SOTT – When Gilad Erdan, the strategic affairs minister, took over his agency in 2015, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy, as it is officially known in English, had a tiny staff and a small budget. In just a few years, he has turned it into a major operation with a budget of over $100 million over two years, according to reporting by the Israeli investigative magazine the Seventh Eye.

At the core of the MSA’s operation is a network of more than a hundred non-governmental organizations with which it shares information and resources. “A key part the strategy is the belief that messaging by ‘real people’ is much more effective than plain old hasbara[propaganda] by official spokespersons,” said Itamar Benzaquen, an investigative journalist at the Seven