Hasbara

Clavicular, whose given name is Braden Peters, has said he hopes to film a “collab” with Netanyahu himself, whom he calls “The Big Yahu.”

The conversation became about why Israeli creators were choosing to embrace someone whose online ecosystem has long been associated with antisemitism, misogyny, and extremism.

“Every single booth has an oleh with a story, and they're selling their products from the small business that they opened here in Israel after their aliyah,” said Devon Conway of Nefesh B'Nefesh.

Hostile powers don’t invent a nation’s weaknesses; they find the ones it already has, fund them, give them prestige, and push them through the institutions that decide how a society sees itself. 

The problem may not be that the world lacks information about the Jews, but rather that the Jewish world has forgotten to inspire loyalty, admiration, participation, and belief.

We Israelis and our supporters have wrung our hands over alleged hasbara failings for decades. But we owe it to ourselves to recognize that part of the alleged failures aren’t failures at all.

Since October 7, Israel has been fighting not only a military war, but also a political and diplomatic one. A government minister who repeatedly sabotages that effort is a liability.

“We did our own flotilla,” said Arab-Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad. "We send a clear message to all the ‘terror flotilla’ activists. You are not welcome here."

Traditional public diplomacy is under strain as polarization reshapes how Israel is understood abroad.

A historic budget shift has been made, but without structural reform that includes domestic considerations and not just the international priorities, Israel’s narrative war will remain fragmented.