How much is your support for Israel worth? Try $1 billion.
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- Israel has spent over $1 billion on global "hasbara" public diplomacy since October 7, with the budget quadrupling in the last year alone as it tries to reverse waning American support following genocide accusations in Gaza.
- Israel has shifted its influence strategy from relying on wealthy American advocates like AIPAC to hiring U.S. contractors that must register as foreign agents under FARA — a transition Quincy Institute researcher Nick Cleveland-Stout characterizes as signaling "increasing desperation."
- Brad Parscale, Trump's former campaign manager, holds three of Israel's largest contracts, running mass texting campaigns on Israel's behalf through front groups like "Allies for Peace."
- Targeted Communications Global has spent nearly $10 million running ads on X, the Daily Caller, and Breitbart, revealing Israel's focus on shoring up right-leaning supporters rather than persuading skeptics.
- Israel's government is paying for "LLM poisoning" — developing pro-Israel websites designed to feed chatbots like Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok so they serve "he-said, she-said" responses to incidents like the IDF's killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab.
Why it matters: Israel's $1B+ hasbara push, which quadrupled in a single year, marks a structural shift from indirect AIPAC-style lobbying to FARA-registered influence campaigns and AI chatbot manipulation — meaning Americans scrolling X or asking ChatGPT now encounter foreign-government-funded messaging designed to shape how Gaza and Iran are discussed.
