“It’s like you asked 1986 John Milius to craft your communications strategy, then sprayed some gay on it. “
Wait that’s the entire Boomer Western World. Half of the Western leadership hasn’t processed the Soviet Union is gone, at home MLK and 68 was last week. Hell that was Iran until 2 months ago. The only person ever to raise GenX in any numbers is Trump. And TBF Obama to an extent
As I have said, after the moral abuses of Covid and Woke cancel culture, the youth are moving into a post-moral Nietsche era of Ubermensch ( epitomized by based/cringe being the metrics instead of right/ wrong & true/ false).
My issue with your thesis is that it assumes that we have fully transitioned and we haven't.
The older " Schindlers list"generation ( including political class) still values Israel gay parades and " the most moral army" and "judeochristian" shtick while the younger one values the based hasbara you speak of.
Israel is getting screwed because they are try to play to both and therefore losing on both.
I don't think its Nietzschean post modernity entirely. Its a bit more inchoate than that. There's still a strong streak of romantic leftism to it.
I heard a literature professor say that when he has students read the Brothers Karamazov, they dont relate to Ivan, Dmitri or Alyosha anymore. They very strongly relate to Smerdyacov, the spurned, misbegotten child. They uniformly support his right to kill the old man, and say that he had it coming.
Despite plenty of stiff competition, Israeli hasbara remains the most cringe thing I've ever seen. If it didn't exist, antisemites would have had to invent it.
You mention in this article the counter hasbaraites overplaying their hand and I've noticed that too. You could dislike anti Israel propaganda in the past but it's only in the last year, or even more recently, that it has crossed the line into being outright cringe. It's come as a shock to me because, as a 40 something westoid, I'm used to antisemitism being something that is edgy and transgressive, and now for the first time in my life I'm seeing it turn into something that is stale and banal.
As for the idea of coming up with better hasbara, I see that as both impossible and irrelevant. It's impossible for Israel to have good, or even competent, hasbara for the same reason that it is impossible for the IDF to occupy all the territory south of the Zahrani river and expel all of it's inhabitants: the Israeli elite simply do not think that way. Telling them that bragging about "democracy" and gay pride parades while pimping out Jewish (or non Jewish) girls in IDF uniforms doesn't make Israel look good simply doesn't compute to them. They are literally physically incapable of comprehending that reality. The obtuseness of the Israeli elite is simply axiomic to the point that even getting frustrated with it is as futile as getting upset over there being mushrooms after the rain. They aren't going to change because they quite literally *cannot*.
But more importantly, I see hasbara as simply irrelevant. Nothing Israel says is going to change anyone's mind regarding the conflict one way or the other. There are, however, some simple actions that Israel could take which would take the wind out of the sails of enemy propaganda:
1. Give up US aid: in material terms, US aid doesn't matter, but it is probably the single most effective propaganda point that anti Israel people have. It creates the impression that Israel is just some failing, colonial project that is only held up due to Uncle Sam's largesse. That attitude was not a liability in the post Holocaust, Boomer America that you mentioned in this article but it absolutely is a liability in the rootless, multicult, cultural wasteland that is the contemporary USA
2. Give up US weapons: It's true that without US weapons you don't have any Israeli attacks on Iran, but Israel does not need foreign weapons to defend itself from it's completely hapless neighbors. Israel has enough of a military and technological base that it can provide for it's own armament needs as long as it gets away from trying to "out tech" it's adversaries as it has done since the end of the 1967 war.
For the record, I personally remain skeptical about the value of IAF strikes on Iran as even if Iran is entirely neutralized, Pakistan, who has the exact same views towards Israel as Iran does, already has more than enough nukes to wipe out Israel several times over. Turkey and Saudia Arabia are likewise just as hostile to Israel as Iran is and those countries also have the ability to develop nuclear arsenals whenever they please. No amount of US aircraft is going to make it feasible in the long term for Israel to just deny all of it's enemies WMD.
