Israel launched and paid for a campaign last year to influence US lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messages as it aimed to garner support for its actions in Israel. War with GazaAccording to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation, the incident took place on Wednesday.
Four Israeli officials said the covert campaign was run by Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world to the state of Israel. According to the officials and the documents, the ministry allocated about $2 million for the campaign and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out.
The campaign began in October and is still active on Platform X. At its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts posing as real Americans on Platform X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments. These accounts focused on US lawmakers, particularly those of color and Democrats, such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, with posts urging them to continue funding the Israeli military.
ChatGPTArtificial intelligence-powered chatbots were used to create many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites with pro-Israel articles.
The Israeli government's connection to the influence campaign, which The New York Times verified through four current and former members of the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and documents about the campaign, has not been previously reported. Israeli misinformation watchdog FakeReporter identified the effort in March. Last week, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and OpenAIThe company that makes ChatGPT said they also detected and disrupted the operation.
This covert operation gives an indication of the lengths Israel is willing to go to influence American opinion on the war in Gaza. The United States has long been one of Israel's strongest allies, with President Biden recently signing the deal. $15 billion military aid package The struggle for the country continues. Unpopular among many AmericansWho have called on Mr Biden to withdraw support from Israel in the wake of rising civilian deaths in Gaza.
Social media experts said the operation is the first documented case of the Israeli government running a campaign to influence the US government. While coordinated government-backed campaigns are not uncommon, they are typically difficult to prove. IranNorth Korea, China, Russia And United States Similar efforts are believed to be underway around the world, but they often conceal their involvement by outsourcing the work to private companies or performing it through a third country.
“Israel’s role in this was reckless and probably ineffective,” said Achia Schatz, executive director of Fake Reporter. To say that Israel “conducted an operation to interfere in American politics is extremely irresponsible.”
Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs denied involvement in the campaign and said it had no connection to Stoic. Stoic did not respond to requests for comment.
Meta and OpenAI said last week that the campaign did not have widespread impact. Fake Reporter found that the fake accounts garnered more than 40,000 followers on X, Facebook and Instagram. But Meta said many of those followers may have been bots and did not garner a large audience.
The operation began just weeks after the war began in October, according to Israeli officials and documents associated with the effort. Dozens of Israeli tech startups received emails and WhatsApp messages that month inviting them to join impromptu meetings to become “digital soldiers” for Israel during the war, according to messages seen by the Times. Some emails and messages were sent by Israeli government officials, while others came from tech startups and incubators.
The first meeting was held in Tel Aviv in mid-October. Three attendees said it was an informal gathering where Israelis could volunteer their technical skills to help the country's war effort. They said members of several government ministries also attended.
According to recordings of the meetings, participants were told they could become “warriors of Israel” and lead “digital campaigns” on behalf of the country.
Israeli officials said the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs launched a campaign targeting the United States. About $2 million was budgeted for the campaign, according to a message seen by the Times.
Stoic was hired to run the campaign. On its website and LinkedIn, Stoic says it was founded in 2017 by a team of political and business strategists and calls itself a political marketing and business intelligence firm. An Israeli official said other companies may have been hired to run additional campaigns.
Several fake accounts for the campaign were created on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, posing as fictitious American students, concerned citizens, and local voters. These accounts shared articles and statistics supporting Israel's position in the war.
According to an analysis by FakeReporter, the campaign focused on more than a dozen members of Congress, many of whom are Black and Democrats. Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York, said he is a man who is working for his country. He is vocal about his pro-Israel viewsIn addition to Mr Jeffries and Mr Warnock, were also targeted.
Some fake accounts responded to posts on X by Mr. Torres by commenting on anti-Semitism on college campuses and in major American cities. In response to a Dec. 8 post on X by Mr. Torres about fire safety, one fake account responded, “Hamas is fueling the conflict,” referring to the Islamist militant group. The post included a hashtag suggesting that Jews were being persecuted.
Fake accounts on Facebook posted to Mr Jeffries' public page asking if he had seen any reports about the UN employing Hamas members in Gaza.
Mr. Torres, Mr. Jeffries and Mr. Warnock did not respond to requests for comment.
According to FakeReporter's analysis, the campaign also created three fake news sites with names such as No-Agenda and Unfold Magazine, which stole and rewrote content from outlets including CNN and The Wall Street Journal to promote Israel's stance during the war. Fake accounts on Reddit linked to articles on the so-called news sites to help promote them.
The effort was sloppy. The profile pictures used by some accounts sometimes did not match the fictional personas they had created, and the language used in posts was also inappropriate.
In at least two cases, accounts with profile photos of black men posted about being a “middle-aged Jewish woman.” On 118 posts in which the fake accounts shared pro-Israel articles, the same sentence appeared: “I must reevaluate my views due to this new information.”
Last week, Meta and OpenAI published reports attributing the influence campaign to Stoic. Said It had removed 510 Facebook accounts, 11 Facebook pages, 32 Instagram accounts and one Facebook group linked to the operation. Said Stoic created fictional personas and biographies intended to replace real people posting anti-Islamic messages on social media services used in Israel, Canada and the United States. Many of the posts remain on X.
X did not respond to a request for comment.
On its LinkedIn page, Stoic promotes its ability to run campaigns backed by AI, “As we look ahead, it’s clear that the role of AI in political campaigns is poised for a transformational leap that will reshape the way campaigns are strategized, executed, and evaluated,” it writes.
By Friday, Stoic had removed those posts from LinkedIn.