Israeli companies operate under a different set of PR conditions than any peer market on earth, and the strategy that works is five moves: own the origin story, lead with the technology, run two press audiences, answer the political question calmly, and show American and European proof points. No other startup ecosystem this productive is this politicized. The playbook that works for a Nashville SaaS company or a Berlin fintech does not work for an Israeli one. What follows is the playbook that does.
I have spent the last two decades building a communications firm that started in New York and now runs a significant Israel practice. I know the operators here: the founders, the VCs, the government-relations teams, the security-cleared engineers turned CEOs. And I know the American, European and Asian buyers on the other side of the calls. Both sides need to understand what has changed.
In this guide
How has the environment shifted?
Global press coverage of Israel has intensified. Enterprise procurement reviews at multinational corporations now include a country-of-origin conversation as standard practice. Employee activism inside Fortune 500 buyers has surfaced Israeli vendor relationships that used to sit unnoticed on a procurement dashboard. The BDS environment is more organized than it was five years ago.
The stakes are concrete. Israeli tech companies maintain a roughly $30 billion footprint across states like Florida, Texas and Georgia, yet AI search visibility for many of those same companies is close to zero, according to Everything-PR's 2026 footprint report. Economic scale without communications infrastructure to match is exactly the gap this playbook closes.
None of that means Israeli companies retreat. It means they lead. The companies that are winning stopped treating their Israeli identity as a communications problem and started treating it as a communications asset that requires the same operational discipline as any other core brand attribute.
What are the five moves that actually work?
| Move | What it means |
|---|
| 1. Own the origin story | Founders talk about Israel directly, on the record and in specific terms |
| 2. Lead with the technology | Open on the product and customer outcome, with geography as context |
| 3. Build two audiences | Run Israeli and global press strategies in parallel, with different stories |
| 4. Take the political question head-on | Give a short, calm, factual answer, then return to the substance |
| 5. Show American and European proof points | Feature customers, executives and board members in the markets you sell to |
1. Own the origin story on your own terms
Wix, Monday.com, Fiverr, Check Point, CyberArk, Playtika, JFrog, Rapyd and Riskified each have an Israel story that could be told well or told badly. The ones told well have a founder who talks about it directly, on the record, in specific terms: Tel Aviv, Herzliya, the Unit 8200 alumni network, the academic pipeline out of the Technion and Weizmann, and the density of engineering talent that few other countries produce.
The companies that get this wrong try to hide the Israeli identity or make it neutral. Neither works. Global buyers can Google, and reporters already know. The founder who owns the origin story controls the narrative.
2. Lead with the technology, not the geography
The best Israeli PR does not open on Israel. It opens on the product, the customer outcome, the technical differentiator or the market position. Israel enters the story as a natural consequence of the founding team, the engineering base or the R&D operation. Technology first, with geography as context, reads as credible. The inverse reads as a defensive posture.
3. Build two audiences simultaneously
Israeli companies have to run two press strategies in parallel. The Israeli press (Calcalist, TheMarker, Globes, Geektime) is where local reputation, recruiting and government-relations traction get built. The global press (the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, The Information and Reuters) is where the customer base and the capital markets read the company.
The two audiences want different stories. The Israeli press wants the operator narrative: the founders, the team, the exits and the alumni network. The global press wants the buyer narrative: the customer, the category and the competitive position. Run both, but do not confuse them.
4. Take the political question head-on when it comes
Reporters will ask. Employees will ask. Enterprise procurement will ask. The answer cannot be an evasion, and it cannot be a lecture. It is a short, calm, factual statement of what the company does, where it operates, who it serves and what its position is. Then return to the substantive conversation. Founders who can speak plainly and briefly to the political question do better than ones who route every hard question to communications, so practice it and do not read it. EPR's media training guide covers how to prepare.
5. Build American and European proof points visibly
Every Israeli company selling globally needs visible American and European customer proof, executive team members and board representation. This is not about hiding the Israeli identity. It is about showing that the company operates at the scale it claims. A U.S. sales VP on the leadership page, three named Fortune 500 customers on the customer page and a European board member are the elements a buyer's procurement team wants to see, so feature them.
How did the Wiz playbook work?
Wiz did not hide its Tel Aviv founding team when Google agreed to acquire the cybersecurity company. Everything-PR's coverage put the exit at roughly $32 billion, one of the largest acquisitions of an Israeli company on record, detailed in Everything-PR's Wiz exit analysis. The origin story was never buried. It became part of the pitch to Google and to customers.
The same principle holds outside tech. When Gwyneth Paltrow kept fronting an ad campaign for 51 Park, the Herzliya luxury residential tower, after backlash surfaced, the brand did not pull the campaign and Paltrow did not apologize, as Everything-PR reported. Holding the line, rather than retreating at the first sign of criticism, kept the story about the product rather than about the controversy.
How do Israelis communicate, and what does it mean for PR?
Israelis are known for a direct style of speech called dugri, Hebrew for "straight" talk. University of Haifa communication scholar Tamar Katriel describes dugri as a culturally valorized way of speaking that puts directness first in social interaction, and she argues it can only be understood through the cultural values that make blunt talk acceptable (Katriel, The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, 2015). In practice, plain speech is a strength with Israeli reporters, partners and employees.
Three practical implications follow. These are EPR's analysis, not a research finding.
- Lead with the point. Open interviews, pitches and releases on the product and the customer outcome. This matches move two above.
- Prepare for plain questions and give plain answers. Israeli reporters and partners tend to ask directly, so train spokespeople to answer the same way in both press audiences.
- Add context for global readers. A direct claim lands well at home. For an international reader, add the background on who you are and why the claim matters.
What should Israeli companies stop doing?
Two habits kill Israeli PR programs.
- Hiding the Israeli identity in international press releases. Buyers can see it, and the hiding itself becomes the story.
- Treating every political question as a crisis. Most are not, and overreacting turns a manageable moment into a communications event. When a real crisis does arrive, EPR's crisis PR guide applies.
The through-line
Israeli companies have more product substance, more engineering density and more genuine category leadership than most peer markets their size. The story is extraordinary. The problem is that many Israeli companies still communicate like it is 2015, with Israeli identity as a background footnote and American PR as an outsourced afterthought. Fix that, and Israeli companies win the next decade at a scale not yet seen. Companies that own their origin story instead of hiding it are also the ones showing up in AI-generated answers, not just search results.
Where does this fit in EPR's coverage?
