Israel’s $50 Million Experiment to Change U.S. Public Opinion

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Israel’s $50 Million Experiment to Change U.S. Public Opinion

The Israeli government is trying to shore up its U.S. reputation with help from influencers, Trump insiders and millions of AI-driven texts

By Maggie Severns, Josh Dawsey and Natalie Andrews, WSJ

July 18, 2026

Israel is funding a multimillion-dollar U.S. influence campaign using AI-driven texts and conservative media to improve its public reputation.

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The text messages come from senders named Emma or Sarah, with a group called Friends for Peace. “How do you think the U.S. and Israel’s peace talks with Iran will impact global security?” they ask.

Millions of similar texts have flooded American cellphones in recent months. They are written with artificial intelligence, pushed by a longtime Trump adviser’s firm—and paid for by the Israeli government.

Some 60% of American adults now have an unfavorable view of Israel, according to a March poll by Pew Research, driven by its handling of its wars in Gaza and Iran.

Israel is pouring tens of millions of dollars into a somewhat quixotic effort to beat back that tide, drawing on novel strategies powered by AI and directly paying conservative media.

Vice President JD Vance this past week accused Israel’s influence campaign of trying to undermine U.S. negotiations to end the Iran conflict. Some Israeli officials are “manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely,” he told podcaster Joe Rogan.

The artificial-intelligence texts are one piece of a more than $45 million contract that the Israeli government recently signed with Brad Parscale, a longtime ally of President Trump.

Israel 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 didn’t respond to interview requests. Its allies argue that its influence campaign is necessary to counter those run by Iran and the pro-Palestinian movement.

What is friends for peace?

We’re a group focused on sharing perspectives and educating people about the importance of the US-Israel relationship, and we’re supported by people who care about this partnership and want to see it thrive.

We believe Israel’s strength is crucial for America's future and freedom. Some people frame this as a political conflict, while others see it as Israel taking steps to protect its civilians from Hamas. What’s your perspective?

How did you get my number? 🤔🤔

“The existential threat to Israel is misinformation, from any side,” Parscale said in a recent interview. He denied any effort to undermine U.S. negotiations.

Israel has retained at least six firms to help with the effort in the U.S. over the past year. Three dozen new people, many of them marketing professionals, have registered as foreign agents for Israel. The country is on track to spend more than any other on U.S. influence disclosed with the federal government this year, said Nick Cleveland-Stout, a researcher who studies foreign lobbying at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Other countries, including Qatar, have spent large sums over the years on influence efforts.

Conservative media

Parscale’s work has come under scrutiny given his role as chief strategy officer at Salem Media, a conglomerate that hosts popular conservative podcast and radio hosts including Hugh Hewitt, Scott Jennings and Lara Trump.

His initial contract for Israel involved “integration of narrative messaging into Salem Media Network properties and aligned distribution channels.”

“How is the second-biggest conservative talk network run by a registered foreign agent?” said Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist who is himself a prominent podcast host.

Salem Media and Parscale said they don’t pay its hosts to say anything specific about Israel, and that the money was spent on more than $500,000 in ads on the network. “Our hosts have built their careers by saying exactly what they think, not by reading from someone else’s script,” Salem Chief Executive David Santrella said. Many of Salem’s hosts have been longtime defenders of Israel, and sometimes echo each other in their defense of the country.

A group called Show Faith by Works filed documents with plans to send pro-Israel messages, specifically to megachurch attendees and Christian college students, saying it could reach some four million of them in the Southwest through a geofencing campaign.

The group, created last July, said the work would involve “positive associations with the Nation of Israel while linking the Palestinian population with extremist factions,” and would cost more than $3 million. It said it planned to reach out to influential people as part of its effort, and named actor Chris Pratt and basketball star Stephen Curry as two examples of ideal celebrity spokespeople. (A Pratt representative said he was never contacted; a representative for Curry didn’t respond.)

In an email, Show Faith by Works founder Chad Schnitger said the group had since gone in a different direction and the budget has mostly gone to build a mobile museum with bespoke video.

Managing influencers

Other Israeli efforts are focused on the American left. The Gaza war has prompted deep rifts among Democrats in ongoing primaries over whether support for Israel has a place in the party anymore.

Yoav Davis, who founded the popular @Jews_of_NY Instagram handle, which has 193,000 followers, runs a marketing company contracted by Israel for work that included participating in calls with an “influencers management team” and managing “contracted talents.” He frequently weighs in on debates over Israel and the war on the Instagram account, including during a June visit to Jerusalem’s Pride parade. “Israel is by far the safest place in the Middle East for LGBTQ+ people,” he said cheerfully to the camera: He doesn’t disclose if Israel has paid for posts or travel, and didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a point of courting conservative influencers, meeting with them on at least two recent visits to the U.S. The deterioration of Americans’ support for Israel “correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media,” he told “60 Minutes” in May.

Documents indicate Israel and registered agents working for the country have made payments to firms owned by other online influencers as part of its work, but don’t specify paying for posts. Evangelical relationship influencers Stefanie and Caleb Rouse, who post glossy Instagrams on topics like “10 things to pray for your marriage,” own a company that was paid $4,500 by a contractor for Israel last year for “strategic marketing promotion.” The Rouses didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Parscale’s chatbots

Parscale’s contract with Israel is significantly larger than those of other Trump advisers’ work for foreign governments including Saudi Arabia, India and Qatar, which have generally paid lobbyists tens of thousands of dollars each month, filings show.

He worked on Trump’s 2020 and 2016 campaigns, where he gained public notoriety for using the data firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest Facebook data. Parscale is no longer in regular contact with the president but has ties to the Trump family.

He flew to Israel to pitch the government in late 2024, telling officials that companies he had built and invested in were “probably the largest thing outside of Fox News to help fight misinformation and Jewish hatred.” He has regularly returned to brief government officials.

The effort includes creating websites, posts and links with pro-Israel content that are designed in part to trigger more positive results about the country on AI chatbots like Claude or ChatGPT. At times, the AI bots have shared links as reference points to websites like Allyvia.org about the U.S.-Israel alliance, which was built by Parscale’s team. One of the goals is to figure out the biggest concerns people have about Israel and combat them, while reporting the answers back to the Israeli government, he said.

Parscale is also an investor in a firm called Influenceable that pays social-media influencers for posts. He said he hasn’t employed any influencers for Israel.

Recipients of Israel’s outreach have at times sensed they may be part of a broader campaign.

Fair enough.

Why is it important to you to ask such a question of a random American citizen?

I’d rather not share personal details, but I’m happy to continue our conversation about the US-Israel partnership if you’re willing.

Artist Beth Surdut got one of the Friends for Peace text messages in June asking for her views on Israel and noticed the conversation felt circular: Whatever she said would be rephrased and spit back to her in a follow-up text.

“I said to it, ‘I don’t think you’re a real person’—and it tried to talk me into thinking it was 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 have more productive conversations than traditional text campaigns and that had been paid $6.5 million as of mid-May to do the work. A Sparkfire spokesman said in a statement that “human team members are involved throughout the conversation process and interact directly with recipients.”

Friends for Peace doesn’t appear to exist as a nonprofit or an LLC. Asked if Friends for Peace was a real organization, Parscale replied, “What do you define as an actual organization?”

Surdut, too, couldn’t find a website for the group online, and grew suspicious.

“Even if it’s a cause I believe in, I don’t want to have a conversation with AI,” she said.

All of the influence efforts have laid bare the steep climb for Israel. Even Trump at private fundraisers has talked about the falling public support for Israel, according to people who have heard the comments.

“They are trying to sell something that is not sellable,” Bannon said.