After a year of war, Israel’s public diplomacy directorate is barely functioning, according to a document from the Prime Minister’s Office obtained by Shomrim and revealed here for the first time. The document outlines a leadership vacuum at the National Public Diplomacy Directorate, the ad-hoc hiring of English-language spokespeople on a freelance basis, and the absence of a cohesive national public diplomacy strategy. “The damage is evident and worsening by the day,” the document states. In response, the directorate claimed, “We are working around the clock and leading Israel’s public diplomacy efforts

The National Public Diplomacy Directorate – better known in Israel as the hasbara unit – was established following a cabinet resolution in 2007 as one of the lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War. The directorate comprises three branches: the Government Press Office, the Prime Minister’s Spokesperson’s Unit, and the National Hasbara Unit. The latter serves as the professional body responsible for coordinating the public diplomacy efforts of all Israeli institutions and organizations engaged in international communication. In other words, it is tasked with articulating the government’s policies and actions through clear, consistent, and unequivocal messaging to the global audience. The unit, which currently lacks a leader, is also supposed to develop public diplomacy strategies and present them to decision-makers. 

To anyone who consumes Israeli news, this lack of hasbara coordination is patently obvious; for example, when the Prime Minister’s Office sends out different messages than the Defense Ministry and the IDF. According to one source who is very familiar with the workings of the hasbara directorate, however, the problem is even more fundamental. He says that the directorate does not realize that its job is to create policy, to decide on the State of Israel’s “voice,” who relays the information and so on. The fact that the directorate has been without leaders for a considerable period of time, the source says, is deliberate. The heads of the hasbara directorate are the officials who have by far the most regular and independent contact with journalists. The prime minister, according to the source, is concerned that these positions could be filled by people over whom he may have no control. According to the source, the Israeli body that is supposed to coordinate between the various national organizations that provide information to the public simply does not function. The result, inter alia, is the dissemination of contradictory messaging – which causes massive damage to Israel’s international hasbara efforts.

One example of this damage is mentioned in the PMO document obtained by Shomrim, which is being published here for the first time. The document deals with emergency contracts with seven English-language and one Persian-language spokespeople, who were employed in an ad hoc manner when the war broke out. While issues such as contracts for ad hoc spokespeople may sound like a technical matter, the logistical breakdown is symptomatic of the problem and a much more profound dysfunction – something that the hasbara directorate itself is aware of.

The role of unofficial spokesperson – such as Mark Regev and Tal Heinrich – is to provide interviews and briefings to the foreign press. “These people are the face of the national hasbara directorate and they are expected to communicate Israel’s messaging accurately, professionally, and impartially to the international media and their millions of viewers,” the source explains. However, “as of the current time, there is no valid contract with these English- and Persian-speaking spokespeople who are supposed to relay Israel’s messages to the relevant media outlet – and this is during a time of war.”  Without them, one official warned at a discussion, “our ability to present the Israeli narrative and convey our position to the international media, and thereby to millions of people around the world, is severely compromised, which significantly undermines the effort to maintain legitimacy for the State of Israel’s actions. This leaves space for competing narratives to dominate.”

Watch the Israeli representative Tal Heinrich in an interview with the American network Newsmax after the October 7 massacre:

The ramifications are clear: “Israeli hasbara is being hurt and the Israeli message is not getting across in an optimal way,” said Gal Ilan, currently the most senior official at the National Public Diplomacy Directorate, at a recent discussion. “This is highlighted by the awful fact that when there is a significant incident – such as the heinous murder of six Israeli hostages and the subsequent return of their bodies – there was no official briefing by the National Public Diplomacy Directorate to the foreign press and we were unable to meet the massive demand for interviewees from foreign networks.” Ilan added. “Therefore, we encountered many reports which were influenced by the narrative put forward by the Hamas terror organization, which claimed that the hostages were murdered because the IDF was approaching – rather than reporting that they were executed in a despicable, planned and horrific manner.”

The dysfunction within the hasbara directorate was the subject of a discussion some two months ago at the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Eylon Levy, whose departure as head of the National Public Diplomacy Directorate was itself the subject of much media interest, said that “in effect, the State of Israel has simply declared ‘total failure’ on one of the most important fronts in this war.” He went on to say that, “there were no positions for spokespeople. People volunteered with promises that they would be paid. I gave 400 interviews in English as a government spokesman and I did not have a written contract; that arrangement would not have lasted long because, in the end, people have to return to their lives and make a living. A spokesperson to give interviews to the media should be a full-time position and not a gig worker.”

Watch the Israeli representative Eylon Levy in an interview with CNN in March of this year:

At the end of that hearing, which also discussed the position of the Civil Service Commissioner, it was eventually decided to employ eight spokespeople at a cost of around 1 million shekels for up to six months. The decision also called on the National Public Diplomacy Directorate to examine how to employ spokespeople in the future.