A covert Israeli online influence campaign tried to sway American lawmakers

Websites that appear to covertly target mostly younger, progressive Americans with a pro-Israeli spin on the war in Gaza are linked to a company that’s being paid by the Israeli government to sway lawmakers and public opinion in the U.S., according to Israeli researchers and The New York Times.

A new report published Wednesday by FakeReporter, an Israeli watchdog group that tracks misinformation, identified five specific websites tied to an Israeli political consulting form called STOIC. The Times reported Wednesday that STOIC is being paid $2 million by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs to influence Democratic members of the U.S. Congress to maintain support for Israel, at a time when many Democrats are questioning continued U.S. military support to Israel amid rising civilian casualties and suffering in Gaza.

One site labels American universities as “safe” or “unsafe” for Jewish students; another one argues against the idea of a Palestinian state, arguing: “Being a part of a mass movement that is advocating for some of the worst men-made [sic] social structures is even worse than standing with the oppressors”; a third focused on the historic slave trade in East Africa, where slavers included Muslims. The websites share the same IP address, suggesting common ownership.

Although the campaign did not appear to gain traction online, according to tech companies that also investigated it, Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, called for an Israeli investigation in response to the Times’ reporting. The campaign is an “inappropriate interference in the internal politics of our most important ally,” Oren wrote in a post on X, saying it “causes strategic damage to the State of Israel in wartime.”

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