Public diplomacy in Israel refers to Israel's efforts to communicate directly with citizens of other nations to inform and influence their perceptions, with the aim of garnering support or tolerance for the Israeli government's strategic objectives. Historically, these efforts have evolved from being called "propaganda" by early Zionists, with Theodor Herzl advocating such activities in 1899, to the more contemporary Hebrew term "hasbara" introduced by Nahum Sokolow, which translates roughly to "explaining". This communicative strategy seeks to justify actions and is considered reactive and event-driven.
The General Zionists were a centrist Zionist movement and a political party in Israel. The General Zionists supported the leadership of Chaim Weizmann and their views were largely colored by central European culture. The party was considered to have both conservative and liberal wings, and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Likud.
Breaking the Silence (BtS) is an Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO) established in 2004 by veterans of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It is intended to give serving and discharged Israeli personnel and reservists a means to confidentially recount their experiences in the Occupied Territories. Collections of such accounts have been published in order to educate the Israeli public about conditions in these areas.
From the founding of political Zionism in the 1890s, Haredi Jewish leaders voiced objections to its secular orientation, and before the establishment of the State of Israel, the vast majority of Haredi Jews were opposed to Zionism, like early Reform Judaism, but with distinct reasoning. This was chiefly due to the concern that secular nationalism would redefine the Jewish nation from a religious community based in their alliance to God for whom adherence to religious laws were "the essence of the nation's task, purpose, and right to exists," to an ethnic group like any other as well as the view that it was forbidden for the Jews to re-constitute Jewish rule in the Land of Israel before the arrival of the Messiah. Those rabbis who did support Jewish resettlement in Palestine in the late 19th century had no intention to conquer Palestine and declare its independence from the rule of the Ottoman Turks, and some preferred that only observant Jews be allowed to settle there.
Naomi Chazan is an Israeli academic, activist, and politician. As a legislator, Chazan championed the causes of human rights, women's rights, and consumer protection. Chazan is a past president of the New Israel Fund.
Ya'akov Shimshon Shapira was an Israeli jurist and Labor Zionist politician.
David Bar-Rav-Hai was an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Mapai from 1949 until 1955, and again from 1956 until 1965.
Abraham Diskin is an Israeli political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.
Moshe Koppel is an American-Israeli computer scientist, Talmud scholar, and political activist best known for his research on authorship attribution. Together with Shlomo Argamon and Jonathan Schler, he has shown that statistical analysis of word usage in a document can be used to determine an author's gender, age, native language, and personality type.
Yoaz Hendel is an Israeli politician, journalist, author, publicist and public activist. Hendel served as Israel's Minister of Communications, as a member of Israel's Security Cabinet and Ministerial Committee for Legislation, a Member of Knesset and as Chairman of his Party. As of January 2023, Hendel is on a break from politics. He was originally elected as a member of the Blue and White alliance in 2019, before leaving to form Derekh Eretz and serve as its Chairman in March 2020. A military historian by training, Hendel previously worked as a journalist, was the chairman of the Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS), and taught academic courses at Bar-Ilan University. Between 2011 and 2012 he served as Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He was Minister of Communications from May 2020 to December 2020 and from June 2021 to the end of 2022. Hendel completed a doctorate in history.
Gilad Kariv is an Israeli attorney and a politician. He was the former CEO of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism and is currently a member of the Knesset for the Democrats and previously for the Labor Party, in the 25th Knesset.
The Kohelet Policy Forum is a conservative, libertarian, right-wing Israeli nonprofit think tank established in 2012 and run by founder and chair Moshe Koppel alongside Avraham Diskin, Avi Bell and Eugene Kontorovich. Its goal is to influence government policies within Israel.
NGO Monitor is a right-wing organization based in Jerusalem that reports on international NGO activity from a pro-Israel perspective.
Im Tirtzu is a Zionist non-governmental organization based in Israel. Its name is derived from an epigraph appended to the frontispiece of Theodor Herzl's novel Altneuland, 'if you wish it, it is no fairy-tale,' rendered into modern Hebrew in Nahum Sokolow's translation in 1903, as Im tirtzu ein zo agadah.
Conscription of yeshiva students refers to the conscription of Orthodox yeshiva students in Israel. Since 1977, this community had been exempted from military duty or national service. In 2012, service became mandatory with a penalty of imprisonment for up to five years for draft-dodgers, although that law had never been enforced until 2024 during the Israel-Hamas war and Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Gerald M. Steinberg, a professor of politics at Bar Ilan University, is an Israeli academic, political scientist, and political activist. He is founder and president of NGO Monitor, a policy analysis think tank focusing on non-governmental organizations.
Ronen Shoval is an Israeli philosopher. Shoval is the Dean of the Tikvah Fund and head of the Argaman Institute. He is Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer in Politics at Princeton University. Shoval is married, and has five children.
The New Israel Fund (NIF) is a United States–based non-profit NGO established in 1979. It describes its objective as social justice and equality for all Israelis. The New Israel Fund says it has provided $300 million to over 900 Israeli civil society organizations that it describes as "cutting-edge." It describes itself as active on the issues of civil and human rights, women's rights, religious status, human rights for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories, the rights of Israel's Arab minority, and freedom of speech. The New Israel Fund is the largest foreign donor to progressive causes in Israel.
Moshe Alafi is an Israeli producer, director, and creator.
Yedidia Stern is an Israeli jurist and legal scholar. He is an emeritus professor of law at Bar Ilan University and the president and CEO of the Jewish People Policy Institute.
