Israel's Public Diplomacy: The Problems of Hasbara, 1966-1975

by Jonathan Cummings

Overview

Hasbara (explaining), the Israeli variant of public diplomacy, is the subject of endless domestic debate. Israel in the 1960s and 1970s saw many changes in its political and military international stage. This was a period of unusually intensive attention to the problems of hasbara, beginning with the appointment of Yisrael Galili as minister with responsibility for government communications and ending with the dismantling of the Ministry of Information in 1974, less than a year after it had been created. Israel had only been able to “muddle through,” and, at the end, there was no greater sophistication in Israeli thinking and no stronger administrative structure in spite of many organizational changes. Accessible to anyone interested in the history of Israel as well as political history and diplomacy, the book serves as a case study of how entrenched political culture can limit policy options and casts light on the emergence of public diplomacy as a feature of foreign policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442265981
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/27/2016
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	6.33(w) x 9.18(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Jonathan Cummings is a political analyst and consultant and former director of the Israel office of BICOM (Britain Israel Communication and Research Centre). He served as a parliamentary assistant at the Knesset and was a research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction: “Muddling Through”
Chapter 1: The Genesis of Hasbara: From the Diaspora to the Birth of Zionism
Chapter 2: “Trapped in the Past”: Government Communications Policy under Yisrael Galili
Chapter 3: Breech Birth: The Introduction of Television to Israel
Chapter 4: “The Image Problem of a Tough Victor”: After the Six-Day War
Chapter 5: Deterioration and Diffusion: Before and After the Yom Kippur War
Chapter 6: The Rise and Fall of the Ministry of Information
Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

A significant and interesting contribution to the historical analysis of public diplomacy. An excellent case study of the public diplomacy of a new state, Israel, during a critical period of several major wars with its neighbors. Presents and evaluates organizational and policy challenges in public diplomacy, and ways to fix them. Well-grounded in documents, memoirs, biographies, and interviews.

Professor Eytan Gilboa

[This book] is timely and welcome...

Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs

Israel’s Public Diplomacyserves as a useful introduction to Israeli deliberations on international image-making at a crucial juncture, before and after the 1967 war; a transformative period for the image of Israel in the Western world.

Journal of Contemporary History

Hasbara has become synonymous with Israel's heavy-handed efforts at making its case on the international stage. By unpicking the details of a critical phase of Israeli history, Jonathan Cummings has reclaimed the centrality of Israel's public diplomacy as an element of the country's foreign policy. This is an important book and a compelling read.

Nachman Shai

This rigorous, penetrating and long-overdue study examines Israel's international public opinion efforts. In his highly readable and thoroughly researched book, Jonathan Cummings successfully tackles the key problems of Israel's "hasbara" and has produced the definitive work on this sensitive topic.

Meron Medzini