Netanyahu has a new army to fight for Israel on social media

Meme seen in a comment on one X post by Lizzy Savetsky, a well-paid pro-Israel influencer (social media)

by Kathryn Shihadah

If you follow the news on Palestine and Israel, you know that Israel is fighting a war of its own making on at least seven geopolitical fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Add to that another front: the social media war.

Israeli Prime MInister Benjamin Netanyahu said himself that Israel’s sagging reputation needs a boost. When asked about how to bring the self-styled Jewish state back to its former popularity, he said, “We have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers…We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we engage, and the most important ones are on social media.”

He went on to explain that Israel’s preferred narrative is being drowned out thanks to “vast” amounts of anti-Israel money – NGO money and government money. (Most NGOs would no doubt be surprised to hear that they have vast amounts of money to spend.)

Netanyahu continued, “We have to fight back. If we can get [TikTok and X], we get a lot…We have to give direction to the Jewish people and to our non-Jewish friends.”

Notably, Israel is already well-situated in the TikTok sphere; other social media are widely known for their silencing of pro-Palestine voices. Israel’s interests are also well-served across YouTube and other platforms.

Listening to Netanyahu, one might guess that Israel is scrambling to keep up in a misinformation war in which it is the victim – but quite the opposite is true. Not only has Israel been actively spreading lies throughout the genocide, it has a long history of lying.

Israel has already recently spent some $45 million on a digital campaign on Google; for another $6 million, ChatGPT is being trained to be more Israel-friendly, and on, and on, and on.

Recently, an organization called Bridges Partners LLC has been hired to manage an influencer network in a project worth over $1 million, described as “promoting cultural interchange between the United States and Israel.”

The firm, according to the Jerusalem Post, was formed in June in Delaware, and is owned by Israeli consultants Uri Steinberg and Yair Levi. The organization’s budget includes up to $250,000 per month for influencer fees and related costs, for which each would provide “25 to 30 pieces of content per month across Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms.”

Another, component of Israel’s social media “war” is a $6 million contract with Clock Tower X LLC to generate 100 ads or pieces of content each month “strategic communications” to combat antisemitism* in the US (both Clock Tower X and Bridges Partners are registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act – FARA).

That is more than can be said about the dominant pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC – the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has continued to dodge its responsibility to report that it is working at the behest of a foreign government.

Responsible Statecraft revealed that not just the organizations, but also the influencers themselves need to register with FARA. They must also include a disclaimer on their social media posts or in their profile – called a “conspicuous statement” – indicating that their content is paid for by the Israeli government (an example of such a disclaimer is here).

As of late last week, RS reported, “it does not appear that any of the 14-18 influencers working for Bridges Partners have included the conspicuous statement on major social media platforms.”

These social media trendsetters are not just sharing their opinions about Israel – they are disseminating lies, chilling free speech, and promoting absurd Israeli talking points.

The names and social media handles of seven identified propagandists are listed here:

Social media consumers who have caught on to Israel’s grift have already begun to express their disgust:

from Debra Lea's Instagram account — from Debra Lea’s Instagram account (social media)

What is perhaps most exasperating – and least talked-about – regarding this issue, is that there is an infinitely better way for Israel to deal with its reputation woes: instead of paying people to promulgate lies, how about ending the genocide, illegal occupation, apartheid, extermination, and targeted campaign of starvation – for starters?

*NOTE: Thanks to a yearslong program of indoctrination by pro-Israel organizations, the word “antisemitism” has taken on a new, distorted meaning that can include nearly all criticism of Israel – in other words, disapproval of the self-proclaimed “Jewish State” may be incorrectly labeled antisemitic. Actual antisemitism is not as prevalent as Israel partisans – like Clock Tower X – would like us to think.

Kathryn Shihadah is an editor and staff writer for If Americans Knew.

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