When you're so great you have to pay people to say nice things about you.
In a meeting last September dedicated to cultivating even more pro-Israel media energy, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu described social media as Israel’s new battlefield weapon.
“We cannot fight with swords anymore, that doesn’t work very well.”
It seems the Nutty Yahoo only recently discovered what everyone else realized during World War II, which ended in 1945.
This may explain why Israel has never been known for its ground-fighting prowess. At least not against those who can fight back.
Netanyahu shared his ground-breaking realization during a roundtable session with a handpicked group of American influencers sympathetic to Zionist causes, held at the Israeli Consulate General in New York.
In footage of the gathering, originally shared online by Jewish-American influencer Debra Lea Schwarzben (more commonly known as Debra Lea), Netanyahu — who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for committing war crimes in Gaza — declared that Israel must solidify its base in the US, which he admitted is “being challenged systematically.”
What he meant by this is that an increasing number of Americans are shedding their pro-Israel mind conditioning. Recent polls show support for Israel among US citizens has dramatically decreased. According to a February Gallup poll, 41 percent of Americans said they sympathize more with Palestinians, while 36 percent remained more favourable to the Israelis.
In contrast, prior to the October 7 event and the ensuing genocide in Gaza, 54 percent of Americans sympathized more with Israel and 31 percent with Palestine.
This, notes Al Jazeera, marks “an unprecedented shift in decades of overwhelming, unconditional backing for Israel, regardless of which party was in the White House or had control of Congress.”
This is of great concern to Israel, because its military prowess relies heavily on US backing. Without a constant influx of US technology and taxpayer funds, and US military intervention, Israel could not sustain its current program of military aggression.
Nor could it entertain expansionist plans that extend way beyond Gaza. It seems Zionists are in favour of a “Greater Israel”, based on a biblical verse (Genesis 15:18-21), which narrates God making a covenant with Abraham that promises his descendants the land between the Nile and the Euphrates.
This would involve Israel swallowing up Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
“It would be fine if they took it all,” said US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, understandably pissing off the aforementioned countries and others in the region, many of which are US allies.
It’s worth noting the Huck’s other claims to fame include a history of leniency towards sex predators. "Dear Wayne," the former Arkansas Governor wrote in January 1997 to a convicted rapist with a record of murder and sexual-abuse charges that reached back 25 years. "My desire is that you be released from prison." Huckabee’s desire was soon fulfilled and Wayne DuMond was freed to move to Missouri, where he almost immediately raped and murdered Carol Sue Shields.
In 2015, the GOP presidential candidate publicly supported the Duggar family of Arkansas following the admission by eldest son Joshua Duggar that he molested children, including his own siblings, as a teenager.
"No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story," Huckabee wrote in a Facebook post. "Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things."
Good people do not molest children. Period.
The Huckster went into pedo-defender mode after InTouch magazine reported numerous cases in which Duggar allegedly sexually abused his own siblings and another child who was not a family member.
Duggar, then 27 and living in Washington, D.C., was forced to resign from his position with the - wait for it - Family Research Council, an American evangelical 501 non-profit activist group and think-tank with an affiliated lobbying organization that promotes what it considers to be “family values”.
Duggar and his family were also the stars of a reality TV show called “19 Kids and Counting” - a rather scary title in hindsight. His parents Kendra Caldwell and Joseph Duggar were also recently arrested on pedophilia-related charges.
This is the kind of excrement Mike Huckabee has form for championing.
But I digress - the rabbit holes are numerous with these puppet politicians.
Shortly after Huck the Cuck publicly simped for the Greater Israel cause, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he would support “anything that will allow the Jews a large, broad, strong land and a safe haven for us”.
“Zionism is based on the Bible. Our mandate over the land of Israel is biblical, [and] the biblical borders of the land of Israel are clear … Therefore, the borders are the borders of the Bible,” he said.
Ah yes, the ol’ “we can take other people’s land and kill them if they resist because our holy book mandates it” routine.
One that increasing numbers of people are starting to see through.
Without US support, Israel couldn’t even fantasize about a Greater Israel project. To the contrary, it would be faced with the daunting prospect of having to single-handedly confront the neighbours it has spent decades antagonizing.
“Hey guys, it was just a joke! C’mon, no need for that! Hey … wait … NOOOO!”
Enter the Influencers
Clearly, lubing up American politicians is no longer enough.
“We have to fight with weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we’re engaged in and the most important ones are on social media,” Netanyahu told the New York gathering of pro-Zionist influencers.
He singled out the US government-backed deal to force TikTok into the hands of an American consortium, describing it as “the most important purchase going on right now, … number one.”
He also mentioned X, formerly Twitter, stressing he needed to talk to its owner and American billionaire Elon Musk, saying he is “not an enemy, but a friend.”
Netanyahu claimed gaining influence over both TikTok and X would deliver Israel significant advantages in shaping narratives inside the US, especially amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The meeting took place only hours after Netanyahu’s address at the 80th UN General Assembly was greeted with one of the largest walkouts in recent memory. Diplomats from Arab, Muslim, African, and several European states abandoned the chamber in protest of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
TikTok, formerly owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, has long been criticized by pro-Israel voices in the US Congress due to its wide circulation of footage from Gaza and pro-Palestinian content.
