Israel has funded a fake US think tank and a network of apparently independent websites designed to game artificial intelligence systems and push pro-Israel narratives into chatbot responses, according to an investigation by the Guardian.
The operation is part of a multimillion-dollar Israeli campaign to manipulate the online information environment as the occupation state struggles to reverse an unprecedented collapse in international support following its genocide in Gaza and expanding regional wars.
Israeli officials have already conceded that the massive propaganda drive is failing, despite hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into hasbara.
The revelations come just days after a senior Israeli communications figure openly admitted to fabricating false information in Israel’s propaganda war. Eli Hazan, a longstanding Likud communications official and former spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declared: “The truth doesn’t matter anymore. The facts don’t matter anymore.”
Hazan went on to acknowledge: “I fabricate fake news as a response to them,” while arguing that Israel should flood the information space and adopt a communications strategy modelled on US President Donald Trump.
