In a long-running social media campaign, Israel has been trying to influence legislators of the United States to support the occupying entity’s actions in its genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip, according to a report by the New York Times.
Citing unnamed officials and documents, The NY Times reported on Wednesday Israel’s so-called Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has paid at least $2 million for the covert campaign of convincing American lawmakers to back the regime’s atrocities in the war-torn Palestinian territory.
The report said the Israeli ministry has hired the Israeli-based firm STOIC, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry out the campaign.
The firm has for months been generating anti-Hamas and pro-Israel content across the Internet.
According to the report, the influence campaign, which started in October and is still ongoing on X (formerly known as Twitter), has used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments.
The accounts, the report added, targeted US lawmakers, particularly those who are Black and Democrat, “such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia”, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel’s military.
“ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, was used to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles,” said the Times, which verified the influence operation with four current and former members of the so-called Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.
“The secretive campaign signals the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American opinion on the war in Gaza,” it further said.
Citing Meta and OpenAI, the report said the influence campaign has failed to generate a widespread impact.
Furthermore, FakeReporter, an Israeli misinformation watchdog, the fake accounts accumulated more than 40,000 followers across X, Facebook and Instagram, but as Meta said, many of those followers may have been bots and did not generate a large audience.
Israel’s bloody war machine has killed over 36,500 Palestinians since October 7, 2023. The vast majority of the fatalities are women and children.
The savage campaign was launched after Hamas carried out its historic Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities.
Israel has additionally enforced a comprehensive blockade on the coastal sliver, severing the supply of fuel, electricity, sustenance and water to the population of over two million Palestinians residing there.
Meanwhile, the US House passes a bill to sanction ICC over Netanyahu’s arrest warrant request.
In yet another act of support for Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, the Republican-led US House of Representatives has passed legislation that will impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) for seeking arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his regime’s months-long crimes in the besieged Palestinian territory.
The bill was ratified on Tuesday by 247 votes in favor and 155 against, with 42 Democrats joining Republicans in backing the measure aimed at punishing the top court through sanctions following its chief prosecutor’s call for probe into war crimes by Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.
After passing the House, the legislation is expected to go to the Senate where it is unlikely to receive support from the Democratically-controlled chamber and become law.
Last month, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan sought an arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Israel’s minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the occupying regime in Gaza.
Khan said he had reasonable grounds after more than seven months of war in Gaza to believe that the Israeli prime minister and his military chief “bear criminal responsibility” for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the besieged Palestinian territory, including civilian starvation and targeted attacks against civilians.
The court’s decision faced bipartisan condemnation within the US, with President Joe Biden denouncing the ICC’s warrants against the occupying entity’s leaders.
The Hague-based court has been investigating Israel’s actions in the occupied territories for the past three years and more recently the brutal war in the Gaza Strip as well.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza also prompted South Africa to file a case against Tel Aviv in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023, which led to the UN court ordering the regime to stop its genocidal actions in the besieged territory and allow humanitarian aid to reach the war-ravaged area.
Israel’s bloody war machine has killed 36,550 Palestinians since October 7, 2023. The vast majority of the fatalities are women and children.
The savage campaign was launched after Palestinian resistance groups carried out their historic Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities.
Israel has additionally enforced a comprehensive blockade on the coastal sliver, severing the supply of fuel, electricity, sustenance and water to the population of over two million Palestinians residing there.
Press TV
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