So much of anti Israel propaganda is based on Israel using US dollars and US weapons to kill Palestinian children. Take the US out of the equation and anti hasbara loses a great deal of it's emotional impact
3. Minimize relations with Europe: there is no reason for Israel to antagonize Europe for it's own sake but Israel doesn't need Europe and certainly is not part of Europe. Israel needs to stop trying to force it's way in to things like Eurovision and other European cultural events. Let them do their own thing. It makes Israel look like a pathetic wannabe and triggers resentment among Europeans who already see their continent being overrun with immigrants.
4. Leave the UN, or at least stop complaining about it. If the UN is as awful as Israel says it is, then Israel shouldn't lend it any legitimacy by remaining a member of it. If Israel is determined to remain part of the UN then it should stop bitching when the UN says something hostile to it. It's pathetic.
5. Stop losing wars/relying on air power for everything: I understand that telling the IDF to stop losing wars is a bit like telling a honeybee to stop gathering pollen, but it would be helpful if the IDF could at least string together a few days without utterly humiliating itself. Israel cannot afford these endless, objectiveless wars that drag on for months where the IDF just bombs civilian areas. Not only are such operations humiliatingly ineffective but the optics of it are horrendous. It makes Israel look like a bullying Goliath beating up the scrappy Arab Davids. If Hezbollah had existed in 1952, Israel would have conquered the area up to the Zahrani and expelled the population within a few days. Airpower is a tool, not a solution, especially in unconventional warfare.
Now Israel will never voluntarily make any of these changes because the Israeli elite are retarded trash. Okay, whatever. That's unfortunate, but it is what it is. The good news, however, is that these things will all ultimately be forced on Israel. US aid is going to be gone very soon and a US weapons embargo won't be far behind. US diplomatic support for Israel is also on the way out. Lebanon is never going to make peace with Israel and ultimately Israel is going to either have to conquer southern Lebanon or just evacuate the north entirely.
A feeling closely resembling this has been growing in the back of my mind for the last few months. You just stated it far better (and sooner) than I could have. I *really* enjoyed reading this.
To the comments that the existing Israeli establishment isn’t capable of this, I think that’s (yet another reason) why it fundamentally needs to be grassroots… besides the obvious reasons of “authenticity”.
Why so sad? When tards like Shawn Ryan have grifters like Big Brown Buffalo Cenk on their podcasts, you just know things are looking up. Are you not amused?
I like this, actually. Strong points and analysis.
Where I'd change the emphasis is I would actually try to address the goyim's complaints about what Jews do. The groypers wouldn't be so successful if they didn't have so many valid points.
There's not much you can do about the occasional Jeffrey Epstein--every ethnicity has its sociopaths--but certainly ending the worship of immigration (on the left) and megacorporate business (on the right) might do some good. Stop attacking evangelical Christianity--you really couldn't have asked for better allies. Stop being anti-white--every Michelle Goldberg 'we can replace them' needs to be met with a Stephen Miller 'not a chance'. And the alliance with African-Americans necessitates attacking a lot of the meritocracy that keeps a society running effectively (disparate impact anyone?).
I suspect most Jews are on the left and won't listen to any of this, but eh...nobody did more to knock down affirmative action than Edward Blum (except of course Donald Trump, and he was President). So it'll be up to some future weird obsessive right-wing Jew to utilize that verbal IQ and money for good.
The Jews are not one thing. First, there's no Sanhedrin of The Jews which issues rulings on what The Jews can and can't do, with punishment for noncompliance. In fact, there's not even a punishment for claiming to be a Jew while being a goy (half of the American stats on “Jewish opinions” are made up of precisely this: people who are not halachically Jewish at all.)
Second, the Jews have historically been blamed for being against sexual degeneracy and infanticide, promoting sexual degeneracy and infanticide, being too capitalist, being too socialist, being religious fanatics, being atheists, promoting left wing socialism, promoting right wing fascism, promoting 3rd world immigration, promoting racist deportation, promoting black crime, training racist cops on how to oppress black people…the complaints of the goyim about what Jews do don't make for a very good compass, because they point in all directions.
