Media review: Haaretz reporting on Israeli forces killing Israeli hostages and "Secret Israeli campaign targeted US lawmakers"

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a lengthy report on a secret Israeli influence campaign targeting US lawmakers in an attempt to influence global public opinion on the war in Gaza. The report said that fake accounts and websites published pro-Israel content and incited hatred of Islam. The operation was organized by the "Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs" and run by a political campaign company.

The Israeli government is behind the wide-ranging campaign, which primarily targets young black and progressive lawmakers in the United States and Canada, she explained. The operation, which Haaretz first learned of in March, began after the start of the war on Gaza and was intended to influence certain sectors of public opinion regarding Israel’s behavior.

The influence campaign used disinformation about anti-Semitism on American campuses, and was launched by a private Israeli online political campaign firm called Stoic, which was contracted for the project.

According to sources and information obtained by Haaretz, the operation was carried out by a different party than the Diaspora Ministry, fearing that its exposure would embroil Israel in a crisis.

The campaign began by creating three fake “news sites” that copied reports from official media sources. These sites used X, Facebook and Instagram, which amassed tens of thousands of followers.

At the same time, the people running the operation used hundreds of avatars to aggressively promote alleged articles that served the Israeli narrative, including alleged reports of sexual assault by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and of ties between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and Hamas.

The follow-up report now shows the full extent of the Israeli influence operation, which has evolved into a “widespread and well-coordinated effort to attack and discredit groups that are traditionally pro-Palestinian. These groups include citizens of Western countries, mainly the United States and Canada, of Muslim origin, using anti-Islam and anti-immigrant content.

It should be noted that many US government offcials have resigned in protest of the US support for the war that has been conducted in violation of International humanitarian law.

Even Israeli current leaders are reported to secretly wanting to end the war in Gaza, according to an Israeil newspaper. 

Earlier, the paper reported that it was Israeli forces who killed Israelis on Oct. 7.