Israel Pays Millions to “Influencers” to Shore Up American Support

Israel is waging a multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign to shore up support for the country among Americans.

Alarmed by polls that show Americans are increasingly fed up with their tax dollars subsidizing Israel’s reckless military campaigns, The Wall Street Journal reported, the nation is waging that campaign with conservative “influencers” as well as with artificial intelligence.

The latest revelation shows that Israel is terrified that American economic and military largesse will end if support among Americans continues cratering. And it follows last week’s report from Time that U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale, an Israeli foreign agent, ran a campaign to block the memorandum of understanding that temporarily ended Trump’s unconstitutional war with Iran.

Millions of Dollars, Millions of Texts

“Emma” and “Sarah” are part of a group called “Friends for Peace” and text messages asking, “How do you think the U.S. and Israel’s peace talks with Iran will impact global security?” the Journal reported, citing an example of the Israeli propaganda.

“Millions of similar texts have flooded American cellphones in recent months,” the newspaper disclosed:

They are written with artificial intelligence, pushed by a longtime Trump adviser’s firm — and paid for by the Israeli government.

The reason: A strong majority of Americans — six of 10 of those polled — now views Israel unfavorably, Pew Research found in March, because of its wars against Gaza and Iran.

So “Israel is pouring tens of millions of dollars into a somewhat quixotic effort to beat back that tide, drawing on novel strategies powered by AI and directly paying conservative media,” the Journal continued. The newspaper pointed to what Vice President J.D. Vance told podcaster Joe Rogan last week.

“You know there’s a lot of talk about how much is the Israeli government influencing American politics and there are certainly certain people within the Israeli government who hate the [Iran] deal,” Vance told the wildly popular podcaster:

And we see exact evidence. There was a Time story that came out yesterday that basically there are certain influencers in America who are being paid in order to attack the deal. 

Yet the AI texts are just “one piece of a more than $45 million contract that the Israeli government recently signed with Brad Parscale,” the Journal explained.

Israel will spend more than $700 million in 2026 on a global propaganda campaign.

Israel is also paying six consultancies to polish its image, and 36 individuals are Israeli foreign agents. Many are “marketing professionals.”

“A group called Show Faith by Works filed documents with plans to send pro-Israel messages, specifically to megachurch attendees and Christian college students, saying it could reach some four million of them in the Southwest through a geofencing campaign,” the Journal continued:

The group, created last July, said the work would involve “positive associations with the Nation of Israel while linking the Palestinian population with extremist factions,” and would cost more than $3 million. It said it planned to reach out to influential people as part of its effort, and named actor Chris Pratt and basketball star Stephen Curry as two examples of ideal celebrity spokespeople. (A Pratt representative said he was never contacted; a representative for Curry didn’t respond.) 

In an email, Show Faith by Works founder Chad Schnitger said the group had since gone in a different direction and the budget has mostly gone to build a mobile museum with bespoke video.

The Israelis are also attempting, not surprisingly, to influence American leftists.

More on Parscale

The Journal also disclosed more about Parscale’s propaganda efforts for Israel. His “contract with Israel is significantly larger than those of other Trump advisers’ work for foreign governments including Saudi Arabia, India and Qatar, which have generally paid lobbyists tens of thousands of dollars each month, filings show,” the newspaper continued.

The high-dollar relationships raise the question of why former government officials are permitted to peddle propaganda for foreign countries that have ambassadors and diplomats to the United States to do just that.

The former Trump campaign chief went to Israel in late 2024 to tell “officials that companies he had built and invested in were ‘probably the largest thing outside of Fox News to help fight misinformation and Jewish hatred,’” the Journal explained:

He has regularly returned to brief government officials.

The effort includes creating websites, posts and links with pro-Israel content that are designed in part to trigger more positive results about the country on AI chatbots like Claude or ChatGPT. At times, the AI bots have shared links as reference points to websites like Allyvia.org about the U.S.-Israel alliance, which was built by Parscale’s team. One of the goals is to figure out the biggest concerns people have about Israel and combat them, while reporting the answers back to the Israeli government, he said.

Parscale is also an investor in a firm called Influenceable that pays social-media influencers for posts. He said he hasn’t employed any influencers for Israel.

Frighteningly, Parscale is chief strategy office at Salem Media, the Christian media and entertainment empire. It carries pro-war neoconservative commentators along with movies, cartoons, and “live news.” Time also discussed Parscale’s connection to Salem. “His initial contract for Israel involved ‘integration of narrative messaging into Salem Media Network properties and aligned distribution channels,’” the Journal disclosed:

“How is the second-biggest conservative talk network run by a registered foreign agent?” said Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist who is himself a prominent podcast host.

Parscale denied the Time report that he had run a campaign against the memorandum of understanding.