In college, I once attended a debate between a young earth creationist and a scientist. The lesson that I learned from that event is that it is possible for those who don’t have the facts on their side to convince anyone who lacks a background on the topic, in part using rhetorical tricks.
Countering a Rhetorical playbook
One of the key things about the debate was that the creationist only had to debate the scientist opponent once, in front of a first-time audience. This enabled the creationists to use a playbook of rhetorical tricks before they could be thoroughly analyzed and debunked. One famous debate technique, mainstreamed by Dwayne Gish is known as the “Gish gallop.” This technique was named by Eugenie Scott:
The Gish gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm an opponent by presenting an excessive number of arguments, without regard for their accuracy or strength, with a rapidity that makes it impossible for the opponent to address them in the time available. Gish galloping prioritizes the quantity of the galloper's arguments at the expense of their quality.
The term "Gish gallop" was coined in 1994 by the anthropologist Eugenie Scott who named it after the American creationist Duane Gish, dubbed the technique's "most avid practitioner".
Israel has a similar rhetorical strategy, though it is much more sophisticated and would likely remain effective in a world where critics are unable to collaborate with others on the internet to debunk it.
In this Article:
In the rest of this article I will describe the features of Israeli hasbara (propaganda) and list ChatGTP’s counter-responses to 60 real hasbara lines.
What is Israeli Hasbara? [ChatGTP link]
Israeli Hasbara is an organized state-run information operation (propaganda) that seeks to explain Israel’s actions in a favorable light while deflecting or delegitimizing criticism.
Paralyzing Critics of War Crimes
In the following video clip, US Army combat vet, Paul, explains that if he were to call in bombings the way Israel did, he would be in jail because it would constitute a war crime! The Israeli propaganda aims to suppress those calling out war crimes and to paralyze potential critics and audiences, because Israel knows it can’t defend these actions in a good faith discussion.
🔑 Core Features of Hasbara [ChatGTP link]
1. Purpose
To defend Israel’s legitimacy and policies abroad.
To frame Israel as a democratic, moral, and threatened state.
To counter international criticism of its actions in the occupied territories or in wars.
2. Methods
Talking Points & Messaging: Distributing prepackaged slogans like “Israel has the right to defend itself” or “the most moral army in the world.”
Media Engagement: Training officials, diplomats, and volunteers to engage journalists, op-eds, and social media.
Vocabulary Management: Promoting preferred terms (e.g., “security fence” vs. “wall,” “terror tunnels” vs. “smuggling tunnels”).
Digital Hasbara: Coordinated online campaigns, sometimes including volunteer “Hasbara Fellowships” or state-backed troll farms.
3. Audiences
Primarily Western publics and policymakers, where Israel’s diplomatic, military, and economic ties are strongest.
Media outlets and opinion-shapers in the U.S. and Europe.
4. Themes
Victimhood & Survival: Israel is small, surrounded by enemies, and constantly under threat.
Moral Exceptionalism: The IDF is uniquely ethical; Israel is a “light unto the nations.”
Delegitimization of Critics: Framing criticism of Israel as antisemitism.
Peace Narrative: “There is no partner for peace”; “Palestinians missed every opportunity.”
60 Israeli Propaganda Lines [link]
ChatGTP generated and analyzed 60 hasbara lines (below).
If you have suggestions of additional lines or alternate responses, leave them in the comments below.
1) Israel has the right to defend itself.
Subtext: Frames occupation as legitimate
AI Response: No state has the right to defend an occupation. International law protects the occupied, not the occupier.
Tim’s Response: (This is a loaded question)
Do others have the same right to the same type of defense?
Is ‘defense’ what Israel is doing by starving unarmed civilians, including children?
Is this Self-defense or retaliation? Is the Dahiya doctrine a legitimate way of defending oneself — using disproportionate force with the goal of causing intense or unbearable civilian suffering, with the hope that this civilian suffering influences the militants to change their behavior?
That actually sounds a lot like the definition of retaliatory state terrorism,1 doesn’t it?
2) There is no partner for peace
Subtext: Blames Palestinians, hides settlement expansion during talks.
