Israeli Disinformation Creating Divisions Across Europe

Israel’s Digital War: How Netanyahu’s Government Uses Disinformation to Control the Gaza Narrative

In the shadow of ongoing conflict in Gaza, Israel has transformed its public diplomacy strategy, known as hasbara, into a sophisticated disinformation campaign aimed at European and global audiences. With over 70,000 Palestinian lives lost in 25 months of conflict, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has prioritized controlling the narrative as a military objective, turning the digital sphere into a battleground.

“We have to fight back… We have to use the weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we engage… and the most important ones are social media,” Netanyahu told young influencers in New York last September, outlining his strategy to team up with tech platforms like TikTok and X to dominate public discourse.

The Israeli government has dramatically increased its hasbara budget to €129 million for 2025—twenty times its pre-war allocation. Additionally, it signed a €5 million contract with US firm Clock Tower X to create and position digital content, manipulate algorithms, and train AI models like ChatGPT to shape global information flows.

This campaign isn’t merely defending Israel against criticism—it’s actively working to deny realities on the ground. A third of the budget has gone toward campaigns denying famine in Gaza and portraying humanitarian concerns as an “antisemitic conspiracy.” Meanwhile, Israeli state accounts, including those of Defense Minister Israel Katz, have publicly attacked International Criminal Court judges, EU leaders, and UN representatives.

Within Gaza itself, Israel has enforced an unprecedented media blackout by killing over 270 journalists and 560 humanitarian workers while blocking foreign press access. This creates an information vacuum that makes independent verification nearly impossible.

What makes Israel’s digital operations particularly effective is the country’s technological prowess. As both a tech industry leader and cyber espionage powerhouse, Israel deploys sophisticated tactics learned from previous operations like the Pegasus spyware scandal—which targeted European leaders including Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez—and “Team Jorge,” a Tel Aviv-based group that claimed to have disrupted 27 elections worldwide.

The hasbara strategy exploits existing social fractures in European societies by amplifying divisive issues like antisemitism, Islamophobia, migration, and homophobia. This approach aligns with far-right narratives while simultaneously promoting Zionist messaging in Hebrew-language communications. It’s telling that Netanyahu’s strongest allies globally are figures like Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, and Javier Milei—leaders known for religious and supremacist rhetoric.

Beyond social media, Israel has leveraged sports and culture for image rehabilitation, spending €30 million to influence Eurovision voting and securing sponsorships for teams like the Israel-Premier Tech cycling group.

The consequences of these campaigns have been severe. Following disturbances at a football match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam, Netanyahu used manipulated video to accuse Europe of antisemitism and describe the events as “pogroms against Jews.” Though the aggressors were later identified as Israelis, the inflammatory narrative had already spread across social media.

Perhaps most damaging was Israel’s campaign against the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). In just 48 hours, without substantive evidence, Israel convinced 16 donor countries to freeze their funding. The €7 million operation linked UNRWA to Hamas, Islamic State, and even Nazis through Google and YouTube campaigns. This not only undermined multilateral cooperation but directly impacted humanitarian aid delivery during the offensive.

The incorporation of AI to shape public discourse is diminishing audiences’ ability to distinguish between legitimate information and interference, undermining European media credibility. Fact-checkers struggle against million-euro disinformation campaigns, while European governments largely remain silent or even endorse Israeli narratives through careful language that avoids attributing responsibility.

Israeli diplomatic pressure has also restricted freedom of expression in universities, newsrooms, and protests across Europe, the United States, and Israel itself. Critical discourse is quickly labeled antisemitic—a tactic that ties the existence of Israel as a legitimate Jewish homeland to Netanyahu’s political survival.

As long as the EU fails to address this digital impunity, Israel will likely continue interfering in electoral processes across Europe to favor its ideological allies. The resources invested in dehumanizing Palestinians have enabled Israeli politicians to express genocidal intentions without consequences, while two million Gazans remain stripped of rights, waiting for the international community to acknowledge their reality.