Regularly maligned in the press, condemned by European governments, and faced with the zealous propaganda efforts of its enemies, Israel in recent years has made renewed efforts at explaining its moral position to the world. Some have criticized this public diplomacy (known in Hebrew as hasbara) as self-defeating apologetics. Lynnette Nusbacher, however, argues that Israel has always engaged in bolstering its image abroad, and that such efforts are necessary and can be effective:
The narratives which underpinned Israel’s public diplomacy over its first 60 or so years were important: “Draining malarial swamps,” not “destroying wetland habitats for migratory birds.” . . . The evidence of successful public diplomacy was not only evident in the ability of Israeli government and quasi-governmental institutions to raise capital overseas. It was also evident in a widespread willingness, among decision-making elites in particular, to view Israel in terms of its own narratives, to a point.
Around the turn of the present century, structures which supported Israel’s ability to conduct its particular brand of public diplomacy were beginning to show their age. Support for Israel has become more distinctively elite, more distinctively establishment, and in the United States more distinctively Christian. Some of the old narratives were harder to support, to some extent because Israel’s economic, social, and military success made some of the old stories less resonant; but also because they were old.
Read more on Mida: http://mida.org.il/2014/12/16/israel-needs-hasbara/