“In 1926, Haim Nahman Bialik, who would become Israel’s national poet, was about to set sail to America to undertake a fundraising tour for the Zionist project in Palestine. Addressing a farewell gathering in Tel Aviv, he spoke about the style of advocacy he thought would work best in the diaspora. “We must present them with a model of full Hebrew life,” he said. “If they do not feel that our values here are unwavering, we will not find a path to their hearts and funds.”

What was true in Bialik’s day for the Jewish diaspora is true in our day for global public opinion, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

And that’s why it is a catastrophe that – as the novelist Amos Oz jokes – many opinion-formers in Europe often seem to think that 85 per cent of Israelis are extremist settlers, 14 per cent are IDF soldiers stationed at checkpoints, and the other one per cent are intellectuals like Amos Oz. The path to people’s hearts is being lost sight of as Israel is reduced to a caricature.”

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