If you are a Christian living in the Western United States, you have almost certainly been targeted with pro-Israel, anti-Palestine propaganda, paid for directly by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Your searches, location, and internet activity is being monitored by Israel, and your algorithms and search results across multiple platforms are being manipulated by Israeli government in what its American partner calls the “largest geofencing and targeted Christian digital campaign ever.”
Amid a massive drop in support from the Christian community, Israel is spending millions of dollars to target individuals entering churches or Christian colleges with ads, and paying pastors across the country to promote propaganda and false “anti-Palestinian” narratives every Sunday, documents filed with the United States’ Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) show.
The 86-page disclosure reveals that Israel is recruiting Hollywood celebrities and sports stars to promote the country, while also manipulating Christians’ social media feeds. And they are doing it by spying on you through your phone.
MintPress explores this explosive story, largely ignored in corporate media.
Propaganda Storm
In September, Show Faith by Works LLC, a San Diego-based company led by conservative activist Chad Schnitger, filed a sworn document with the U.S. Department of Justice. The declaration revealed that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs was paying Show Faith by Works $4.1 million to carry out a massive, covert, digital surveillance operation targeting Christian communities across multiple states, including California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
The document noted that all students at every Christian college and every congregant at “every major church” in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado has been spied on through their phone’s location data, and targeted with propaganda extolling Israel’s “moral superiority” and “linking the Palestinian population with extremist factions.” The campaign estimates that it has reached well over eight million Americans.
Show Faith by Works itself divides its messaging into two themes: “pro-Israel” and “anti-Palestinian”. Its primary goals, in its own words, are to “combat low American Evangelical Christian approval of the Nation of Israel,” by “using biblical arguments to highlight the importance of Israel and the Jewish People to Christians.” It also wishes to “educate Christians on the historical importance of Israel and its significance in the region,” and to “counter new and evolving pro-Palestinian messaging as the global narrative shifts.”
Many of their anti-Palestinian talking points are highly controversial, dubious, or even blatant falsehoods. Their principal messaging on Palestine is that there never was (or should be) a Palestinian state in history, that “Palestinians shelter terrorists” and “hide weapons in their schools and hospitals,” and that they are not a trustworthy actor, as the Palestinians’ goals are “genocidal.”
They also share ads and messages with American Christians claiming that Gazans kill U.S. Christian aid workers distributing food to them, and that “Israel is the birthplace of Jesus.” (In fact, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, in the Palestinian West Bank.)
The overall message, then, is one extolling Israel’s supposed virtues, encouraging Americans to visit, while dehumanizing Palestinians (including the 12.5% of historic Palestine who were Christians themselves) as genocidal terrorist intent on destroying the world.
Show Faith by Works projects that this content will receive 47 million impressions across the United States in its first twelve months in operation.
Hi-Tech Targeting
Show Faith by Works and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs are able to carry out this sophisticated operation by taking advantage of a technology called “geofencing.” Geofencing creates invisible digital boundaries around real world locations (in this case, hundreds of churches and universities). Any phone or smart device entering a church on Sunday or a college during term time is logged and recorded. The operation then begins sending targeted advertisements and messaging to each device through ad networks, promoting Israel and demonizing Palestine. These messages appear in Google searches, on social media, and on any number of apps and platforms.
Your behavioral data – how you respond to the ads, what you click, or how long you watch for, is fed back into the operation in order to tailor messaging to each individual, making future targeting more effective. Over time, the system builds up an enormous amount of data on each individual – their locations, beliefs, preferences, and actions, in order to better manipulate them.
Once you enter a church or college targeted by Israel, there is almost nothing you can do about it. They are paying to manipulate your search results, news feeds, and algorithms. What you see online will be decided…
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