AI Response: You can’t negotiate peace while bulldozers steal land. Settlements—not people—killed the Oslo accord.
Tim’ Response: Israel also assassinated and imprisoned potential Palestinian leaders. Netanyahu also chose to support Hamas as a way of divide and rule with Palestinian leadership so it could say there is no partner for peace. The thing that Netanyahu seems to be trying to prevent is a unified government under someone like Marwan Barghouti (who is imprisoned).
3) We left Gaza in 2005.
Subtext: Pretends Gaza is free.
AI Response: Israel still controls Gaza’s borders, air, sea, population registry. That’s occupation by blockade.
Tim’s Response: Gaza is not free if .. their electrical power plant has been bombed, they are prevented from building an airport or shipping port; if their fishermen are restricted from fishing in the Mediterranean, if an outside country has created such a blockade, and they are limiting your population’s food intake, saying that their policy was to “put Gaza on a diet.” (reported: 2006)
4) Human shields
Subtext: Shifts blame for civilian deaths onto Palestinians.
AI Response: International law is clear: attackers are responsible for civilian deaths, not families in homes.
Tim’s Response: One of the features off many Israeli Rhetorical tactics is that they are virtually unfalsifiable. There are no legitimate critics and there are no legitimate victims. If western reporters are prohibited, Israel can almost always claim that either the victims are Hamas or there were Hamas nearby using them as Human shields, or the Palestinian reporters can’t be trusted. Brandolini’s law states that false or misleading information takes an order of magnitude longer than it does to create it.
The “human shields” argument is often actually an excuse to shield Israel from war crimes charges.
5) The most moral army in the world
Subtext: Moral shield against war-crime accusations.
AI Response: Real morality doesn’t need PR campaigns. Actions, not slogans, prove morality. **
Tim’s Response: Does the most moral army have a doctrine — the Dahiya doctrine — that aims to create intense or unbearable civilian suffering as a way to put civilian pressure on militants? Israel no longer has a policy of “knock”[ing] on roofs, because Israel is at war. 972 magazine reported that Israel had a policy of attacking prestige targets such as universities, high rise targets for psychological effect — Power Targets —, sort of like those who attacked the World Trade Centers on 9/11.
6) It’s complicated
Subtext: Defuses outrage by feigning complexity
AI Response: It’s not complicated: one side has nuclear weapons, the other lives under occupation.
Tim’s Response: Jacqueline Cruz coined the term “orchestrated complexity,” the purposeful shrouding of facts, the manufacturing of nuance and qualifications that always privilege the abuser.
7) Only democracy in the Middle East.
Subtext: Uses democracy branding to mask apartheid
AI Response: A democracy for some and military rule for millions of others = apartheid
Tim’s Response: West Bank Palestinians are under martial law and may be detained with no charge for 90 days, which can be renewed without limit. This is called “Administrative Detention.” Palestinian homes may be searched from midnight to 5 am without a warrant.
The democracy could be made real, in part, by granting equal rights to everyone under Israeli jurisdiction.
8) Palestinians teach their children hate
Subtext: Shifts focus from occupation to culture
AI Response: Children learn from lived trauma. End occupation, end cycles of violence.
Tim’s Response: Video: Some Israelis teach their children to hate.
9) Why single out Israel?
Subtext: Why single out Israel?
AI Response: Because Israel receives billions in Western aid—aid comes with accountability.
Tim’s Response: Israel is exceptional in the frequency with which it acts with impunity.
10) Criticism of Israel is antisemitism
Subtext: Conflates state with Jewish identity
AI Response: Criticizing a government ≠ hating a people. Conflation is dangerous for Jews worldwide
Tim’s Response: Israel frequently tries to shut down discussion on an issue using this “cry wolf” technique I call Puttin’ on the RITZ. This technique appears to be used when they know they likely won’t succeed in an fair debate. Jewish Currents describes how India is learning this “crybully” technique from Israel.
