The Manichean Psychology of Hasbara Culture w/ Yakov Hirsch

On this edition of Parallax Views, recorded in May, a lengthy, almost 3 hour conversation with Yakov Hirsch. You can Yakov's writings at his new Substack here.

Although Hirsch is perhaps best-known as professional poker player, he has in recent years began commenting on the psychology of what he calls "Hasbara Culture". Hasbara, for those unfamiliar, is more or less a term that means propaganda and apologia for the state of Israel. Hirsch's concept of hasbara culture, however goes far beyond that. He argues that prominent commentators in the U.S. like Bari Weiss, Eve Barlow, Brett Stephens, and The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg have come to internalize hasabara so much that it has become a culture, a mindset, an identity in and of itself that distorts reality in ways that are harmful to not only Palestinians but also Jews, both in Israel and abroad.

Hirsch's thinking on these matters first came to prominence through and article he wrote for Tablet Magazine entitled "Hasbara Culture and the Curse of Bibi-ism". Although Tablet is a generally understood as a right-wing and adamantly pro-Israel publication, it nonetheless viewed 's commentary and thoughts on the concept of hasbara culture relevant and important. Hirsch argues that his examination of this hasbara culture is not about left-wing vs. right-wing or even pro-Israel vs. anti-Israel but instead an attempt to look at a phenomenon that is denying ground-level realities in favor of an alternate reality that exists only in the minds of its proponents.

Among the topics discussed in this conversation are Benjamin Netanyahu as the embodiment of hasbara culture; sacred macho victimhood and victimhood discourses; Anti-Antisemitism; the Daniel Goldhagen vs. Christopher Browning debates on the Holocaust (Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners vs. Browning's Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland); Hannah Arendt and the trial of Adolf Eichmann; cognitive empathy and how it is shut down by hasbara culture; the ideology of hasbara culture; the Gaza War and Israel/Palestine; "Never Again" journalists; the "real world" vs. the "separate reality" of hasbara culture; the concept of betrayal in hasbara culture discourse; the Iran nuclear deal and Bibi-ist ideology; John Kerry's warning to Israel about needing to understand the perception of Palestinians; Peter Beinart's The Crisis of Zionism and the significance of Beinart's witnessing the tears of a Palestinian child in the West Bank crying out for his father; the pro-Palestinian protests happening across college campuses; hasbara culture's cultivation of narratives and tactics of agitation; Bill Maher vs. Bill Burr on Hamas, the Gaza War, and the youth;  serious people vs. unserious people; the significance of Israeli politician Yair Golan; Ehud Barak's comments on Palestinians and how he'd probably have been a terrorist if he'd grown up as a young Palestinian; Netanyahu's holy war and the coming Jewish schism; pro-Netanyahu demonization of Barack Obama; "us vs. them" mentalities and narratives; the October 7th Hamas attack; the ADL's response to the BDS movement; the question of irrational hatreds vs. legitimate grievances; the "Whataboutism" arguments of hasbara culture discourse; the attacks on Jewish studies culture Derek Penslar, the embattled co-chair of the Harvard's antisemitism task force; the Israel lobby; the IHRA working definition of antisemitism; ethnocentricity and ethnocentrism;