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Israeli Influence Operations Aimed at Americans

AIPAC is an American organization. But Israel's government also pays, directly, to shape what Americans think, and some of that work is hidden. This page gathers what the record shows about Israel's government-funded influence operations in the United States during the years of the Iran wars: registered contracts, paid influencers, fake accounts posing as Americans, and, in the words of the Vice President, a "well-funded campaign" to keep the war going.

The Vice President: "manipulating... American public opinion"​

The highest-ranking statement comes from Vice President JD Vance, on the Joe Rogan podcast in July 2026. The BBC reported:

"US Vice-President JD Vance has accused some members of the Israeli government of trying to influence Americans' opinions to prolong the Iran war."

He said that while he trusts some people in the Israeli government, there are others "who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely." And: "I definitely think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal," adding there is "exact evidence" that some Israeli leaders "hate the deal." (BBC, July 16, 2026). The same day, the House rejected a motion to cut billions in U.S. aid to Israel, 314 to 104.

The contracts under FARA​

Foreign governments that pay Americans to influence U.S. opinion or policy must register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Researchers Nick Cleveland-Stout and Ben Freeman, who study those filings, described Israel's 2025 to 2026 contracts in a June 2026 interview (figures as spoken; check them at efile.fara.gov):

  • "Brad Parscale was first awarded, I think, a $6 million contract in September of 2025." Parscale was the President's former campaign manager.
  • "there's a Christian Zionist organization called Eagles' Wings that was paid $700,000 by the Israeli government" for an "Israel Advocacy Day" "last month," "meeting with over 100 different congressional offices" and "explicitly lobbying on the US-Israel military relationship."
  • "in one of these contracts, they were actually paying influencers some I think it was $7,000 a post," meaning that what Americans "were hearing from influencers, what they were reading in right-wing media mostly, could have been paid for by the Israeli government" and "wasn't disclosed."
  • Israel was "going to quadruple the public diplomacy budget, which is what they did from 2025 to 2026."

(Cleveland-Stout and Freeman on YouTube, June 17, 2026). The same speakers said the Section 219 provision "gives Israel unprecedented access to the Pentagon" (see Section 219).

Fake accounts posing as Americans​

In September 2026, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), citing a New York Times report titled "Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War," called on social media companies to shut down what it called a secret Israeli government campaign. According to the report as quoted by CAIR, the campaign "began in October and remains active" on X; "at its peak, it used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram"; it focused on Black Democrats including Hakeem Jeffries and Raphael Warnock, "urging them to continue funding Israel's military"; "ChatGPT ... was used to generate many of the posts"; and it ran "three fake English-language news sites" (CAIR, September 23, 2026). The campaign concerned funding for the Gaza war, the same military aid pipeline that supplies the Iran war. It shows the method: a foreign government, posing as American citizens, lobbying American lawmakers.

A campaign to prepare Americans for war​

Journalist Borzou Daragahi posted a video in June 2026 on "How Israel launched an influence campaign to get Americans on board for February war against Iran way back in June 2025" (Daragahi on X, June 28, 2026); the video's content was not transcribed here. Commentator Sam Parker pointed to Israel's "8th front" information-warfare spending, which he put at "an additional $729 million in FY2026," and to a leaked November 2023 call in which the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, described a "major generational problem," a "TikTok problem," among young Americans (Parker on X, February 28, 2026). Those figures and characterizations are Parker's.

The people inside the machinery​

The advocacy group DAWN found that "66 former AIPAC staffers currently work in the U.S. government, from Congress to the White House to various branches of the military," and that seven former AIPAC staffers now work for Israeli government institutions while six current staffers previously worked for the Israeli government, including "the Office of the Prime Minister" and "Israeli military intelligence" (DAWN, December 10, 2025).

Why it matters​

These operations are the other half of the capture this section describes. Money and access shape what officials do; influence campaigns shape what citizens believe, so that officials face no backlash. A foreign government secretly paying influencers and running fake American accounts to keep American aid flowing is not free speech; it is the manufacture of consent. The first defense is knowing it exists.

Status: JD Vance, Nick Cleveland-Stout, Ben Freeman, Brad Parscale, Hakeem Jeffries, Raphael Warnock, Borzou Daragahi, Sam Parker, and Jonathan Greenblatt are alive.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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