Stories, reports, pictures and all forms of communication can inspire, educate, mobilise, and connect people. In contexts of colonisation, oppression and systemic racism, communication is weaponised to silence, distort and erase entire histories, identities and narratives. For Palestinians, the battle over narrative and representation has always been inseparable from the struggle for liberation and self-determination.

The Zionist movement has sought to not only take over Palestinian land and ethnically cleanse its people, but also worked actively to erase their identity and cultural and social fabric. This colonial strategy extends into every realm of Palestinian expression—media, arts, storytelling, knowledge production, and political organising. Historically, Palestinian newspapers have been shut down, publications censored, radio stations destroyed, archives looted, research centres bombed, and intellectuals assassinated. Disrupting political organising, suppressing resistance, and isolating Palestinians from global consciousness and struggles have always been part and parcel of the colonial enterprise.

Hasbara—the Hebrew word for “explanation”—is Israel’s public diplomacy strategy to shape global opinion in its favour by portraying itself as a perpetual victim and framing colonial oppression as “defence.” Popularised in the early 20th century with tropes like “a land without a people for a people without a land,” it has since evolved into a strategic, institutionalised campaign embedded in state bodies and sustained through the coordination and funding of global Zionist lobby groups. These networks orchestrate smear campaigns, spread disinformation, and lobby governments, media, academia, digital platforms and employers to adopt its narratives while delegitimising and censoring Palestinian advocacy. 

*Explore more on Hasbara in this section

Zionist efforts of erasure are embedded in broader systems of global power, including colonialism and institutionalised racism, that permeate political, development, academic and cultural institutions, media, and digital platforms. These actors work to sanitise Israeli oppression while spreading narratives stripped of colonial context, reducing Palestinians to racist and orientalist stereotypes—”terrorists, inherently violent, backward, uncivilised, passive victims, rejectionists or exoticised figures”. Meanwhile, Palestinians are erased and censored, their credibility made contingent on Western or Israeli validation, their analysis doubted or outright delegitimised and their narratives confined to fit narrow, ethnocentric frames.

Communicating Palestine emerged as a direct response to these entrenched challenges. Building on a long history of Palestinian resistance to censorship, distortion and propaganda, this guide seeks to do more than expose and deconstruct bias. It centres Palestinian narratives on their own terms, dismantling harmful framings while refusing to be defined in reaction to them. It reaffirms Palestinian centrality through dignified, and ethical engagement.

The Palestinian movement has produced powerful resources and toolkits to deconstruct bias and amplify its narratives, but a one-stop manual for communication and public relations was missing. Communicating Palestine builds on this collective work, offering 360° analysis and tools on narratives, visuals, practices and everything related to communication in one user-friendly space.

More than a resource, this guide is a manifesto to unlearn, relearn, and practice liberatory communication.

While much of this guide was developed before the genocide, its relevance has only become more urgent. The ongoing genocide has laid bare, with devastating clarity, that the dehumanisation, erasure, and silencing of Palestinians are not merely abstract injustices but direct enablers of a people’s annihilation. 

Global powers do more than repress Palestinians’ ability to speak, organise and resist—they actively shape public opinion, manufacture consent for Israeli occupation and normalise the oppression of Palestinians. They suppress mass mobilisation and sustain the very conditions that make genocide possible. Misinformation, censorship, and bias in communication are not just harmful—they are direct barriers to Palestinian justice and freedom. 

Responsible communication is not merely an ethical imperative—it is a matter of survival.