The American New York Times newspaper revealed that Israel organized an influence campaign, at the end of 2023, through which it targeted American lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messages, with the aim of supporting its actions in the ongoing war on Gaza, according to what was announced by officials who participated in the report and documents related to the operation.

Four Israeli officials stated that the secret campaign was commissioned by the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, the governmental body that connects Jews from all over the world to the State of Israel. The Ministry allocated about two million dollars to the operation, and hired Stoic, a political marketing company located Headquartered in Tel Aviv, for implementation.

According to the sources and documents published by the American newspaper, the campaign began in October 2023, that is, shortly after the attacks launched by the “Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)” on Israel, and the start of the Israeli army’s attack on the Gaza Strip. She is also still active around the clock on the “X” social media platform.

The report added, citing documents and officials, that the campaign used hundreds of fake accounts that pretended to be real Americans on X, Facebook, and Instagram to publish pro-Israel comments.

The fake accounts focused on American legislators, especially black and Democratic lawmakers, such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the US House of Representatives from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock from Georgia, and the posts directed at them focused on continuing to fund the Israeli army.

According to the New York Times report, the artificial intelligence program (Chat GPT) was used to create many posts, tweets, and messages. The campaign also created 3 fake news sites in English that publish pro-Israel articles under the names “Noon Agenda” and “Infold.” Magazine, rewrote articles published on CNN and the Wall Street Journal.

In connection with the matter, Meta, the company that owns the Facebook and Instagram platforms, announced that it had identified the operation and stopped it on its social media platforms. The Israeli government's relationship with the operation, which was verified by the New York Times, with four current and former members of the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, has not been previously reported. Vic Reporter, a disinformation watchdog, identified the campaign activity last March, and last week Meta and OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, announced they had noticed The process also disrupted it.

The Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs denied its involvement in the campaign and said it had nothing to do with it. On the other hand, Stoic did not respond to requests for comment. Vic Reporter said that the fake accounts had gathered more than 40,000 followers on the X, Facebook, and Instagram platforms. But Meta said that many of these followers may have been bots, not a real audience.

The American newspaper reviewed messages via e-mail and the “WhatsApp” application for conversations and communication sent to dozens of companies working in the field of Israeli technology with the aim of inviting them to join “digital soldiers meetings” to support Israel during the war on Gaza.

The secret campaign indicates the lengths to which Israel was willing to go to mislead American public opinion about the war in Gaza.

The New York Times said in the report published today (Wednesday) that the United States of America is one of Israel’s strongest allies in the world. During the past few days, US President Joe Biden signed a package of military aid worth $15 billion to support the Israeli army, which was rejected by many Americans who called on the outgoing president to withdraw his support for Israel in light of the war that has been ongoing for 8 months.