The platform, says PressTV, has significantly influenced the perspectives of young Americans, who increasingly view Israel’s genocidal regime with hostility. The push to restrict TikTok escalated dramatically following the October 7 operation. That was the one where Israel claimed a bunch of militants from controlled opposition outfit Hamas waltzed across the world’s most heavily guarded border and embarked on a rampage of mayhem and murder while the jack-booted IDF inexplicably sat around doing jack shit for 7 hours.
Sounds legit.
The investor consortium that took control of TikTok includes Oracle and Michael Dell; Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch were also involved in the takeover talks but ultimately bailed from the deal, perhaps still hurting from their disastrous purchase of MySpace in 2005. All the aforementioned are long-standing allies of Israel.
Influencers on the Israeli Payroll
Among the influencers who met Netanyahu in New York were Debra Lea, Lizzy Savetsky, Emily Austin, Shay Szabo, The Latino Zionist, Hanna Faulkner, and Danya Avner.
Lea promotes herself online as a “Jewish American Princess … frequently on your TV.”
At a 2025 summit hosted by the Israel Heritage Foundation and Arutz Sheva, the self-proclaimed princess said the Hamas-led October 7 operation ignited a renewed sense of Jewish identity among young American Jews, mirroring comments previously made by other pro-Zionist commentators.
You’d almost think these comments were scripted.
Elizabeth “Lizzy” Savetsky, who first visited occupied territories at age 18 on a Birthright Israel trip, has been a vocal supporter of the Israeli military’s genocidal actions in Gaza since October 7.
Her content often targets pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses and criticizes Democratic politicians who oppose Israel. Savetsky also endorsed Trump’s proposed plan to forcibly displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
In February last year, Savetsky provoked outrage after posting a video of extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, who was convicted of multiple acts of terrorism in both the US and the occupied Palestinian territories and founded the outlawed Kach terrorist organization. Members and supporters of Kach and its offshoot, Kahane Chai, were responsible for killings, attacks, threats, and harassment against Arabs, Palestinians, and even some Israeli officials.
Before he was assassinated in 1990, Kahane founded the Jewish Defense League in New York, which was tied to a series of terror attacks; he was convicted of making bombs. He then led a far-right party in Israel, where he was best known for calling for Arabs to be expelled en masse from the country.
A real sweet guy.
Savetsky captioned the post “Rabbi Meir Kahane, of blessed memory, was labeled as a violent extremist, but he was right. This is the truth right here. The only language the Arabs understand is force and fear.”
The post sparked immediate backlash. She made a subsequent post saying she stood by her original post, which she has since removed, because removing something controversial is what one always does when standing by that controversial thing, right?
Hey, I never said influencers make sense.
Shortly after Netanyahu’s pep talk with the handpicked group of Zionist shills, it was revealed these influencers were likely being paid around $7,000 per pro-Israel post on social media platforms such as Tik Tok and Instagram.
Bridges Partners, a firm working for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, sent a series of invoices for its “Influencer Campaign” to Havas Media Group Germany, an international media group working for Israel. The invoices detailed a sum of $900,000, starting in June and slated to end in November, for a cohort of 14-18 influencers to create content.
The document, which was filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, notes that the funding is for both “payments for influencers and production,” but does not provide a breakdown between the two. When taking into account the administrative production costs through September 16 — legal fees, banking fees, marketing fees, and other project services noted in a separate document — there was an estimated a sum of $552,946 allocated for the influencers between June and September of last year.
The firm estimated an expected 75-90 posts from the influencers in that time. That would equate to $6,143 per post on the low end, and as much as $7,372 per post on the high end.
Havas, the firm overseeing Bridges Partners’ work, did not respond to multiple requests by Responsible Statecraft for comment about the project, which influencers are participating in the program, or how much each is paid.
Here’s a happy snap of Bibi with his gaggle of US pro-Zionist influencers (a.k.a. foreign agents).
Bridges Partners’ founders are Yair Levi and Uri Steinberg, who each own a 50% stake in the firm. Bridges Partners describes its work in the Foreign Agents Registration form as assisting with “Assist with promoting cultural interchange between United States and Israel.”
The firm, which lists its business address in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington D.C., has also enlisted the help of a former major in the IDF spokesperson unit, Nadav Shtrauchler. For legal counsel, Levi and Steinberg have turned to Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a firm that previously worked for controversial Israeli spyware company NSO Group.
The Bridges Partners campaign is titled “Esther Project,” a name which bears resemblance to the Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther,” a campaign to fight ‘anti-semitism’ by branding critics of Israel as part of a terrorist support network. A Heritage spokesperson told Responsible Statecraft “there is no connection between The Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther announced October 2024 and Bridge Partner’s Esther Project.”
Just another remarkable coincidence, apparently.