journo and sworn enemy of the Hasbarati; in a long-term dysfunctional relationship with my comment section
I'd rather be in New Orleans
Joined December 2023
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It is just so unbelievably cynical.
The prime minister of Israel spent all of Election Day texting scare tweets about Arabs “descending on the polls” in order to “steal the election.”
Please take three short seconds to think about what would happen if Mamdani had tweeted before his election, “Jews are heading to the polls in droves. This is a war over New York City.” And then attached a photo of Birkat Cohanim at the Kotel as proof.
Now take three more seconds and imagine his tactic working.
Then, after Arab citizens gathered themselves up and exercised their nonviolent, legal right to participate in their country’s free and fair election, the change bloc – the good guys. The liberals. The we-are-not-our-government, time-for-a-change, Bibi-must-go guys – say to their fellow citizens, “Sorry, did you think your vote mattered? Oh no no no no no. We’ll throw everything else away before we allow your leaders to have a seat in our government.”
And not only will the Hasbarists never admit any of this, but they are sharing some of the exact same photos Bibi used to terrify his base into voting. Only they are pretending to be proud. “Look at our incredible values at work. Look at all these Arabs voting. We just love it so much. Apartheid? Here? In the only democracy in the Middle East? We don’t think so.”
Even when the comment section is full of people revealing the truth, admitting they don’t actually think Arabs should have the right to vote, spewing vile, racist comments about the way they are dressed, “what that polling station must have smelled like,” even that is not enough.
Hasbara is a drug. It is consumed by addicts who take it to dull the pain of having to confront the truth. And it is constantly being pushed by shameless and aggressive dealers who do not care how dangerous it is.
And always remember: no matter how bleak things look, there will always be a tiny sliver of light peeking through the darkness.
Approximately 14 people voted for this guy and even his own supporters are pissed at him.
As we enter the home stretch in the lead-up to Israel’s election, the attack ads are growing more and more vicious.
Several candidates have now accused each other of the vile act of.. helping sick children in Gaza.
Tonight, Yoseph Haddad is firing back with his adamant denial: Come on guys. You know me. I would never ever help sick kids in Gaza. I was only pretending to in order to make Israel look good!
There truly is no bottom.
I’ll leave the exit poll commentary to the more experienced pollsters.
But at the end of this very long night, I am thinking about a protest I covered back in February.
Tens of thousands of Arab citizens of Israel took to the streets of Tel Aviv - joined by smaller numbers of Jewish ones - demanding an end to the violence that has plagued the Arab sector for all of Ben-Gvir’s tenure as National Security Minister.
At the end of the night, after the speeches were over and most people had cleared out, members of the Pink Front - one of Israel's largest activist groups - and a handful of protesters stayed behind to chant and drum a little longer.
This group, led by many artists and performers, is used to taking the lead at demonstrations and marches - and they're very good at it. I've watched them countless times arrive at events that were just getting started, or that needed an infusion of energy, and galvanize entire crowds very quickly.
That's how this particular circle began as well. Pink Front members handed over their megaphones to the Arabs, and started with some of their familiar chants.
But there was a hesitation among the young men, who couldn’t quite find their rhythm.
It took less than a minute for the Pino Front members to read the situation and course-correct. They stepped back, giving space so that those whose lives are most directly affected could take the lead.
And you can see them do exactly that, proudly and powerfully. Those who didn't know Arabic listened for a few rounds before tentatively joining in. Activists stood shoulder to shoulder, but with the Arabs standing just a little taller (literally).
"Raise, raise, raise your voice.
Enough, our people, of your silence."
Tonight, once again they have raised their voices. As the prime minister attempted to scare his base into voting for him, by sending out frantic warnings that the Arabs “were galloping to the polls” they did exactly that, in record breaking numbers. The Arab parties secured an historic 18 seats. And many believe they now hold the key to each bloc’s ability to form a government.
Change isn’t coming. It has come.
“Raise, raise, raise your voice.” The world is listening.
One more moment from the night that I had forgotten until I was looking through my photos for this post. As the square emptied out, Mansour Abbas was holding court with many people coming over to say goodbye. At one point he happened to catch my eye. I don’t know if he could tell that I was worried, that I didn’t know if the protests would be enough, that I was utterly exhausted by how much the world seems stacked against people who just want their kids to come home safely from school. Maybe he didn’t even give it that much thought. But, in any case, he smiled and he nodded in a way that was clearly meant to say, it will be okay.
Being a Hasbarist really does seem like the most boring job in the whole world. You wake up, open social media, and like a robot you have to regurgitate the same exact mindless tripe as all the other Hasbara soldiers.
This one must be especially painful cause you have to pretend want Arabs to vote (though the comment section is doing a great job of revealing the truth.)
