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Sheera Frenkel Wikipedia, Bio, Husband, Education – Last year, Israel conducted a covert influence campaign targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging. This effort, organized and funded by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, aimed to bolster support for its actions during the war in Gaza. The operation, which remains active on social media platform X, involved the creation of hundreds of fake accounts to disseminate pro-Israel content.
Israel’s Covert Campaign to Sway U.S. Opinion on Gaza Conflict
The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body responsible for connecting Jews worldwide with the State of Israel, allocated approximately $2 million to this campaign. The ministry hired Stoic, a Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm, to manage the operation, according to documents and officials involved in the project.
Beginning in October, the campaign employed hundreds of fake accounts on platforms like X, Facebook, and Instagram. These accounts, masquerading as real Americans, posted pro-Israel comments and targeted U.S. lawmakers, particularly Black Democrats such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Raphael Warnock. Posts urged these lawmakers to maintain funding for Israel’s military. The artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, was used to generate many of these posts, and the campaign also created three fake news sites featuring pro-Israel articles.
The operation’s link to the Israeli government was confirmed by The New York Times through interviews with current and former Ministry of Diaspora Affairs officials and documents related to the campaign. FakeReporter, an Israeli misinformation watchdog, identified the campaign in March. Last week, Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram) and OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) announced they had detected and disrupted the operation.
This campaign highlights the lengths to which Israel was willing to go to influence American opinion on the Gaza conflict. The United States has been a staunch ally of Israel, with President Biden recently signing a $15 billion military aid package for the country. However, the conflict has been unpopular among many Americans, who have called for a reduction in U.S. support for Israel due to the high civilian casualties in Gaza.
Social media experts noted that this is the first documented instance of the Israeli government organizing a campaign to influence U.S. government officials. While such government-backed campaigns are not uncommon globally, they are often difficult to prove. Countries like Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, and the United States are believed to engage in similar efforts, typically outsourcing the work to private companies or operating through third countries.
“Israel’s role in this is reckless and probably ineffective,” said Achiya Schatz, the executive director of FakeReporter. He added that for Israel to run an operation that interferes in U.S. politics is extremely irresponsible. Despite the ministry’s denial of involvement and its claimed lack of connection to Stoic, documents and officials involved indicate otherwise. Stoic did not respond to requests for comment.
The campaign, while extensive, did not have a widespread impact, according to Meta and OpenAI. Fake accounts amassed more than 40,000 followers across X, Facebook, and Instagram, but many of these followers were likely bots, reducing the campaign’s reach and effectiveness.
The operation began just weeks into the Gaza conflict. In October, Israeli tech start-ups received emails and WhatsApp messages inviting them to join meetings to become “digital soldiers” for Israel. These meetings, some of which were attended by government officials, aimed to recruit volunteers to support Israel’s digital war effort.
Stoic, a political marketing firm founded in 2017, was tasked with running the U.S.-focused campaign. Other companies may have been involved in additional efforts, according to one Israeli official. Fake accounts, posing as American students and concerned citizens, shared articles and statistics supporting Israel’s position in the conflict.
The campaign targeted over a dozen members of Congress, focusing on Black Democrats like Representative Ritchie Torres, who is vocal in his support for Israel. Fake accounts engaged with these lawmakers’ posts, often with comments linking to pro-Israel articles. Three fake news sites were created to lend credibility to the campaign, with names like Non-Agenda and UnFold Magazine, which repurposed content from legitimate news outlets to promote Israel’s stance. Fake accounts on Reddit then shared these articles to boost their visibility.
Despite its sophisticated setup, the campaign had several flaws. Profile pictures often didn’t match the personas they represented, and some posts contained awkward language. In some cases, accounts with photos of Black men posted about being middle-aged Jewish women. Many posts used identical language, further undermining their credibility.
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