It's clear from the growing antisemitism around the world that traditional hasbara is no longer working, if it ever worked at all. The problem is that we responded with calm, well-reasoned arguments, presenting empirical facts and evidence, and we assume that the other side will do the same. Moreover, this will never actually convince them of anything. The strategy has been proven wrong too many times to be taken seriously.
Consider how a typical interaction between a Zionist and an Anti-Zionist goes.
anti-Zionist: Free Palestine!
Zionist: Actually, the Palestinian Arabs were given multiple chances for self-governance. Beginning with the 1947 UN partition plan. The Jewish Agency accepted the plan, although it had serious reservations about the proposed borders. The Arab Higher Committee and the surrounding Arab states rejected it. The UN itself records that the Palestinian Arab leadership rejected partition and advocated an independent Arab state encompassing the whole of Palestine. After the founding of the State of Israel….
anti-Zionist: FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA!
Zionist: Perhaps you don't understand the actual meaning of what you're saying. You see, the "sea" in question is the Mediterranean Sea, and the "river" is the Jordan River, so in effect, what you're chanting for is actually a full expulsion of all Jews from…
anti-Zionist: Death to Zio baby killers!
And so it goes. The haters scream slogans and make outrageous claims, and the Jews attempt to answer the accusations calmly and present a responsible defense. This would be fine in a university debate, but this isn't what anti-Zionists are looking for. What they're looking for is to be the loudest and the angriest until they scare us away. They don't care about what we have to say. They don't even really care about what they have to say, as long as it does its purpose.
French philosopher, political activist, and writer Jean-Paul Sartre said it best when he wrote that:
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors.
"They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."
I saw this in action on a recent news program. The interview had an Israeli representative and a Palestinian Arab representative on, the topic being the future of Gaza. The Palestinian Arab launched out of the gate with an angry harangue, accusing Israel of various crimes and villainies. To her credit, the Israeli representative was prepared. She began a long, detailed rebuttal, rationally explaining herself. For about two seconds.
Then the Palestinian Arab started screaming at her with his next wild accusation. At one point, she attempted to bring out a series of graphs to support her data. Unsurprisingly, she was never given a chance to explain them.
It was just as well. The average American isn't won over with graphs and pie charts. They're won over by whoever is the most compelling. And it was not the Israeli. She might have won the moral high ground, but she lost the audience.
It is, in fact, the moral high ground that we use to justify our current mode of operation. As if being polite and respectful is more important than what winning means for us. We rightly mocked Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel when she urged Jewish Democrats to place the needs of the rest of humanity above their own safety and security during an August 30, 2026, event. But we still need to learn to put our own safety and security above our sense of propriety and fair play.
It's time to flip the script. We need to stop starting from the premise that what Israel needs is good PR. Jews today don't need good PR any more than did the Jews in Nazi Germany. Instead, we need to embrace the opposite. That anti-Zionism needs bad PR. That it is a hate movement and needs to be exposed and treated as such.
I'm not a "sports guy" by any means, although on my high school basketball team I once came very close to scoring a basket. But I remember the old saying, "The best defense is a good offense." It's an adage that has been applied to many fields of endeavor, including games and military combat, and it's time we apply it to ourselves.
It's time to change tactics. The old way was to defend and explain. The new way is to attack and make them justify everything.
Instead of defending Israel, attack anti-Zionism and expose it as the hate movement that it is. Instead of trying to convince people of the merits of Zionism, teach about the inherent evils and history of the anti-Zionist movement. Instead of explaining ourselves, make them explain themselves.
It's very simple. We need to stop talking about ourselves and to start talking about them. To make them the ones who have to justify themselves.
They've turned "Zionist" into a dirty word. We need to make the word "anti-Zionist" into something just as reviled.
Doing this will shift the entire starting point of the debate. As it is, the hate movement has moved the goalpost so far that their absurd claims that Israel is committing a genocide is taken as the beginning of the debate. Not even "Is Israel committing genocide?" It's simply assumed until proved otherwise. anti-Zionists know that whoever controls the starting point of the debate controls the entire debate parameters. They also know that whoever chooses the wording of the debate controls the entire narrative.
The anti-Zionists have been remarkably successful. It's no surprise. They have billions in Arab funding, decades of insinuating themselves into American institutions, and a comprehensive long-term strategy. We will definitely need to play catch-up. The advantage we have is that they've already done the hard work for us. They've shown us exactly what we need to say and do to win.
We need to start learning from their examples. To take the fight to them first, to define what the words mean, and to make them try to justify themselves. We've spent years witnessing their tactics in action. It's time to show them how good Jews are at learning.
Critics will argue that we can't let ourselves sink to their level. We must, they argue, be the better people. After all, Friedrich Nietzsche famously warned in his 1886 book Beyond Good and Evil. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."
Sadly, in a fight for our survival, we don't have the luxury of high-mindedness. Zionists around the world must end the historical position of Jews as passive victims who must rely on the sympathy and goodwill of the outside world. They must stand tall and tell the angry world that Jewish strength, sovereignty, and self-defense in the State of Israel are not something to justify. They are the starting point in any discussion.
Even if this new aggressive stance and policies draw international condemnation, it's still the way to go. It's not as if they liked us in the first place.
Going on the attack doesn't mean breaking the rules. In this case, it simply means playing by the same rules they play by. We may not like the rules, but we didn't choose them. And if we have to give up the high road to stoop to their level, then it only means we have to hit them where they are.
This is a battle for nothing less than our survival. Anything less than that is not important. It's impossible to fight for your life if you're concerned about getting yourself dirty in the process.
Ilan Goodman is a professor of art history, as well as a museum collections professional and exhibition curator. He also serves as a rabbi and educator. He made Aliyah to Israel in 2011 and lives with his wife and children in Beit Shemesh.
...