must be seen as a national project. An expert legal team is essential, but it is only one leg of Israel’s required overall defense effort. This effort must include a professional public relations strategy and effective staff to lead a coordinated, determined campaign to prove Israel’s innocence before the ICJ and in the court of world opinion. The genocide charge is weak and specious, but Israel may lose the case if its defense is not properly conducted. Israel also cannot neglect the hostile political agenda attempting to influence the court
Gather the leadership of the Jewish people and Israel’s friends to meet the legitimacy crisis; Israel cannot meet all challenges on its own, and it requires the solidarity and assistance of its friends. The president of Israel should convene a meeting at the President’s Residence of Jewish, evangelical, cultural, intellectual, and business leadership to brainstorm effective solutions and confront current events.
The Israeli government needs to adopt and fund a comprehensive plan to address the image crisis. The critical areas that require attention and planning are: re-engagement with international media; creation of a new social media strategy and innovative tools; an energized program of engagement with university students; media outreach to the Arab world; and strengthening solidarity with world Jewry and evangelical Christianity.
Many elements of Israel’s image crisis are structurally resilient and reflect the situation of a small nation in a prolonged conflict with members of a much larger global collective. Compounding this is the West’s difficulty in imagining and understanding conditions of armed conflict. But Israel can handle the current challenges if we define Israel’s legitimacy crisis as a matter of national security. If we act with wisdom and strategy, Israel may be able to turn the tide. ■
Akiva Tor is a visiting senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, leading the project for the repair of Israel’s image and rehabilitation of its public diplomacy apparatus.
Ofir Dayan is a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, specializing in antisemitism and delegitimization, and author of Intifada on the Hudson.