I agree. There is no Sanhedrin, no central Epstein-Netanyahu council. The Israeli and American Jewish elites can't even agree. Heck, you probably couldn't get Randi Weingarten and Bari Weiss on the same side. (OK, maybe gay rights.) And I won't get into all the Israeli political parties.
The problem is, while you can definitely find Jews on every side (which is why I specifically listed a few on the right), the net effect in this country has been to push the country to the left and in an anti-white direction. That's why I was saying you're not going to be able to do much good.
Technically, I qualify, but the stuff above (and Trump's war on Iran on behalf of Israel) has pretty much alienated me from my heritage at this point. It seems like if you want to be Jewish and be open about it you're either advocating for immigration and ant-white DEI quotas or advocating for Israel at America's expense, and I'm not interested in either.
i mostly agree but two critiques. 1) it's ironic that you stress the need for tailored messaging and then advocate totally doing away with "never again” and similar arguments that aren't “strong horse” enough. there's no reason to jettison this messaging for empathetic (normal) people. i like the way haviv gur makes the case along these lines. 2) your government becoming increasingly religious and promoting mizrachi chest thumpers like ben gvir will aleinate many non jews and liberals, even right wing ones who would otherwise support you.
“It’s like you asked 1986 John Milius to craft your communications strategy, then sprayed some gay on it. “
Wait that’s the entire Boomer Western World. Half of the Western leadership hasn’t processed the Soviet Union is gone, at home MLK and 68 was last week. Hell that was Iran until 2 months ago. The only person ever to raise GenX in any numbers is Trump. And TBF Obama to an extent
Excellent post.
As I have said, after the moral abuses of Covid and Woke cancel culture, the youth are moving into a post-moral Nietsche era of Ubermensch ( epitomized by based/cringe being the metrics instead of right/ wrong & true/ false).
My issue with your thesis is that it assumes that we have fully transitioned and we haven't.
The older " Schindlers list"generation ( including political class) still values Israel gay parades and " the most moral army" and "judeochristian" shtick while the younger one values the based hasbara you speak of.
Israel is getting screwed because they are try to play to both and therefore losing on both.
They're not playing to the second
Ben- gvir and co and randos on social media.
BG is oblivious to the foreign audience, he's completely provincial (therein lies his strength.) Randos are...randos.
I don't think its Nietzschean post modernity entirely. Its a bit more inchoate than that. There's still a strong streak of romantic leftism to it.
I heard a literature professor say that when he has students read the Brothers Karamazov, they dont relate to Ivan, Dmitri or Alyosha anymore. They very strongly relate to Smerdyacov, the spurned, misbegotten child. They uniformly support his right to kill the old man, and say that he had it coming.
Despite plenty of stiff competition, Israeli hasbara remains the most cringe thing I've ever seen. If it didn't exist, antisemites would have had to invent it.
You mention in this article the counter hasbaraites overplaying their hand and I've noticed that too. You could dislike anti Israel propaganda in the past but it's only in the last year, or even more recently, that it has crossed the line into being outright cringe. It's come as a shock to me because, as a 40 something westoid, I'm used to antisemitism being something that is edgy and transgressive, and now for the first time in my life I'm seeing it turn into something that is stale and banal.
As for the idea of coming up with better hasbara, I see that as both impossible and irrelevant. It's impossible for Israel to have good, or even competent, hasbara for the same reason that it is impossible for the IDF to occupy all the territory south of the Zahrani river and expel all of it's inhabitants: the Israeli elite simply do not think that way. Telling them that bragging about "democracy" and gay pride parades while pimping out Jewish (or non Jewish) girls in IDF uniforms doesn't make Israel look good simply doesn't compute to them. They are literally physically incapable of comprehending that reality. The obtuseness of the Israeli elite is simply axiomic to the point that even getting frustrated with it is as futile as getting upset over there being mushrooms after the rain. They aren't going to change because they quite literally *cannot*.
