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.

  • passiveaggressivesonar@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    The hasbara has been extremely sloppy as of late and failing miserably so it’s understandable. Not sure what a more sophisticated genocide denial is going to do

    • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      It has always been sloppy. They have about two layers of lies to retort to debunks and then any person looking into Israel realizes the entire countries history is lies and more lies.

    • eldavi@lemmy.ml
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      18 days ago

      aipac has proven that this is not true and americans have proven that propaganda works.

      doubling down on hasbara will work for the same reason tiktok is getting banned and reddit’s most active user localities are american military bases and gov’t agencies; manufacturing consent and shaping the narrative are the best forms of propaganda since its victims refuse to accept that they’ve been victimized.

      if we’re paying attention; we’ll see this used on luigi to great effect.

  • theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works
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    18 days ago

    But Russian disinformation! We should be questioning whether or not every piece of information and every single person that does not explicitly and loudly repeat western imperialist talking points is from a Russian! Israel is the good guys, they wouldn’t spend more on misinformation than Russia!

  • j4k3@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    Anybody else always take these numbers and divide by 100k for a very rough overestimate of what kinds of Western labor an amount is capable of?

    Essentially, this is saying 1500 people working together for control over dialogue are capable of reshaping the entire world view. I don’t support genocide, but I can also see calculated, competent, and very capable people. When they put a number on such an objective, it is not some random guess buy. Just 1500 to take the reigns of the collective public mind.

  • The Israeli government plans to offset wartime spending and an economic slowdown with tax hikes and deep cuts to public services.

    one hopes this encourages some to leave Palestine