Reason to be cheerful – Israel’s reputation is in free fall
JVL Introduction
Israel’s reputation is in free fall and it is spending on a lavish scale in order to shore up the rotting structure.
According to the Pew Center, in a stunning reversal of fortune, 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavourably, vs 37% favourably.
It is already threatening a major political reorientation in the US.
“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 U.S. military aid to Israel on record.”
Israel has long seen it coming and has always run a hasbara campaign of disinformation to counter it.
But since 2025 this has grown to unprecedented levels, with almost three-quarters of a billion dollars set aside for a dedicated public diplomacy unit inside the Foreign Ministry
Some of 2025’s allocation went on
- a $50 million international social-media ad buy across Google, YouTube, X and Outbrain.
- $40 million on hosting 400 foreign delegations — lawmakers, pastors, influencers, university presidents.
- An $18m contract to deploy AI tools against antisemitism online,
- a $4.1 million campaign aimed at evangelical churches,
- $900,000 on recruiting influencers
It won’t work in the long run: “the bulk of the impressions on issues that people care about are shaped by the actual policies, not how well you sell those policies.”
But it will contribute to delaying the inevitable and prolonging the grief and misery that Israel, with Western connivance, continues to inflict upon the region.
RK
This article was originally published by Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Wed 29 Apr 2026. Read the original here.
Israel just quadrupled its PR budget to $730M. Experts say it won’t work.
Spending on image should be “like investing in jets, bombs and missile interceptors,” Israel’s foreign minister says.
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As one of the most influential of influencers does anyone know how I apply for a share of the $900K that is on offer? I am always willing to lend a hand in trashing their reputation further.
If Israel, instead of spending $3/4 of a billion, enriching propaganda peddlers, used the money to enrich the lives of all in Palestine, ie. the brutally, genocidally murdered, starved and cruelly displaced Palestinian people, maybe it would lose its well earned pariah status. But that would mean reduced profits for the greedy merchants of death and destruction, and that would, extremely sadly, never do.