A model, a comedian and a makeup influencer walk into Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
No, that’s not a joke – it’s part of how Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar is trying to formulate a new public diplomacy, or hasbara, strategy for Israel.
The Foreign Ministry’s budget for public diplomacy in 2025 is expected to be $150 million — over 20 times what it was before the war began in 2023.
Sa’ar insisted on the major budget increase when he and his United Right Party joined the governing coalition last month and he became foreign minister. At the time, Sa’ar said the budget would go toward “media campaigns abroad, in the foreign press, on social media, and more,” including “concentrated activity on U.S. campuses to change their attitude towards Israel and its policies.”
What he does not have yet is a plan for what to do with all of that money – and that’s where the influencers come in.
Sa’ar and his deputy, Sharren Haskel, have been holding wide-ranging brainstorming sessions with different groups of people with experience in the public diplomacy field to get ideas.
Dozens of “influencers and public opinion leaders,” as the Foreign Ministry described them, have attended, ranging from people like former government spokesman Eylon Levy, former IDF English-language spokesman and current Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellow Jonathan Conricus, Institute for National Security Studies fellow Ophir Dayan and StandWithUs Jerusalem Executive Director Michael Dickson to makeup YouTuber-turned-hasbara influencer Ashley Waxman-Bakshi, Israeli model Nataly Dadon and comedian Yohay Sponder.
Sa’ar held another meeting this Thursday with leading figures in civil society organizations that deal with public diplomacy-adjacent matters, including the Jewish Agency, ELNET, AJC, Nefesh B’Nefesh, NGO Monitor, the World Zionist Organization and Honest Reporting.