Interesting that you class my use of the word as a tell. A tell is usually an unconscious response like a knee jerk but my use of hasbara is deliberate. I'm aware that Jews often have a cultural tell yet its very rare for me to pick up that tell before I'm made aware that they are Jewish.

Yet Hasbara is distinctive both because of its echoes of Israeli myth and its clumsiness which comes from decades of getting away with blatant lies. It has nothing to do with cunning or magic.