11) We made the desert bloom
Subtext: Colonizer myth erasing Palestinian agriculture
AI Response: Palestine had thriving agriculture for centuries—olive groves, citrus, wheat—before dispossession
12) Arabs rejected peace offers
Subtext: Erases unfair terms of past deals.
AI Response: Those ‘offers’ demanded surrender of rights. An ultimatum isn’t peace
Tim’s Response: Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the Arab Peace Initiative.
13) Israel withdrew from Sinai for peace
Subtext: Frames Israel as generous peacemaker.
AI Response: Withdrawal came only under military pressure after occupation failed
14) Hamas hides in hospitals/schools
Subtext: Justifies bombing civilian infrastructure.
AI Response: Targeting hospitals is a war crime. Presence of fighters doesn’t erase civilian protection
15) Palestinians use fake casualty numbers
Subtext: Delegitimizes Palestinian suffering
AI Response: UN, WHO, and Israeli media cite the same figures. Numbers are verified
16) Palestinians should focus on building their economy
Subtext: Shifts blame from occupation to victim
AI Response: No economy survives under checkpoints, land theft, and siege
17) Israel gave them Gaza; they chose Hamas
Subtext: Blames Palestinians for blockade
AI Response: Free elections under siege? Israel strangled Gaza long before Hamas governed
18) “We warned them with roof-knocking.”
Subtext: Excuse for civilian deaths.
AI Response: A warning before bombing doesn’t legalize bombing homes full of families.
Tim’s Response: This “roof-knocking” policy is out of date — The previous ‘peace time practice of roof-knocking was discontinued for Gaza.
19) Palestinians glorify martyrdom
Subtext: Portrays Palestinians as death-obsessed.
AI Response: People resist when stripped of dignity and freedom. Ending oppression ends cycles
20) The IDF goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties
Subtext: Justifies mass killings
AI Response: Tens of thousands dead show otherwise. Repetition doesn’t change reality
21) Israel is surrounded by enemies
Subtext: Perpetual victimhood narrative
AI Response: Israel has nuclear weapons, U.S. protection, and normalized Arab ties. It is regionally dominant
22) They teach jihad in schools
Subtext: Orientalist trope about fanaticism
AI Response: Schools under siege teach survival. Occupation, not faith, drives conflict
Tim’s Response: Some Israeli schools teach Jewish Supremacy.
23) We’ve offered Palestinians a state many times
Subtext: Frames Israel as generous.
AI Response: Every offer carved up land into enclaves with no sovereignty. Bantustans aren’t states
24) Palestinians choose terror over peace
Subtext: Frames all resistance as terrorism
AI Response: International law affirms resistance to occupation. Civil disobedience is met with bullets too
Tim’s Response: Israel’s founding fathers practiced terrorism.
25) If Palestinians laid down arms, there would be peace tomorrow
Subtext: One-sided surrender demand
AI Response: If Israel ended occupation, there would be justice tomorrow. Peace follows justice, not surrender
Tim’s Response: Given Netanyahu’s bad faith interpretation of the Oslo accords, can the world rely on Israel to create a true peace, when Israel failed to honor the spirit of the Oslo agreement?
26) October 7 changed everything
Subtext: Treats occupation as irrelevant before 2023.
AI Response: Nothing ‘changed’—decades of siege and dispossession led to October 7. Occupation existed long before
27) Israel ended the occupation of Gaza
Subtext: Denies legal status of blockade.
AI Response: International law defines Gaza as occupied because Israel controls its borders, sea, air, and registry
Tim’s Response: If you can’t leave, and someone else controlled what food and how much you may ate, you were occupied.
28) Israelis want peace, Palestinians want war
Subtext: Creates a civilization vs. barbarism frame.
AI Response: Polls show majorities of both peoples want freedom and safety. It is leaders and systems that block peace
29) Palestinians are taught to deny Israel’s existence
Subtext: Blames culture, not dispossession
AI Response: Israel’s policies deny Palestine’s existence daily—maps erase it, walls cut it off.
