The world is against us, but what does that have to do with us? | Nadav Tamir

Large parts of the public, the media, and certainly Israeli politics have developed the theory of 'hasbara' (public diplomacy) into an art form, based on a victimhood approach according to which the more our status in the world deteriorates, the smaller our share of responsibility for it, and the more there are endless other culprits.

This is a perception that cannot be challenged because it is based on the fact that everything that happens 'justifies' it. Thus, if more countries distance themselves from us, students demonstrate around the world, Jews, both young and old, distance themselves from Israel and what it represents, and public opinion is against us, the conclusion is always one and it is clear: the world has gone crazy.

Us? As usual, we are always right.

The immediate suspect is always antisemitism. It does indeed exist, raises its head, and requires a determined struggle. But in the Israeli discourse, it has long been not just a dangerous phenomenon, but also an image-laundering machine. Every criticism is put into the washing machine, washed and wrung out well, and comes out as proof of hatred of Jews. Anyone who criticizes Israel is automatically labeled an antisemite. This way, one can avoid the unpleasant question of whether perhaps the policy of the Israeli government has something to do with how the State of Israel is perceived in the world. This is how one escapes from any self-accountability.

When antisemitism is not enough, Qatari money arrives. It, as it turns out, funds almost everything: protests on campuses, editorials, human rights organizations, criticism in Congress, and perhaps also the waiter in Paris who did not smile at Israelis (all this, of course, except for the proven influence on the people closest to the Prime Minister of Israel who were employed in his office). There is no doubt that Qatar has money and influence. It is just convenient to forget that money, as much as it may be, struggles to produce daily images, statements, and decisions that incite the whole world against Israel, as the Israeli government provides for free.

And there are, of course, the progressives - they are especially guilty because they insist on demanding from Israel the standards of a liberal and humane state, and do not judge us as they judge dictatorships like Russia and China, from which there are no expectations. There are, of course, deranged progressives, like those who deny the State of Israel's right to exist, but the tendency among us is to put all the left in the same box. After all, no one will teach us what it is to be liberal, but what can be done if there are those in the world who demand from us not only to say that we are liberal, but also to prove it in our conduct, which is increasingly distancing itself from liberal values that are the heritage of democratic countries.

There is, of course, the easy explanation for why Europe is so critical of us, since according to the 'hasbara experts', Muslim immigrants have taken over politics there, while the influence of Muslims in Europe is exactly the opposite: they have caused the strengthening of the racist right, which actually really likes our right-wing governments. The deep reason for Europe's distancing from Israel is Israel's distancing from the democratic and liberal values that the vast majority of European countries believe in.

And if that doesn't work either, one can always pull out the 'self-hating Jews' card. This is an incredibly useful category: any Jew who loves Israel but disagrees with its government's policy is immediately declared a self-hating 'auto-antisemite'. This saves the need to deal with the possibility that one can be a Zionist Jew who loves Israel, but opposes its government's policy, and I write this from personal experience.

The common denominator of all these explanations is simple: they all exempt us from the need to look in the mirror. Because in the mirror, a country might be reflected whose government disregards international law, rejects a political solution, a central component of which is extremist and racist parties, and it itself embraces extremists and racists around the world, while at the same time being convinced that hasbara (or some might say propaganda) is a substitute for policy.

Unfortunately, even in the camp that calls itself liberal, there are many who believe that the problem is only in the failure of hasbara. That if only we could replicate Yoseph Haddad, Noa Tishby, and Einat Wilf, we could convince the nations of the world that the problem is not with us.

This approach, of course, leads to the strengthening of those elements that are not interested in examining Israel's policy problems. Moreover, those 'explainers' on behalf of the government and with its encouragement do not convince anyone except those who are already convinced of the righteousness of our path, and they arouse antagonism and even ridicule among the target audiences.

These mechanisms are intended to continue to seal Israel off from a real investigation of its policy and are intended to avoid dealing with the deep problem underlying our moral and image deterioration, which is years of control over a foreign people. They also harm the ability of the public in Israel to understand that the deep interest of the state's security is in the State of Israel's belonging to the democratic liberal nations.

I do not intend to argue that there are no problems in the world's attitude toward Israel, but there are also very many problems in our conduct, which we should deal with and not ignore - on these we have more influence.

Israel's problem is not just that the world does not understand us, or hates us because of prejudices. The problem is also that the world sees the things we keep insisting on closing our eyes to. Is the perspective of many in the world partial? Certainly. Is it sometimes distorted and even hostile? No doubt. But to the same extent, it is also often more realistic than the story we insist on selling to ourselves - of being the absolute victims. Ignoring reality is dangerous for Israel, for its resilience, and for its ability to deal with the challenges facing it.

The victims of October 7 were indeed victims of absolute evil, but the world sees the broader story, the one that many in Israel insist on ignoring, and this ignoring only leads to a continuous deterioration in Israel's status and digging into the sand, from which it becomes harder to escape every day.

A healthy country is not a country that never makes mistakes, but a country that is capable of recognizing its mistakes and correcting them. The correction that Israel needs will never be complete if we continue to blame the whole world, except ourselves.

The author is the CEO of J Street Israel and a former Consul General in Boston.