The text messages come from senders named Emma or Sarah, whose group is Friends for Peace. “What impact do you think US and Israel peace talks with Iran will have on global security?” they ask.
Millions of similar texts have flooded American cellphones in recent months. They are written by artificial intelligence, inspired by a longtime Trump adviser’s firm — and paid for by the Israeli government.
Nearly 60% of American adults now have an unfavorable view of Israel, according to a March survey by Pew Research, due to its handling of the wars in Gaza and Iran.
Israel is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a somewhat accelerated effort to turn back that tide, working on new strategies powered by AI and paying conservative media directly.
Vice President JD Vance last week Israel’s influence campaign accused Trying to undermine US negotiations to end the Iran conflict. Some Israeli officials are trying to sway American public opinion to continue the war indefinitely, he told podcaster Joe Rogan.
The artificial-intelligence texts are part of a more than $45 million contract that the Israeli government recently signed with longtime Trump aide Brad Parscale.
Israel has set a 2026 budget of more than $700 million to expand the country’s efforts to “shape consciousness” and improve its image around the world, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said late last year. The Israeli Foreign Ministry did not respond to interview requests. Its allies argue that its influence campaign is necessary to counter campaigns by Iran and the pro-Palestinian movement.
“The threat to Israel’s existence is misinformation from any side,” Parscale said in a recent interview. He denied any attempt to undermine the US talks.
Israel has retained at least six firms to help efforts in the US in the past year. Three dozen newcomers, many of them marketing professionals, have registered as foreign agents for Israel. Nick Cleveland-Stout, a researcher who studies foreign lobbying at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the country is on track to spend more on disclosed American influence with the federal government this year than any other. Other countries, including Qatar, have spent huge sums over the years influence efforts.
conservative media
Parscale’s work has come under scrutiny given her role as chief strategy officer at Salem Media, a group that hosts popular conservative podcasts and radio hosts including Hugh Hewitt, Scott Jennings and Lara Trump.
Their initial contract for Israel included “integration of narrative messaging across Salem Media Networks properties and aligned distribution channels.”
“How is the second largest conservative talk network run by a registered foreign agent?”. said Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, himself a prominent podcast host.
Salem Media and Parscale said they do not pay their hosts to say anything specific about Israel, and that money was spent on more than $500,000 in advertisements on the network. “Our hosts have built their careers by saying what they think, not by reading someone else’s script,” said David Santarella, chief executive of Salem. Many of Salem’s hosts have been longtime defenders of Israel, and sometimes join each other in defending the country.
Israel’s efforts extend beyond Parscale.
A group called Show Faith by Works filed documents with a plan to send pro-Israel messages specifically to megachurch attendees and Christian college students, saying it could reach nearly four million of them in the Southwest through a geofencing campaign.
The group, formed last July, said the work would include “positive engagement with the State of Israel while linking the Palestinian population to extremist groups” and would cost more than $3 million. It said it planned to reach out to influencers as part of its effort, and named actor Chris Pratt and basketball star Stephen Curry as two examples of ideal celebrity spokespeople. (A representative for Pratt said he was never contacted; a representative for Curry did not respond.)
In an email, Show Faith By Works founder Chad Schnitger said the group has since gone in a different direction and the budget has been spent mostly on creating a mobile museum with custom videos.
managing influencers
Other Israeli efforts focus on the American left. gaza war has prompted deep rift among democrats The primaries are running over whether there is any longer a place in the party for support for Israel.
Yoav Davis, who founded the popular @Jews_of_NY Instagram handle, which has 193,000 followers, ran a marketing company contracted by Israel for work that included participating in calls with an “influencer management team” and managing “contracted talents.” He frequently focuses on the debate over Israel and the war on his Instagram account, including a trip to Jerusalem’s Pride parade in June. “Israel is by far the safest place in the Middle East for LGBTQ+ people,” he said cheerfully to the camera: He did not disclose whether Israel paid for the post or the trip, and did not respond to requests for comment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a point of courting conservative influential people, meeting with them on at least two recent visits to the US. The decline in Americans’ support for Israel is “almost 100% correlated with the geometric increase of social media,” He told “60 Minutes” in May.
The documents indicate that Israel and registered agents working for the country have made payments to firms owned by other online influencers as part of their work, but did not specify payment for the posts. Evangelical relationship influencers Stephanie and Caleb Rouse, who make glowing Instagram posts on topics like “10 Things to Pray for Your Marriage,” own a company that was paid $4,500 by an Israeli contractor last year for a “strategic marketing promotion.” Rouse did not respond to requests for comment.
Parscale’s chatbots
Parscale’s contract with Israel is significantly larger than the work of other Trump advisers for foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, India and Qatar, which typically pay lobbyists thousands of dollars a month, the filings show.
He worked on Trump’s 2020 and 2016 campaigns, where he gained public notoriety for using data firm Cambridge Analytica to acquire Facebook data. Parscale is no longer in regular contact with the president but has ties to the Trump family.
He flew to Israel in late 2024 to grill the government, and told officials that the companies he had created and invested in were “probably the biggest thing outside of Fox News to help fight misinformation and Jew hatred.” He has been returning regularly to brief government officials.
The effort involves creating websites, posts and links with pro-Israel content that are designed to generate more positive results about the country on the cloud or AI chatbots like ChatGPT. Many times, AI bots have shared links as reference points to websites like Allyvia.org About the US-Israel alliance, which Parscale’s team created. One goal, he said, is to find out and confront people’s biggest concerns about Israel, as well as report the answers to the Israeli government.
Parscale is also an investor in a firm called Influential that pays social-media influencers to post. He said that he has not appointed any influential person for Israel.
Recipients of Israel’s outreach have at times felt as if they may have been part of a broader campaign.
Artist Beth Surdut received one of Friends for Peace’s text messages in June asking for her views on Israel and noticed that the conversation was circular: Everything she said would be reworded and spit back out in a follow-up text.
“I said to him, ‘I don’t think you’re a real person’ — and it tried to make me think this is a real person,” Surdut, who is Jewish, said in an interview.
The text operation is run by Sparkfire, a firm that claims its AI-enabled texts can lead to more productive conversations than traditional text campaigns and was paid $6.5 million as of mid-May to do the work. A Sparkfire spokesperson said in a statement that “human team members are involved in the entire negotiation process and interact directly with recipients.”
Friends for Peace does not appear to exist as a non-profit or LLC. Asked if Friends for Peace was a real organization, Parscale replied, “What do you define as a real organization?”
Surdut also could not find a website for the online group and became suspicious.
“Even though it’s a cause I believe in, I don’t want to interact with AI,” she said.
All influence efforts have exposed Israel to have an uphill climb. Trump also spoke about declining public support for Israel at the private fundraising event, according to people who heard the comments.
“They’re trying to sell something that’s not sellable,” Bannon said.
Write to Maggie Severns maggie.severns@wsj.comon josh dawsey joshua.docsey@WSJ.com and on natalie andrews natalie.andrews@wsj.com