But more importantly, I see hasbara as simply irrelevant. Nothing Israel says is going to change anyone's mind regarding the conflict one way or the other. There are, however, some simple actions that Israel could take which would take the wind out of the sails of enemy propaganda:
1. Give up US aid: in material terms, US aid doesn't matter, but it is probably the single most effective propaganda point that anti Israel people have. It creates the impression that Israel is just some failing, colonial project that is only held up due to Uncle Sam's largesse. That attitude was not a liability in the post Holocaust, Boomer America that you mentioned in this article but it absolutely is a liability in the rootless, multicult, cultural wasteland that is the contemporary USA
2. Give up US weapons: It's true that without US weapons you don't have any Israeli attacks on Iran, but Israel does not need foreign weapons to defend itself from it's completely hapless neighbors. Israel has enough of a military and technological base that it can provide for it's own armament needs as long as it gets away from trying to "out tech" it's adversaries as it has done since the end of the 1967 war.
For the record, I personally remain skeptical about the value of IAF strikes on Iran as even if Iran is entirely neutralized, Pakistan, who has the exact same views towards Israel as Iran does, already has more than enough nukes to wipe out Israel several times over. Turkey and Saudia Arabia are likewise just as hostile to Israel as Iran is and those countries also have the ability to develop nuclear arsenals whenever they please. No amount of US aircraft is going to make it feasible in the long term for Israel to just deny all of it's enemies WMD.
So much of anti Israel propaganda is based on Israel using US dollars and US weapons to kill Palestinian children. Take the US out of the equation and anti hasbara loses a great deal of it's emotional impact
3. Minimize relations with Europe: there is no reason for Israel to antagonize Europe for it's own sake but Israel doesn't need Europe and certainly is not part of Europe. Israel needs to stop trying to force it's way in to things like Eurovision and other European cultural events. Let them do their own thing. It makes Israel look like a pathetic wannabe and triggers resentment among Europeans who already see their continent being overrun with immigrants.
4. Leave the UN, or at least stop complaining about it. If the UN is as awful as Israel says it is, then Israel shouldn't lend it any legitimacy by remaining a member of it. If Israel is determined to remain part of the UN then it should stop bitching when the UN says something hostile to it. It's pathetic.
5. Stop losing wars/relying on air power for everything: I understand that telling the IDF to stop losing wars is a bit like telling a honeybee to stop gathering pollen, but it would be helpful if the IDF could at least string together a few days without utterly humiliating itself. Israel cannot afford these endless, objectiveless wars that drag on for months where the IDF just bombs civilian areas. Not only are such operations humiliatingly ineffective but the optics of it are horrendous. It makes Israel look like a bullying Goliath beating up the scrappy Arab Davids. If Hezbollah had existed in 1952, Israel would have conquered the area up to the Zahrani and expelled the population within a few days. Airpower is a tool, not a solution, especially in unconventional warfare.
Now Israel will never voluntarily make any of these changes because the Israeli elite are retarded trash. Okay, whatever. That's unfortunate, but it is what it is. The good news, however, is that these things will all ultimately be forced on Israel. US aid is going to be gone very soon and a US weapons embargo won't be far behind. US diplomatic support for Israel is also on the way out. Lebanon is never going to make peace with Israel and ultimately Israel is going to either have to conquer southern Lebanon or just evacuate the north entirely.
You should write an article rather than responding with a wall of text
i *should*, but I won't. I can no more stop myself from leaving wall of text comments than Bibi can stop himself from being a cringe boomer
A feeling closely resembling this has been growing in the back of my mind for the last few months. You just stated it far better (and sooner) than I could have. I *really* enjoyed reading this.
To the comments that the existing Israeli establishment isn’t capable of this, I think that’s (yet another reason) why it fundamentally needs to be grassroots… besides the obvious reasons of “authenticity”.
Great analysis and food for thought, beyond hasbara.
Now, please, fix the spelling of "rein" (twice; I'm sorry to be a dick on this, this drives me crazy) and keep on writing
Great article. Spot on
does the strategy as still work if the liberals win big in 2028? does it work with President AOC?
