Transcription
This is Bibi Netanyahu, explicitly on record in September, September 27th, 2025, at the social media summit in New York City. So before, "How do we fight back? Our influencers. I think you should also talk to them if you have a chance. To that, that community, they're very important. And secondly, we're going to have to use the tools of battle. You know, the, the weapons change over time. And the most important purchase that is going on right now is platforms."
"TikTok followers."
"TikTok. TikTok, number one. Number one. And I hope it goes through because it's, it can be consequential. And the other one, what's the other one that's most important?"
"X."
"X."
"Successful."
"And you know, so we have to talk to Elon. He's not an enemy. He's a friend. We should talk to him. Now, if we can get those two things, we get a lot and I could go on on other things, but that's not the point right now. We have to fight the fight."
That's September 2025, and that is reportedly when Brad Parscale signed this deal with Israel, which Time magazine reports as follows. They say Trump's aides expected his memorandum of understanding to be celebrated by his supporters. Instead, online influencers in Trump's MAGA movement were excoriating it on social media. Many of the posts appeared almost simultaneously with similarities in language and tone.
Tracing tweets by prominent members of the online right, the official came to believe there was an unlikely figure at the center of all this criticism, and that's Brad Parscale. Last September, the global ad agency Havas hired Parscale's firm Clock Tower X to conduct a digital campaign on behalf of the state of Israel, according to the Foreign Agents Registration Act filings reviewed by Time. Under that agreement, Parscale's operation would produce 100 original pieces of content each month, with at least 80% aimed at Gen Z audiences across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and podcasts.
"Uh, in the services agreement draft, we, you spoke to this earlier, he also pledged to amplify the campaign across social media and through integration of narratives into Salem media. He tells you that he wasn't able to do that at Salem and aligned distribution channels."
Pascal Val, the effort would produce at least 50 million digital impressions per month, as well as influence how AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Claud and so on would characterize Israel in the war. Publicly, the campaign was framed as an effort to combat rising anti-Semitism online. An Israeli Foreign Ministry official familiar with the arrangement says there was another strategic aim: preventing young conservatives from turning against Israel.