(JTA) — The Israeli government plans to offset wartime spending and an economic slowdown with tax hikes and deep cuts to public services. But the proposed budget for 2025 also includes a massive new allocation: toward pro-Israel advocacy efforts abroad.
Under the new budget, Israel’s Foreign Ministry will receive $150 million, on top of what it gets for its existing activities, for what’s officially known as public diplomacy, or in Hebrew, hasbara. That sum is more than 20 times what such efforts have typically been allotted in past years.
The dramatic expenditure is the result of a political deal that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck last month to shore up his governing coalition. Politician Gideon Saar and his New Hope party agreed to rejoin the coalition in return for the funding and the appointment of Saar as Israel’s foreign minister.
The news comes as public opinion about Israel in the United States and elsewhere around the world has been intensely battered as a result of a war that has left the neighboring Gaza Strip in ruins with much of its population facing displacement, disease, and hunger.
Saar doesn’t have a detailed plan for how to spend the money yet, but at the time he signed the coalition agreement with Netanyahu, his office released a statement saying it would be used to influence sentiment in the foreign press and on social media.
A focus on US college campuses
Saar’s statement also said he foresees a focus on American college campuses, which have been rocked by pro-Palestinian protests since the war broke out when Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023. The statement noted that its activity will be carried out in cooperation with American Jewish groups and alongside similar efforts by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry.
“Israel’s hasbara efforts and consciousness warfare have for decades not received the critical and life-saving resources and tools they require,” Saar told the Israeli newspaper Maariv. “I am determined to make a change. Every shekel devoted to this cause is an investment, not an expense, and will strengthen Israel and its standing in the world.”
Saar and his team have been holding brainstorming sessions with a wide array of individuals and groups who are involved in pro-Israel advocacy around the world, Jewish Insider reported. Participants include social media influencers, cultural figures, professional hasbara advocates and representatives of various Jewish groups.
Whatever comes of the planning, the Israeli government will attempt to improve upon its weak record of executing similar, albeit smaller advocacy initiatives in the past. Millions spent on the national effort against antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel around the world over the past decade have not produced almost any fruit in the eyes of Israeli government officials, according to reporting from investigative journalist Uri Blau in the Israeli digital outlet Shomrim.
“This activity has failed by every conceivable parameter,” Avi Cohen-Scali, the director general of the Ministry of Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism told Shomrim.