Public diplomacy of Israel

Public diplomacy in Israel (also hasbara, Hebrew: הַסְבָּרָה‎‎ hasbará, "explaining") refers to public relations efforts to disseminate abroad positive information or propaganda about the State of Israel and its actions. The term is used by the Israeli government and its supporters to describe efforts to explain government policies and promote Israel in the face of negative press, and to counter what they see as delegitimisation of Israel around the world. Hasbara means "explanation", and is also a euphemism for propaganda.

While hasbara literally means "explanation", its exact import in its current usage is debated. Gideon Meir has said that there is no "real, precise" translation of the word hasbara in English or any other language, and has characterized it as public diplomacy, an action undertaken by all governments around the world with the growing importance of what Harvard professor Joseph Nye termed soft power. Gary Rosenblatt describes it as "advocacy". Individuals who engage in the practise have been called hasbarists.

Hasbara has been described as "pro-Israel propaganda," and "the new user-friendly term for Israeli propaganda" but while "propaganda strives to highlight the positive aspects of one side of a conflict, hasbara seeks to explain actions, whether or not they are justified."

Historian Giora Goodman considers "hasbara" to mean "propaganda" in practice, explaining

The term "propaganda" acquired a pejorative sense during the first half of the twentieth century. Accordingly, British and American propagandists used "information" to describe their work and the positive-sounding word hasbara has generally been preferred in Hebrew. "Propaganda", ta’amula in Hebrew, is mostly reserved for what opponents do, but the term was often used by the Zionist movement to portray its own efforts to influence mass audiences.

The early mentions of the term hasbara in English mainstream print media date from the late 1970s and describe hasbara as "overseas image-building." According to The Washington Post, this work "is called hasbara when the purpose is to reshape public opinion abroad." In the early 1980s, hasbara was defined as a "public relations campaign," In Newsweek it was described as "explaining." In 1986, the New York Times reported that a program for "communicating defense goals" was started in the late 1970s, and a 1984 implementation of a "Hasbara Project" to "train foreign-service officers in communications by placing them with American companies." Carl Spielvogel, chairman of Backer & Spielvogel, traveled to Israel to advise the government on communicating its defense goals. The trip led to the Hasbara Project, an internship program established to train foreign-service officers in communications by placing them with American companies.

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