I do want to shout out two men who managed to put their own unique twist on the standard script:
- Hillel Fuld who cut out the middle man and just went straight to “There is no apartheid but I wish there was”
- Ambassador Huckabee with “There is no apartheid except I apartheid-ed them in my post.”
Also: one man’s Hasbara is another man’s scare tactic
Netanyahu rails nonstop against alleged high Arab turnout, calls it 'emergency' haaretz.com/israel-news/elec…
There’s always two phases of Hasbara - the ones who create it and the ones who share it. Looking over this list, it’s a lot of phase 1ers - those who know that a) the apartheid accusation refers to Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, b) the Knesset voted to ban all Arab parties c) Arab Israelis are subject to plenty of discrimination both systematic and societal.
As soon as your Aunt Phyllis posts it on Facebook, that’s how you know we’re in phase 2.
This is Netanyahu mouthpiece Amit Segal’s favorite type of pseudo-journalism. Sew just enough doubt so as not to accuse outright and let the base take it from there.
By the way, answers his own question twenty minutes later but that’s of course not the message being pass around Bibi supporter WhatsApp groups.
Let me sum up the entire comment section for you:
75%: “Because of October 7 we should definitely keep doing the exact same thing we were doing before, on, and after October 7! It hasn’t worked until now which is how we know we have no choice but to continue doing it!”
25%: “Only more so.”
Voted with my soul and my brain. Zero regrets.
Moshe Fieglin, leader of the Identity Party, has said many times he believes all babies in Gaza should die. And that soldiers should refuse orders to distribute humanitarian aid.
But people are freaking out because he wants to close the airport on Shabbat.
Many many many dead babies in Gaza…. I get that this is good.”
In an interview with Channel 12 on Wednesday, far-Right lawmaker Moshe Feiglin, doubled down on comments he made after October 7, 2023 saying “I didn’t see the Americans leaving any sort of humanitarian corridor in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.”
Feiglin is the head of Israel’s Identity party which recently merged with Bezalel Smotritch’s Religious Zionism party ahead of the upcoming election. The two will use each other to drag themselves over the electoral threshold needed to qualify. Feiglin also has big plans to be made Minister of Defense.
While they wait for the polls to close, the two men can swap arrest stories. In 1997, Feiglin was arrested and convicted of sedition for his anti-Oslo Accord activism. (Today, he’d probably be honored in the Knesset.) while Smotrich was arrested in 2005 after he and a group of fellow settlers were found with 185 gallons of fuel and oil which they allegedly planned to use to blow up parts of Ayalon Highway in protest of Israel’s disengagement from Gaza.
Later in the interview, when asked whether he believed in LGBTQ rights, Feiglin replied with the classic, “What about rights for straight people?”
Sometimes there’s a nuanced argument to be had about someone legacy, about the timing of honest critique versus letting their loved ones mourn.
Not today though.
Today the world is just a little less racist, a little less cruel.
Increase that amount by doing something kind for someone who doesn’t look like you, whose life is harder than you can possibly imagine. Someone the world and the system have been impossibly unfair to. Do it in Sheffi’s name.
Because she would have hated that.
One of the things the Hasbarati LOVE to do is take a cause they do not support, and in fact actively campaign against, and co-opt it for their own agenda.
This rally was held by hostages and and victims of Oct. 7 and their families. For three years, they have been demanding a general commission of inquiry to investigate the failures of October 7, which the government refuses to do because they do not want the truth to come out.
There are literally dozens of influencers in Israel right now, not a single one showed up. Nor are any of them posting anything about it other than “Look at our democracy! We win again.”
The second the hostages came home and could no longer be used to defend Israel’s actions in Gaza or accuse anyone and everyone of antisemitism , the Hasbarists completely stopped talking about them.
Occasionally, when something good happens like a wedding or a birth, they will dust them off again for their “Am Yisrael Chai! This is what victory looks like!” propaganda.
But actually amplifying their pleas for answers? Acknowledging the families who feel deserted by their own government, both then and now?
Literally never.
Today, activists from Tzav 9 once again tried to block humanitarian aid from getting into Gaza.
I know that this doesn’t even come close to the actual bombs, especially since it is entirely symbolic. And yet I have always found it a uniquely horrifying act.
I cannot help but think about the mothers there, dressed in religious garb, who hours earlier packed up their diaper bags with the water bottle and the extra snacks and buckled their babies safely into their car seats. “Come on, little one, it’s time to make sure other children can’t have these same things.”
I think about them bringing their toddlers into the street to sit down in front of the trucks. Are they confused? Do they wonder why no one is yanking them back from the curb this time? Why they are not only allowed to play in the road, but their mommies seem to want them to?
And I think about my own kids. How difficult it is to navigate the enormous parental burden of instilling in them our values. How I never feel like I know the right thing to say, the best answer to give.
Still, I’m not sure I understand how you can have a child and also wish suffering on someone else’s.
