Israel’s Spin Machine Just Broke; Wild Claims Finally Go Too Far

Israel’s own media man has said the quiet part out loud about Israeli news reporting: fake news works, truth doesn’t. Right, so Israeli propaganda, hasbara, the government financing of pro Israel talking points which for years has shielded the state from being held to account for its worst excesses, it’s taken a battering in recent years, rightly so, being exposed for what it is, no matter how much Israel clings to it being the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and anyone saying otherwise is an antisemite. Well, Benjamin Netanyahu’s press spokesman has now been caught on video appearing to openly brag that fake news works, that truth does not actually matter, and that facts do not matter, and if you are Israel and you have spent years demanding to be treated as the truthful side while everybody else gets smeared as liars, fanatics or useful idiots, that is not a bad afternoon in the press office, that is a self-inflicted credibility hit. Eli Hazan is the man in that clip and he is not some anonymous online gobsh*te either, he is a senior Likud operator who has served as Netanyahu’s spokesman and now sits around the part of the Israeli state that deals with journalists and press access. So the story here is not that a random loudmouth said something stupid, or even said something we didn’t know already really. The story is that a man from inside Netanyahu’s media machine itself has now said the quiet part out loud, thrown hasbara under the bus, admitted the truth of it all and as such, Israel doesn’t just look dishonest on one story, it looks dishonest in every story, when a major comms official says on camera the truth doesn’t matter. So who is Eli Hazan then? Well, Israel’s embassy in Singapore says he served as Likud’s foreign affairs director from 2014 to 2023 and that in 2021 he became spokesperson for then opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. So this is very much a man from the political machine itself. Israel’s Government Press Office pages matter for the same reason because they tell you what kind of machinery we are talking about here. This office issues press cards, handles visiting journalist accreditation and sits exactly where state messaging meets the foreign press. So the clip is not embarrassing because a politician said something silly. The clip is embarrassing because a man from the part of the system that deals with journalists appears to have admitted that truth is not the working standard inside that system, so what does that say of Israeli journalism more widely?