Israel arrange and pay for an influence campaign last year that targeted U.S. lawmakers and the American public in general with pro-Israel messages aimed at supporting its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation .
The secret operation was commissioned by Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government agency that connects Jews around the world to the state of Israel, four Israeli officials said.
The ministry allocated about $2 million for the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out, according to the officials and documents.
The campaign began in October and remains active on the X platform. At its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts posing as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram and posting pro-Israel comments. The accounts targeted US lawmakers, particularly those who are black and Democrats, such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel's military.
ChatGPT, the well-known artificial intelligence chatbot, was used to create the posts.
The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites with pro-Israel articles.
The Israeli government's connection to the influence operation, which The New York Times verified with four current and former members of the Diaspora Affairs Ministry and documents related to the campaign, has not been reported before.
FakeReporter, an Israeli disinformation watchdog, spotted the effort in March.
Last week, Meta, and OpenAI, said they found and disrupted the specific campaign that signals the steps Israel is willing to take to influence American opinion on the war in Gaza.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
