The Israeli government is paying to have 16 MAGA social media influencers, with millions of followers, brought to Israel to learn how to stop American youth from turning against Tel Aviv over Gaza, writes Joe Lauria.
Israeli government-funded troll army Act.IL’s Israeli headquarters in Herzliya. (Act.IL/Facebook via Electronic Intifada)
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
The Israel foreign ministry will spend $86,000 to finance a tour of Israel for 16 Americans to get them to use their vast online influence to craft more positive images of a nation openly engaged in genocide.
The effort is being made as Israel reacts to a significant turn in public opinion against it, especially by Western youth. Tel Aviv realizes its usual methods of propaganda — and apparently its own inhouse troll army — are no longer working as they once did.
The daily Haaretz reported:
“Foreign Ministry officials say the tour delivers significant media, advocacy, and diplomatic benefits – and represents a strategic shift, as traditional outreach is no longer sufficient to shape public opinion. They aim to leverage the massive followings of young social media influencers to bolster Israel’s standing in the U.S.”
The Americans, whose names have not been divulged, belong to the MAGA and America First movements, the newspaper said. They are all younger than 30 and each have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, a vast, target-rich environment for propaganda. Israel intends to bring more than 500 “influencer delegations” to Israel this year, the ministry said.
It is paying an organization called Israel365 to organize the first American tour because it is in a “unique position to convey a pro-Israel stance that aligns entirely with the MAGA and America First agenda.”
Israel365’s website says the group “stands unapologetically for the Jewish people’s God-given right to the entire Land of Israel,” calls the two-state solution a “delusion,” and says it’s defending “Western civilization against threats from both Progressive Left extremism and global jihad.”
Israeli officials justified the no-bid contract with the organization because of its “experience and know-how in creating awareness, engagement, and mobilization of Christian audiences regarding their support for the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” Haaretz reported.
Ministry officials told the newspaper that “while older Republicans and American conservatives still hold pro-Israel views, positive perspectives towards Israel are falling across all younger age groups.”
News of the tour comes after the U.S. national teachers union voted to ditch the Zionist curriculum of the Ant-Defamation League, which was influencing young American minds.
Western youth, including conservatives, have become increasingly aware of the history of Israel’s expulsion of Palestinian people from their land and of Israel’s stated genocidal intent and actions in Gaza today. It is a wave of understanding Israel needs to contain.
A ministry source said: “We’re working with influencers, sometimes with delegations of influencers. Their networks have huge followings, and their messages are more effective than if they came directly from the ministry.”
Haaretz reported:
“The strategy appears to be paying off. During the 12-day conflict last month with Iran, Israeli digital messaging garnered roughly 1.8 billion online views, boosted in part by social media influencers with millions of followers. The Foreign Ministry has set a goal of bringing 550 influencer delegations to Israel by the end of 2025 to continue this outreach.”
The Foreign Ministry chose Israel365 because “with the rise of the America First movement and MAGA in American politics, it’s essential for Israel that the movement adopt a pro-Israel position.” A Foreign Ministry document said Israel365 “has the ability to smoothly link the spiritual/biblical and geopolitical aspects of support for Israel.”
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
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This is a striking example of how governments are using soft power and influencer culture to shape public opinion. It raises important questions about transparency, propaganda, and the ethics of targeting younger audiences through social media.
I would like for everyone to follow U.S. Law Enforcement to go back to how recent the U.S. Law Enforcement started going to Israel to get trained up their standards and what that means for the U.S. citizen. A great starter would be the U.S. adopted practice of ‘kettling’ groups of protesters. If you don’t know what this is find out, you could be the next victim.Then follow up by writing or calling you US congress person and your Senator.
This plan for training outreach groups to spew Israeli propaganda serves no interests other than those of the Israeli government weaving itself into the fabric of American values. Which is the way propaganda works, figure this shit out. For the sake of Dog!
