Israel has been at war with Hamas and Hezbollah for a month, and its efforts to engage in public diplomacy or hasbarah to counter anti-Israel messages on social media have never been more critical for the country. Despite this, the budget for getting out Israel's side of the story in Spanish, Persian, and Russian has run out, forcing these efforts to shut down.
According to a report by Ynet, an internal Foreign Ministry document explained how despite significant efforts on the part of hasbarah workers in languages such as Spanish, including many viral posts and tweets on social media platforms, the budget for these workers has run out and the government shows no sign of interest in increasing the number of hours for workers or even fully compensating workers for the time they spent defending Israel.
Knesset Hasbarah Subcommittee Chairman MK Zeev Elkin responded to this news by insisting that hasbarah and public diplomacy is no less a war front than actual fronts where the IDF is fighting, and that cutting costs here would be like saying that the IDF can't use or purchase vital weapons because of how expensive they are.
Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid was less sympathetic to the Foreign Ministry's plight, posting on X/Twitter that there were many things the ministry could do which would not cost the country an extra cent, such as interviewing for foreign media, providing press briefings in foreign languages, working with influencers and Jewish communities and most importantly "stop crying, for God's sake, and get to work."
