[see Jan 7 update at the end of this post]

In response to criticism over yesterday's Knesset decision to investigate "left-wing" groups in Israel, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon - often the leading edge of Israeli hasbara efforts to the English-speaking world - wrote/tweeted the question "who's afraid of transparency?" Coincidentally - or not - one of the Israeli Right's most loyal voices in the U.S. had tweeted hours earlier, "When a simple transparency bill is being denounced as McCarthyism, you know the NGOs have something to hide."

This hasbara effort is so ham-handed it almost defies belief.  It comes on the heels of last weekend's stunningly inept (and wholly ineffective and ultimately counterproductive) hasbara effort trying to convince the world that, even without any investigation, Israel had determined that it bears not even the tiniest responsibility for the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah of Bili'in.  Now, days later, Israeli officialdom - which eagerly threw out all sorts of ugly rumors that demonstrated nothing more than a total disregard for the dead and her loved ones - has had to back off its accusations and innuendo.

Given this very recent failure, you might think that the "Israel-right-or-wrong" folks (in Israel and the U.S.) would have considered their strategy carefully before jumping to the defense of this latest Knesset action.  But apparently they didn't.