As part of a suite of measures, sure.
I hope I helped 😁
You've mentioned the gay successors to the " Alt Right" , what about the Commie side of the " anti Isreal " coalition?
Why so sad? When tards like Shawn Ryan have grifters like Big Brown Buffalo Cenk on their podcasts, you just know things are looking up. Are you not amused?
I like this, actually. Strong points and analysis.
Where I'd change the emphasis is I would actually try to address the goyim's complaints about what Jews do. The groypers wouldn't be so successful if they didn't have so many valid points.
There's not much you can do about the occasional Jeffrey Epstein--every ethnicity has its sociopaths--but certainly ending the worship of immigration (on the left) and megacorporate business (on the right) might do some good. Stop attacking evangelical Christianity--you really couldn't have asked for better allies. Stop being anti-white--every Michelle Goldberg 'we can replace them' needs to be met with a Stephen Miller 'not a chance'. And the alliance with African-Americans necessitates attacking a lot of the meritocracy that keeps a society running effectively (disparate impact anyone?).
I suspect most Jews are on the left and won't listen to any of this, but eh...nobody did more to knock down affirmative action than Edward Blum (except of course Donald Trump, and he was President). So it'll be up to some future weird obsessive right-wing Jew to utilize that verbal IQ and money for good.
The Jews are not one thing. First, there's no Sanhedrin of The Jews which issues rulings on what The Jews can and can't do, with punishment for noncompliance. In fact, there's not even a punishment for claiming to be a Jew while being a goy (half of the American stats on “Jewish opinions” are made up of precisely this: people who are not halachically Jewish at all.)
Second, the Jews have historically been blamed for being against sexual degeneracy and infanticide, promoting sexual degeneracy and infanticide, being too capitalist, being too socialist, being religious fanatics, being atheists, promoting left wing socialism, promoting right wing fascism, promoting 3rd world immigration, promoting racist deportation, promoting black crime, training racist cops on how to oppress black people…the complaints of the goyim about what Jews do don't make for a very good compass, because they point in all directions.
I agree. There is no Sanhedrin, no central Epstein-Netanyahu council. The Israeli and American Jewish elites can't even agree. Heck, you probably couldn't get Randi Weingarten and Bari Weiss on the same side. (OK, maybe gay rights.) And I won't get into all the Israeli political parties.
The problem is, while you can definitely find Jews on every side (which is why I specifically listed a few on the right), the net effect in this country has been to push the country to the left and in an anti-white direction. That's why I was saying you're not going to be able to do much good.
Technically, I qualify, but the stuff above (and Trump's war on Iran on behalf of Israel) has pretty much alienated me from my heritage at this point. It seems like if you want to be Jewish and be open about it you're either advocating for immigration and ant-white DEI quotas or advocating for Israel at America's expense, and I'm not interested in either.
I spent a long time struggling with similar things to what you are expressing, this article helped me clarify my thinking a lot:
The Return of the Jewish Question by David Azerrad
https://archive.ph/unFli
Google The True Revolution by Joshua Shalet. The book has chapters that touch on these matters.
I would love to hear what Maskil Bina would say in response to this article.
If משכיל בינה dislikes this, then I love it. If משכיל בינה has no opinion simply because he has no time for this post, I can live with that.
i mostly agree but two critiques. 1) it's ironic that you stress the need for tailored messaging and then advocate totally doing away with "never again” and similar arguments that aren't “strong horse” enough. there's no reason to jettison this messaging for empathetic (normal) people. i like the way haviv gur makes the case along these lines. 2) your government becoming increasingly religious and promoting mizrachi chest thumpers like ben gvir will aleinate many non jews and liberals, even right wing ones who would otherwise support you.
I don't think that these people's love can be very strong or useful.
whose love? clearly you recognize the usefullness of america's opinion if you just wrote a whole article on it, right?
Love != an opinion.
I just explained what kind