Digital illusions, political delusions: Israel’s Hasbara propaganda revisited in a time of genocide

Abstract

Debates about digital technologies absorbing old political conflicts have intensified in recent years. In an ebb and flow between optimistic promise and pessimistic anxiety, discussions regarding the transformative abilities of technology include cyber warfare; digital activism during the 2011 Arab uprisings and the Black Lives Matter movement; the impact of ‘fake news’ on elections; and more recently the domination of Artificial Intelligence. This article discusses Hasbara, a mixture of propaganda and diplomacy that operates mostly through digital media. I offer a longitudinal and return to earlier analyses and assertions. On the surface, the professionalisation of Hasbara was completed with Israel’s formation of an informal Ministry of Hasbara that expanded under the influence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and additional investment in a social media strategy. The evolution of Hasbara has nurtured discontent regarding Palestine and consent for Israel. Yet this has deformed into a major paradox where Israel is executing a military war and actively influencing opinions through racism and violence, and simultaneously highlights Western complicity with settler colonialism through regional alignment with (Western) imperialism. Digital infrastructures afford an ecology in which genocide cannot be hidden away: with every publicly live-streamed urban bombing and assassination, its moral neglect is laid bare.