Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, continues to bring shame onto Israel, casting it in a ridiculous light. It's unfortunate that at such a critical time, there was no consideration of sending this childish ambassador home and replacing him with someone of stature to represent us in a more dignified way.
During a UN General Assembly meeting discussing a call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, Erdan held up a sign with the phone number of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas's leader in Gaza. It said: "If you want a cease-fire, call him." (The number, incidentally, was that of the Hamas information bureau).
It was an infantile gesture reeking of an attempt to be creative, taken from the high-tech playbook in which young entrepreneurs are taught that they have but a few seconds to sell an idea. The gimmick sent the message that Israel was trying to enlist support just like one raises capital, implying that for Israel, diplomacy is a branch of marketing.
In all fairness, one must admit that Erdan's style is not just an _expression_ of his mental maturity. His consistent choice of gimmicks (let us not forget the yellow Star of Davidhe wore as a sign of protest, relegating the State of Israel to the status of a death camp) is indicative of a broader issue, which is that Israeli intelligence is trapped inside a mindset of hasbara that "explains" Israel. It appears that Israel really believes it can remove problems through some "ingenious" display or another. After all, we are living in the era of Netanyahu, the maestro of presentations.
One might have expected that the wave of violence that swept over Israel on October 7 would have smashed the hasbara bubble. In fact, this is what appeared to have happened at first. The government fell silent, with the media and the public trying to understand what was happening. Cabinet members, which had until then never stopped talking, appeared to have swallowed their tongues, hiding far from public view. They were feeling guilt and shame. This was before the ground operation began, when fear and horror were in the air. Maybe Military Intelligence didn't know what was going on? Maybe we're less powerful than we thought? Less smart? Maybe there's a chance we'll lose?
Israel is no longer at that point. Something changed the moment the IDF entered the Gaza Strip and Israel crossed the barrier of fear. Thinking retreated and intelligence returned to its comfort zone of hasbara. Any gnawing doubts vanished. There really isn't any debate between people who think differently – it seems that no one does – and the desire to understand what happened has been silenced by explanations prepared in advance, by hasbara.
Israel isn't truly prepared to sit with the doubts that erupted on October 7, or to ask the big questions. This partly explains the refusal to discuss any context, with a prevailing collective disdain for the word "context" itself. As though what Israel is doing in Gaza now isn't justified in its eyes because of the context of October 7. Do only Israel's reactions exist within a context that justifies them?
Israel prefers public diplomacy over a real debate, since it's not ready for one. Israel doesn't have a notion of what it is, of where it is going, and what vision it has for the future in its relations with the Palestinians living under its military rule.
Israel is unwilling to talk about the context because it refuses to share responsibility for what happened to it, preferring to see itself as a Jewish victim facing a spontaneous wave of antisemitism – as if the group attacking it could just as easily have been some fanatical group from Belgium – rather than bearing the heavy burden of responsibility, without which it will be impossible to change reality. So maybe, just leave Erdan where he is after all.