30) They could have had peace if they accepted partition in 1947
Subtext: Retroactive blame-shifting
AI Response: Partition was imposed without Palestinian consent, giving most land to a settler minority
31) Israel returned land in peace treaties
Subtext: Portrays Israel as magnanimous
AI Response: Israel only ‘returned’ what it illegally took—restoring stolen property is not generosity
32 a) Israel doesn’t target civilians, Hamas does
Subtext: Whitewash of military targeting practices
AI Response: Civilian death tolls speak louder than claims. Intent is judged by consistent outcomes.
32 b) We don’t intentionally attack civilians. We will conduct a full investigation. We regret any harm [link]
Double-tap tactic: attack target, then wait for first responders and attack the first responders.
If they get caught on video, We’ll investigate ourselves (Don’t hold your breath)
33) Palestinians need new leadership
Subtext: Shifts blame from occupation to personalities.
AI Response: Occupation doesn’t depend on who’s in office. Freedom is a right, not a reward for leaders
Tim’s Response: Marwan Barghouti enjoys widespread support amongst Palestinians. He is currently in jail. I don’t know much about Mr Barghouti, but I suspect Netanyahu would prefer Hamas over a united Palestine under someone like Barghouti.
34) Israel is a tiny country fighting for survival
Subtext: Plays the underdog card.
AI Response: Israel is a nuclear power with U.S. backing, blockading millions of stateless people. Not a David, but a Goliath
35) They hate us because we’re Jews
Subtext: Reduces political conflict to antisemitism
Response: Palestinians oppose dispossession and apartheid. The struggle is about rights, not religion
Tim’s Response: Most countries want political independence. Would Israel’s founders fight any less hard for Israeli independence if those they were fighting against were British, Palestinian, or Russians?
36) We must destroy Hamas to have peace
Subtext: Justifies indefinite war
AI Response: Hamas was created under occupation. Even if destroyed, the occupation would still drive resistance
37) Palestinians exaggerate casualties
Subtext: Delegitimizes grief and death
AI Response: Independent UN and NGO counts align with Gaza Health Ministry data—including figures cited by Israel itself.
38) Israel has made painful concessions
Subtext: Frames illegal withdrawals as sacrifices.
AI Response: Ending illegal occupation isn’t a concession—it’s a legal obligation
39) Peace must be negotiated directly, not imposed.
Subtext: Rejects international law oversight
AI Response: Israel uses endless ‘negotiations’ to delay justice. International law exists precisely to prevent that
40) Israel only builds defensively
Subtext: Frames settlements and walls as security
AI Response: Settlements are land theft. Defensive walls don’t come with annexed farmland
41) Look at Arab states, they treat Palestinians worse.
Subtext: Deflects responsibility.
AI Response: Abuse by others doesn’t absolve Israel’s legal obligations under international law
42) Israel is held to double standards
Subtext: Plays the victim
AI Response: Israel is held to the same standards as any state. International law applies equally
43) This is a religious conflict
Subtext: Simplifies to age-old tribal feud
AI Response: It’s about land, rights, and power. Religion is used as cover for political control
Tim’s Response: Would the conflict go away if Israel was opposing Christians instead? In fact, some of the Palestinians, including one of my college friends, are Christian.
44) Palestinians celebrate violence.
Subtext: Delegitimizes resistance as savagery
AI Response: People celebrate survival under oppression. End injustice, and you end desperation
45) Israel is the safest place for Jews.
Subtext: Uses Jewish safety as shield
AI Response: Occupation endangers Jews worldwide by fueling backlash. Real safety comes from justice, not apartheid
Tim’s Wild Idea: I propose the US create a “New Jerusalem” in Colorado Springs as the safest place for Jews. We will relocate Israel to a new mountainus country in Colorado that already has a military industrial complex and can be further fortified. We can continue the subsidization of US arms exports to Israel, enabling Israel to have its own military in a safer location. This would allow more safety, but it appears that safety is not actually a high priority for Israeli “allies.” 2
46) Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state
Subtext: Demands ideological surrender
AI Response: Recognition of states is standard. Demanding ethnic recognition institutionalizes second-class citizenship
47) Arabs want to push Jews into the sea
Subtext: Perpetuates existential fear
AI Response: It is Palestinians who’ve been expelled, blockaded, and besieged. History shows who is being pushed
48) Israel is making humanitarian efforts
Subtext: Whitewashes blockade and aid restrictions
AI Response: Dribbling aid through a blockade you created is not humanitarianism—it’s control
49) UN agencies are biased against Israel
Subtext: Delegitimizes global oversight
AI Response: Most UN members vote against Israel because of clear violations. Overwhelming consensus isn’t bias
50) Palestinians could live peacefully if they accepted reality
Subtext: Demands surrender of rights.
