This article is a synthesis produced in collaboration with ChatGPT, based on publicly available knowledge, verified facts, and the help of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).
There is a moment in every elaborate deception when the web begins to fray—not because it was poorly spun, but because reality itself begins to resist. That moment is now arriving for Zionism.
For over a century, Zionist propaganda—what it proudly terms hasbara, or “explanation”—has been deployed with relentless precision to justify the colonisation of Palestine, the dispossession of its people, and the brutal architecture of Israeli apartheid. This narrative has shifted with the times, cloaking itself in the dominant language of each era: from the sacred right of return, to the tragic necessity of survival after the Holocaust, to the modern buzzwords of democracy, LGBT rights, and “Start-Up Nation” branding. But the scaffolding of lies is buckling. What we are witnessing today is not merely a public relations failure—it is the structural collapse of the Zionist story under the weight of its own contradictions.
The Lie Too Big to Hold
At the heart of the Zionist narrative lies a basic claim: that a democratic, civilised, moral Jewish state was built in a land without people for a people without a land. This single falsehood required a thousand more to sustain it. The Palestinians had to be portrayed as absent, backward, violent, or nonexistent. The acts of dispossession had to be reframed as wars of self-defense. The occupation had to be rebranded as “disputed territory.” Every bullet, every bulldozer, every bomb dropped on Gaza required a moral alibi.
But over time, the lie has grown too elaborate. Too many atrocities, too many eyewitnesses, too much video footage, too many grieving mothers, too many journalists silenced, too many mass graves. The very tools Israel once used to shield its image—surveillance, control of narrative, media manipulation—have become porous. TikTok now does more to document Israeli war crimes than decades of UN reports could ever achieve. Even mainstream outlets, long deferential to Israeli talking points, are beginning to crack.
The gap between propaganda and reality is now a chasm. And Israel cannot close it.
The Contradictions Mount
Take, for instance, the 2024–2025 Gaza war. Israel claims it is fighting Hamas, not Palestinians. Yet over 52,000 Palestinians are now dead—two-thirds of them women and children. The infrastructure of an entire society has been reduced to rubble. Hospitals, bakeries, schools, aid convoys, and journalists have all been systematically targeted. How long can a state insist it is “the most moral army in the world” while committing what even the International Court of Justice says may plausibly amount to genocide?
The contradictions are no longer abstract—they are recorded in 4K. Zionism insists it is about Jewish liberation, yet it partners with far-right Christian nationalists who deny Jewish equality in their own countries. It invokes antisemitism to silence critics, while aligning with regimes and figures who openly hate Jews. It brands every Palestinian child as a potential terrorist, but paints Israeli snipers as victims when they shoot children through the head.
Even the legal class has not escaped this collapse into incoherence. In May 2025, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) issued a letter opposing a Co-Op motion to boycott Israeli goods. The letter claimed that reporting Gaza’s death toll was defamatory, that ceasing trade with Israel amounted to racism, and that noting Israel’s plausible genocide case before the ICJ was itself a lie. It even argued that claims of mass starvation were overstated, since obesity had previously been a major health issue in Gaza—an obscene deflection, akin to suggesting a rape survivor benefited from abuse because it taught them about sex. In effect, the letter demanded that reality be treated as libel. This is not legal reasoning. It is panic masquerading as jurisprudence. It shows a movement no longer interested in persuasion, only suppression—a textbook sign of ideological decay.
This is not just hypocrisy. It is the logical consequence of a project that requires constant moral inversion to survive.
The Collapse Is Visible
The signs of narrative collapse are everywhere. Jewish identity itself is now being contested—not by Palestinians, but by Jews. Hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world are rejecting the claim that Zionism speaks for them. Groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and diaspora-led vigils are asserting a clear break: Not in our name.
Meanwhile, long-protected allies of Israel—like the BBC, New York Times, and even certain U.S. politicians—are being forced to report what they once buried. Terms once taboo—apartheid, ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism, genocide—have entered mainstream usage. Support for Palestine has become a moral badge for an entire generation.
Israel’s defenders, unable to coherently respond, have retreated into panic and projection. They label all criticism as antisemitism. They accuse aid workers of being Hamas. They demand the silencing of professors, journalists, and even schoolchildren. But each act of repression now fuels the very collapse they seek to avoid.
Why Propaganda Fails
There is a structural principle here. All propaganda systems eventually fail when their lies outpace their ability to police reality. This has been observed in authoritarian regimes, colonial empires, and religious cults. As contradictions multiply, two things happen: first, the inner circle doubles down, becoming more extreme, paranoid, and self-isolating; second, the outer circle—the global public, and even sympathetic observers—begin to peel away.
This is precisely what is happening to Zionism. The hasbara machine is still spinning, but no longer convincing. Its arguments are stale, its outrage performative, its moral high ground visibly soaked in blood.
What Comes Next?
Narrative collapse is not the end—but it is the beginning of the end. When a hegemonic story falls apart, what follows is often unpredictable. Power structures may remain intact for a while, but their legitimacy evaporates. This is how apartheid South Africa fell. This is how the Berlin Wall fell. Not when the regime lost its weapons—but when it lost the ability to explain itself.
The Zionist regime will continue to kill, censor, and cry foul. But it can no longer command the story. And without that, its foundations are exposed.
Let us be clear: the future belongs to the truth. And the truth has a longer lifespan than propaganda.
Suggested Reading:
- Ilan Pappé, Ten Myths About Israel
- Greg Shupak, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel, and the Media
- Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible
- Edward Said, The Question of Palestine
- Joseph Massad, The Persistence of the Palestinian Question