Israel just quadrupled its PR budget to $730M, experts claim it won’t work
Published by The Jerusalem Post
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Who is named
The characters and things this document talks about — 20 in alls. Each links to everything else the record knows about them.
People 8
Nicholas Cull Gideon Sa’ar Ilan Manor Shibley Telhami Israel Bachar Republicans under 50 Eytan Gilboa Joanna Landau
Organisations 3
Claims made
Every claim in this document. Firsthand = asserted on its own basis; secondhand = recounted from elsewhere, carrying no independent weight.
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Israel approved a 2026 national budget that includes roughly $730 million for public diplomacy.
Lawmakers in Jerusalem approved a 2026 national budget last month that includes roughly $730 million for public diplomacy - the broad category known in Hebrew as hasbara - more than four times the $150 million they allocated the year before.
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Lawmakers in Jerusalem approved a 2026 national budget last month that includes roughly $730 million for public diplomacy - the broad category known in Hebrew as hasbara - more than four times the $150 million they allocated the year before.
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A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month found 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, up seven points in a single year, with only 37% viewing it favorably.
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57% of Republicans under 50 hold negative views of Israel.
Most striking for a country long accustomed to bipartisan American support: 57% of Republicans under 50 hold negative views of Israel.
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40 of 47 Senate Democrats voted to block a $295 million sale of Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel.
Earlier this month, 40 of 47 Senate Democrats voted to block a $295 million sale of Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel, and 36 voted to block a sale of 1,000-pound bombs, representing the strongest congressional rebuke of US military aid to Israel on record.
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36 Senate Democrats voted to block a sale of 1,000‑pound bombs to Israel.
Earlier this month, 40 of 47 Senate Democrats voted to block a $295 million sale of Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel, and 36 voted to block a sale of 1,000-pound bombs, representing the strongest congressional rebuke of US military aid to Israel on record.
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“We had a major breakthrough this year, but we must as a country invest much much more,” Sa’ar said in December as the government entered budget deliberations.
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Sa’ar won approval for a dedicated public diplomacy unit inside the Foreign Ministry.
Alongside the budget, Sa’ar won approval for a dedicated public diplomacy unit inside the Foreign Ministry, headed by a director equivalent in rank to the ministry’s top political official - a structural consolidation meant to end years of scattered hasbara work across rival ministries.
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$50 million international social‑media ad buy was split across Google, YouTube, X and Outbrain.
A $50 million international social-media ad buy was split across Google, YouTube, X and Outbrain.
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$40 million went to hosting 400 foreign delegations.
Roughly $40 million went to hosting 400 foreign delegations - lawmakers, pastors, influencers, university presidents.
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The Foreign Ministry also signed a $1.5-million-a-month contract with former Trump campaign strategist Brad Parscale’s firm to deploy AI tools against antisemitism online,
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The Foreign Ministry signed a $4.1 million campaign aimed at evangelical churches.
a $4.1 million campaign aimed at evangelical churches,
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and the “Esther Project,” a paid influencer network running up to $900,000 through a PR firm called Bridges Partners.
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Defending the approach, Consul General Israel Bachar, Jerusalem’s top diplomat in Los Angeles since 2023, said in an interview that most of the money so far had gone into social media and delegations.
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Nicholas Cull said history shows all the money in the world won’t help if the policy is wrong.
“My position is that history shows all the money in the world won’t help if the policy is wrong,” said Nicholas Cull, a professor of communication at the University of Southern California and one of the founders of the study of public diplomacy.
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Shibley Telhami said there has been a paradigmatic shift in America about Israel, never seen before.
“There has been a paradigmatic shift that has taken place in America about Israel,” said Shibley Telhami, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, who has surveyed American and Arab attitudes toward Israel for decades.
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Ilan Manor said Israel was one of the first countries to build a global digital‑diplomacy operation.
Israel was one of the first countries in the world to build a global digital-diplomacy operation, Manor said.
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Ilan Manor said Israel’s accounts reached roughly a billion people before Oct. 7.
Before Oct. 7, he said, its accounts reached roughly a billion people, a scale rivaled only by the United States.
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Joanna Landau called the 2026 allocation a long overdue course correction.
Joanna Landau called the 2026 allocation “a long overdue course correction” but warned that structural failures would swallow the money.
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Eytan Gilboa said this is the worst crisis in Israel’s image abroad.
“This is the worst crisis in Israel’s image abroad,” he said.
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Eytan Gilboa said since Oct. 7, there has been a rejection of Israel’s right to exist.
Since Oct. 7, we have seen a rejection of Israel’s right to exist.
No claims match this filter.
Syndication
Who is repeating whom. This is shown as structure, and it is the reason a chorus never moves a belief bar: forty tellings of one assertion are still one.
- possibly restates Netanyahu’s October 7 ‘generals’ revolt’ conspiracy runs into a contradiction unconfirmed
- possibly restated by Israeli PM Netanyahu Allegedly Ignored Oct. 7, 2023, Warning; US Then Provided $22B in Military Aid unconfirmed
- possibly restated by FBI Breach Extended to 8000 Local Law Enforcement Officers as Agents Blame Incompetence unconfirmed
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