'A triumphant failure': How Israel's use of social media influencers to win back support backfired- Israel quadrupled its PR budget to $730m in 2026 and is reportedly paying influencers up to $7,ooo to post pro-Israel content

Anti-Trump and pro-Palestine protesters gather outside the Donald J Trump Institute of Peace in Washington, DC on 19 February 2026 (Heather Diehl/Getty Images/AF

 Fleur Hargreaves

Published date: 23 July 2026 12:18 BST | Last update: 20 hours 49 mins ago

 

An unprecedented investment in social media propaganda by Israel is failing to shift the cratering support for the country in the western world amid its ongoing genocide in Gaza, particularly among the younger generation, analysts have told Middle East Eye. 

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in March found that a majority, 60 percent of the American public, including 57 percent of Republican voters under the age of 50 and 84 percent of Democrats under 50, view Israel unfavourably.

Much of this is down to an increasing number of younger people using social media rather than mainstream outlets, which are overwhelmingly pro-Israel, for their news. 

To counter this shift, Israeli lawmakers approved a record budget of $730m for public diplomacy - known by its Hebrew name Hasbara - in March, amounting to almost five times its previous annual budget, which was already 20 times pre-2023 levels.

In September 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with several American influencers in New York to enlist them to amplify pro-Israel messaging in the US.

During the meeting, Netanyahu stressed the importance of their role, saying: "We have to fight with weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we’re engaged in and the most important ones are on social media."

He added that the deal, which saw American billionaire Larry Ellison, alongside several other pro-Israel businessmen, acquire TikTok's US operations, was "the most important purchase going on right now".

As part of its propaganda campaign, Israel used secret PR operations and hired corporate firms to manage paid influencer networks under a plan code-named the "Esther Project".

According to documents filed under the US's Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara), Israel paid influencers up to $7,000 per social media post, operating through its contractor Bridges Partners, which worked with a global ad agency called Havas Media Group Germany for an “Influencer Campaign”.

Havas also signed a $15m contract with Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale’s firm Clock Tower X, which was recently exposed to be behind a social media campaign to attack the US president’s ceasefire deal with Iran on behalf of Israel... READ MORE  https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-use-social-media-influencers-support-backfired 

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