Leon Kouider: Israel’s push to rehabilitate its shattered image
In 1839, English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote the famous expression “The pen is mightier than the sword” for his play “Richelieu.” The play was loosely based on the 17th century French cardinal and statesman of the same name, and the quote it contains is the key to understanding the deterioration of Israel’s reputation amid its genocidal campaign in Gaza.
The quote, spoken by Lytton’s Richelieu, reflects the notion that powerful ideas and their supplementary narratives can be more effective in dictating the behaviour of others at scale than outright coercion.
Italian philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, thoroughly mapped this notion through his theory of “cultural hegemony.” The basic concept asserts that a ruling class leverages civil institutions as messaging tools to subtly export its social, economic, and political values across a population.
The intention, Gramsci states, is to condition civil society into wilful conformity with the established hierarchy of social relations by viewing them as natural and just rather than carefully constructed and regularly reinforced to preserve the privilege of those in power.
The key to Gramsci’s cultural hegemony, what we call propaganda, is to make the messaging undetectable. If this singular criterion is met, then obedience will follow, as the targets will internalise external ideas as their own reasoned conclusions. If not, the messenger will be exposed as manipulative, putting it at risk of garnering an untrustworthy or even malicious reputation.
Almost two centuries after Lytton’s famous proverb was first written, the Israeli political and media establishment is grappling with its own failure to adequately abide by it.
Israel’s self-styled international image as a perpetual victim… relies on observers around the world remaining misinformed and sheltered from the realities unfolding on the ground and in the halls of power.
On April 17th, 2026, The Jerusalem Post called on the Israeli Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to “redesign” its propaganda strategy. The underlying rationale behind this call to action was growing global contempt for Israel, onset by exposure to its atrocities against Palestinians in the occupied territories.
The Israeli publication lamented that governments can no longer “broadcast one narrative to its citizens and another to foreign capitals” due to the globalised interconnectivity and decentralisation of digital communications.
Israel’s self-styled international image as a perpetual victim, eternally on the brink of succumbing to a surrounding sea of Arab terrorism – a strategy deployed to justify its expansionist vision under the pretence of security – relies on observers around the world remaining misinformed and sheltered from the realities unfolding on the ground and in the halls of power.
This PR dilemma is evidently not lost on Israeli lawmakers. In December 2025, the Knesset quadrupled the Foreign Ministry’s “hasbara” 2026 budget to $729 million to expand and enhance the sophistication of so-called global influence operations.
Hasbara, the Hebrew term for propaganda (euphemised as “public diplomacy”), has long been a staple of Israeli statecraft wherein media platforms are instrumentalised to promote the Zionist cause overseas. Hasbara typically involves the distortion of events to portray Israel in a positive, noble, and even righteous light.
Propaganda is ubiquitous and can easily shape public perception en masse if concealed effectively. For example, the American military-entertainment complex has been a formidable conduit through which soft power was (and still is) delicately exerted across the globe by glamorising US or allied militarism. The Pentagon, on the condition that it would retain a degree of creative influence, has pumped funding into thousands of blockbuster productions, ranging from Marvel superhero flicks to several James Bond titles.
However, a state’s inability to promptly master new technological means of communication will cause it to lose a grip on the discourse surrounding its malign political endeavours, a lapse with grave reputational ramifications. Israel learnt this the hard way.
When conducting its campaign in Gaza, the Israeli military sought to monopolise and control the conflict’s narrative broadcast across the globe by strictly prohibiting any independent media personnel from entering the territory.
The only press inside Gaza was resident Palestinian journalists (at least 234 of whom have been killed by Israel since October 7th, 2023, far more than the number of journalists killed in both World Wars combined) and cherrypicked reporters embedded within the Israeli military, which would dictate what they could see and say.
However, this strategy ultimately failed as Israel was slow to account for one, monumental factor: almost all Gazans had smartphones and access to the internet.
Their ability to record and broadcast Israeli war crimes in Gaza all over social media exposed the deceptive core of Israel’s curated “self-defence” narrative. The problem even extended to Israeli soldiers, who could not refrain from recording themselves demolishing and raiding civilian homes.
This strategic oversight compelled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to identify social media platforms as “the most important weapon” to “secure our base of support.”
The American establishment shared Netanyahu’s concern. In November 2025, Sarah Hurwitz, ex-White House speechwriter under Obama, vocalised her concern not for Israel’s conduct in Gaza, but the fact that the world could see it.
She remarked that younger Jews’ exposure to the “carnage” in Gaza renders them as irrational viewers since the conflict has not yet been sanitised and spun through American mainstream media. Hurwitz also worried that the decades of Holocaust education was turning the Jewish youth against Israel as they see the parallels unfolding in real time.
Evidently, the biggest existential threat to Israel is not Iran nor its regional proxies, but rather political transparency. It should therefore come as no surprise that Israel embarked on a mass disinformation campaign in the United States. Code-named “Project Esther”, it was launched in 2025 to suppress pro-Palestine voices online and deploy a miniature army of paid social media influencers to reshape public opinion in its favour.
READ: Martin Jay: Who controls the red button in Trump’s war room?
However, the damage may already be unsalvageable. At least 12 Western states have since recognised the state of Palestine and the European Union is distancing itself from Israel. Meanwhile 60% of American adults have an unfavourable perception of Israel in 2026, a 53% increase from the year prior.
The romance of a Judeo-supremacist state in the eyes of many sympathisers has been contaminated by their exposure to the ugly racial violence it structurally depends on.
The campaign in Gaza has since been labelled the first “Live-Streamed Genocide”, echoing the Vietnam war’s title as “The First Television War” in which the US military had not yet learnt to restrict the movement and coverage of correspondents in combat zones.
Americans were given a more transparent glimpse into the realities on the ground, such as the 1968 Tet Offensive, and public support shattered as protests erupted across US cities. Almost six decades later, we are witnessing the very same dynamic play out.
If one thing is certain, the nature of Israel’s reputational crisis highlights how Cardinal Richelieu’s adoration of the proverbial pen over the sword will continue to be vindicated for generations to come.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Maghrebi.org. Leon Kouider is a news editor at Maghrebi.org and founder of The Digital Dissident. You can follow him on X: @lkouider24
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