Israel to quadruple hasbara spend in bid to salvage international reputation

Israel plans to more than quadruple the amount of money spent on overseas influence operations in 2026 as it tries to salvage its international reputation, battered by its two-year genocidal assault on Gaza.

The foreign ministry will be allocated NIS 2.35 billion ($729 million) to spend on public diplomacy – known as hasbara in Hebrew - next year, up from NIS 545 million ($150 million) in 2025, according to Israeli media.

The 2025 allocation was already an unprecedented increase on previous years, which, before the war, was just a fraction of the current budget.

The money will be used to fund social media campaigns, partnerships with NGOs, and trips to Israel for elected officials, civil society representatives, and influencers.

Israel's reputation among Western publics has nosedived over the past two years on the back of the mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has killed at least 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Palestinian ministry of health. 

Polling by Pew Research in October found that more than half of US adults held a negative view of Israel, rising to 77 percent of Democratic voters.

An opinion poll in Germany from September, conducted by YouGov, showed almost two-thirds of voters believed Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, despite the country being one of Israel's staunchest European allies

The foreign ministry is one of several government departments - which also include the strategic affairs ministry and the prime minister's office - that fight what Israeli officials refer to as the "eighth front".

Israel has stepped up its influence operations in recent months amid rising criticism among some of the most popular pro-Trump influencers, who have railed against US military aid and Israeli influence on American politics.

Earlier this year, it emerged that the government was paying social media influencers thousands of dollars per post to promote its narratives about its war in Gaza and the Palestinians.

Israeli media recently reported a $145 million campaign by the foreign ministry to manipulate popular AI chatbots such as ChatGPT to promote its narratives.

The foreign ministry last week hosted 1,000 American pastors and influencers to a conference in Jerusalem to train them to promote Israeli interests in the US.