AI Response: Peace built on submission isn’t peace. Justice—not forced ‘reality’—brings stability
51) Israel values life, Palestinians value death.
Subtext: Frames Israelis as civilized
AI Response: Palestinians are struggling to live under siege. Occupation—not culture—creates despair.
52) We must destroy terror tunnels.
Subtext: Justifies mass bombardment.
AI Response: Bombing cities to destroy tunnels kills more civilians than fighters. That’s collective punishment.
53) Palestinians reject coexistence.
Subtext: Blames victims for lack of peace.
AI Response: Palestinians lived with Jews for centuries before 1948. Occupation—not coexistence—is the obstacle.
54) Israel protects women and LGBTQ rights.
Subtext: Pinkwashing/brand-washing oppression **
AI Response: Human rights don’t excuse apartheid. LGBTQ Palestinians still live under siege and checkpoints
55) Look at Israeli Arabs, they’re citizens with rights.
Subtext: Uses tokenism to deny systemic inequality.
AI Response: Second-class citizenship under 65+ discriminatory laws isn’t equality—it’s apartheid. **
Tim’s Response: If Israel doesn’t have a problem recognizing equal rights for Arab citizens, why not extend equal rights to all the Palestinians under Israeli control?
56) Palestinians reject compromise
Subtext: Frames resistance as extremism.
AI Response: Palestinians already accepted 22% of their homeland. It’s Israel that rejects compromise.
Tim’s Response: This means that Palestinian are accepting the loss of 78% of their original homeland.
57) Israel makes the desert safe from chaos
Subtext: Frames Palestinians as disorderly.
AI Response: Palestinians can govern themselves — occupation causes the chaos.
58) The IDF is held to impossible standards
Subtext: Plays the victim when accused of war crimes.
AI Response: International law is the standard for all militaries. Killing civilians isn’t exceptional, it’s unlawful.
59) Palestinians should emigrate to Arab countries.
Subtext: Euphemism for ethnic cleansing.
AI Response: Forcing people off their land is expulsion, not peace. Right of return is protected under law.
60) UN agencies are biased against Israel
Subtext: Delegitimizes global oversight.
AI Response: Courts investigate all states. Fear of accountability doesn’t equal bias
QUESTIONS:
How would you evaluate Chat GTP’s responses to these haspara lines? Are the responses good? Could you do better? Are there particular responses to haspara lines that you think are solid?
Do you think Israeli hasparicists(?) can come up with a new and improved haspara playbook if their tactics are systematically challenged?
What would it take to assemble the best internet response to these haspara lines and then build a web browser plugin to educate readers that want to de-haspara-ize their media?3
What do you think of other examples of propaganda on this website and analysis of rhetoric that critics might consider toxic?
BONUS: Arabic Calendar is “Hamas”
Lie to me that you have “evidence” of terrorism, assuming I’ll never find out how to translate the Arabic text you pass off as incriminating.
FOOTNOTES:
terrorism - violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims
In early 2006, Dov Weisglass, then a senior advisor to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, explained that Israeli policy was designed “to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” In 2012 it was revealed that in early 2008 Israeli authorities drew up a document calculating the minimum caloric intake necessary for Palestinians to avoid malnutrition so Israel could limit the amount of foodstuffs allowed into Gaza without causing outright starvation.
Many supporters of Israel are not good-faith supporters. They don’t care about the safety of Israeli Jews, but rather some are motivated by end-times prophecy. They would Israeli Jews’s safety be jeoparized, rather than Israel be located far away in the middle east.