SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Fascinating article in Ynet on the complete failure of Israeli hasbara due to the extremism of the Netanyahu government

https://x.com/academic_la/status/2092353368736092491

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim

Fascinating article in Ynet on the complete failure of Israeli hasbara due to the extremism of the Netanyahu government. Staff in the Israeli Foreign ministry are bemoaning a series of actions that they say were "a nail in the coffin of Israeli legitimacy in Judea and Samaria." Here are the events mentioned in the piece: 

1) The judicial overhaul (early 2023): undermined Israeli reputation as a democracy.  

2 Smotrich saying: "Israel should erase Hawara" (Feb/Mar 2023)

3) Smotrich's Paris speech: "There's no such thing as a Palestinian" (2023): Plus the map behind him showing "Greater Israel" including Jordanian territory. 

4) Repeal of part of the Disengagement Law (2023): Allowing renewed Israeli presence in the northern West Bank.

5) Ben Gvir saying: "My right to move in Judea and Samaria matters more than Arabs' freedom of movement" (Aug 2023) 

6) Minister Amichai Eliyahu's "atomic bomb on Gaza" remark (Nov 2023) 

7) The "Victory Conference" (Jan 2024) – Ten ministers attended a conference calling for renewed Jewish settlement in Gaza and northern Samaria.

8) Ben Gvir at the Temple Mount (Aug 2024): Repeated visits/statements.

9) Smotrich: "Perhaps just and moral" to starve two million Gazans (Aug 2024) 

10) West Bank policy shifts (2024): Cabinet approval of five outposts, expanded settlement construction, and moves toward de facto annexation.

11) UNRWA law (Oct 2024): Knesset banned UNRWA activity in Israel

12) Smotrich: "Keep riding camels in the desert" (Oct 2025): Response to Saudi Arabia's normalization conditions.

13) E1 settlement construction plan (recent weeks) – ~1,200 housing units between Jerusalem and Ma'ale Adumim; Smotrich had said the plan meant "the idea of a Palestinian state is erased."

14) Ben Gvir's video with detained Gaza flotilla activists (May 2025) –

15) MK Zvi Sukkot destroying a Palestinian memorial in Madama village. The triggering event for the piece; the IDF called his conduct "deceptive and manipulative."

The article ends with some polls showing the collapse of the Israeli position and support in the world and concludes it is hard to divorce these events from the deterioration. Some Israelis realize the hole they have dug themselves, including many in the Foreign Ministry.