They are desperately trying to get into your heads. Anyone here really want to be identified to and adopt the same principle as this group of pro-genocide mongrels? The same people who allow themselves to adopt a value set that agrees with genocide by any means possible, the same folks who stoop so low as to murder starving women, children and those who try to assist them.
We here, by far the most of us, are horrified by our government allowing this murder of innocents to continue spending our tax dollars, something which insinuates ‘we the people’ find this horrific behavior to approve of it.
I have to contact Sen. Durbin after this and unload on his pro-Israel ass.
Y’all have a nice afternoon.
You could call our current “fascism” IAMB or IAMBicism (IAMBic-ism).
insidious Atwoodian MICIMATT matrix blanket
Truth stands on its own. It doesn’t need training.
Propoganda training: Satanic marching orders. Potato: potato.
REMINDER: By the way Israel isn’t paying for shit, U.S. tax payers are!
These SOBs. These idiots must love being brainwashed, James A us correct we need the names and we should have them, NOW, Immediately if not sooner.
I anyone thinks having magats trained as IDF murderers is a good idea move to Israel you will not be missed here. Drew Hunkins has this right. Thanks Drew!
The Forever Wars are driven by Mystic insanity.
This is the beginning of the end of the Zionist project. And they know it. Pity we don’t have the names of the influencers that are going on this trip.
flight tracker or logs ?
Greet at airport upon landing ?
We need to get the names. Name them and shame them.
Exactly
How does anyone with half a brain cell actually believe this bilge ?
Or is it the case with these ‘influencers’ (WTF) that they’ll say anything for money, even blood money ?
Query: Can such Israeli programs and “influence peddlers” be blocked because they are foreigners, by definition? Or, is there an exemption for anything or anyone Israeli? Long ago, German, Russian, even French, Vietnamese et al. writers were blocked, deported, or expunged from library shelves for purported ‘threatening alien’ ideologies. I gather DJT’s crowd wants a repeat for “his side,” but what’s the law? I’ve gotten thoroughly lost in the weeds.
Greenblatt was hysterical a couple of years ago, bemoaning how the Israel-Palestine issue isn’t left and right but old and young.
He’s terrified that the young aren’t as deluded as the Boomers regarding Israeli Jewish supremacy.
The Millennials and Gen Zers (and some Gen Xers) are seeing the light and beginning to understand how violent and vicious the Zionist project truly is.
Social media and the internet in general get the credit for enlightening tens of millions of youngsters. Which of course is why Greenie and his pro-Israel brethren are desperate to control its message with suppression and cancellation.
Stop slandering boomers. I am a boomer and I have opposed Israel all of my adult life. Your stupid generalizations defeat your purported position. Grow up.
Drew didn’t generalize the Boomers or anyone else. He framed the young people as less deluded than the Boomers are. That’s not claiming that ALL boomers are deluded, just that a much larger percentage of them are than that of the young people. All of us here already know that not ALL boomers have a positive opinion of “Israel”/Zionism. Chomsky, you, and a few others. So let’s return to the very important topic at hand: Naming these young MAGA influencers.
Thank you. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Stay strong my friend.
Sometimes one must speak in generalizations; that’s how sociological analyses has always worked. Boomers are definitely less enlightened on this issue, common sense that you should be able to grasp. You’re citing an exception (yourself) to try and prove a rule. Also, make your argument, but please do it less hysterically.
They don’t have to go that far. Mainstream Judaism can no longer be separated from antisemitic Christian Nationalism with both directly involved on the ground in Israel’s genocide —
hxxps://theintercept.com/2025/07/19/lone-soldiers-israel-gaza-idf/
The Forever Wars are driven by Mystic insanity.
Traitors. Every single one of these “western influencers”.
We need names.
Honorary dual citizens ?
Children of the faith , decendends of duals ?
Grooming ops for future leaders ?
Is educating really that cheap ?
Small ponds , big fish , whores caked with lipstick , summer vacation .
Me , me , me . Look at me .
Princesses delusion , pieces of meat .
Speak to your children , pray for others .
That’s right. And they should lose their citizenship.
They are desperate. They know the end is nigh.