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Israeli seizure of social media is a declaration of defeat

  • Robert Inlakesh Robert Inlakesh
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 6 Oct 2025 13:39
  • 3 Shares
7 Min Read

Robert Inlakesh argues that "Israel’s" attempt to buy online influence marks an admission of failure in the global information war, as censorship and propaganda fail to reverse its growing isolation.

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  • All these decades and the billions of dollars spent by the Zionist Lobby on its propaganda is being rapidly undone, all thanks to the Israeli murder machine exposing itself. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)
    All these decades and the billions of dollars spent by the Zionist Lobby on its propaganda is being rapidly undone, all thanks to the Israeli murder machine exposing itself. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

The Zionist movement has almost lost all public support across the West. Now it believes it can buy its way out of this problem. This is not only an admission of defeat, but the worst possible strategy imaginable.

Back in August, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu publicly acknowledged that his regime was losing the information war, while vowing to strive to change this. As a wanted war criminal, with an International Criminal Court warrant for his arrest, Netanyahu is the last person who would admit the true reasons behind this, blaming the information war defeat on “bots”.

According to all authoritative polling data for the United States, the Israelis have lost the support of Democrats, Independents, and young Republicans under the age of 30. While Democratic Party voters have been entirely lost, the main focus of Israeli propaganda efforts has been fixated on Conservative Republicans instead.

Earlier this year, the Israeli Foreign Ministry began working on a campaign whereby they would finance a radical Zionist organisation to bring over 550 right-activists on trips to occupied Palestine by the end of the year. 

Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu would begin his tour of mainstream right-wing podcasts, beginning with the Nelk Boys. All his appearances, alongside a streak of appearances on mainstream corporate media shows, were filled with softball questions. On the Nelk Boys podcast, the toughest pushback came surrounding whether McDonalds or Burger King had better burgers.

Ultimately, the right-wing podcasters like Patrick Bet-David and others attempted to portray their hosting of the Israeli PM as edgy and going against the grain. This ultimately backfired, because they were exposed as giving even more cushiony interviews than Netanyahu receives when he goes on CNN. In fact, he was less challenged on these well funded mainstream podcasts than he has been on Newsmax or Fox News.

Then came the month of September, when Netanyahu would address the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to an almost empty room, where he appeared extremely weak and isolated, complaining and moaning about the loss of support he had experienced.

Following his joint press conference with US President Donald Trump, to lay out a surrender deal which the two leaders dubbed a “peace plan”, the Israeli Premier then met with a number of social media influencers. 

The social media conference was filmed, another major mistake for his propaganda efforts, as he publicly discussed the battle to propagandise the American public as a war front, openly advertising his strategy to brainwash the public. He also stressed that capturing the audiences on TikTok and X [formerly Twitter] was of vital importance.

A major issue that the Israeli PM is facing is that he seeks to pre-announce his deception and believes it will be a winning strategy nonetheless. TikTok was forcibly transferred by the US government to new ownership, which users have expressed concern over due to the involvement of Zionist donors. 

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However, TikTok has long been censoring pro-Palestine content, removing accounts and shadow banning them. I myself experienced this only months into the Gaza Genocide. Once, my account would receive hundreds of thousands of views within days, at minimum tens of thousands. Then, suddenly, posts would reach a few hundred views at the very most, and there was nothing I, or any other experiencing this censorship could do.

In July, TikTok hired Erica Mindel, an ex-Israeli soldier and ex-ADL employee, as its new “Hate Speech” censorship Tsar. Meta has also been another social media platform where it was revealed that active censorship of Palestinians has taken place. Personally, I have been censored with the removal of my Instagram and Youtube pages. Even my Gmail account was recently removed altogether. My repeated appeals weren’t even answered, and on Youtube, I had no community guideline strikes, all of this has happened since October 7, 2023.

Despite all of this, with clear Israeli influence on all these major social media platforms, the Israelis have failed to understand that money cannot undo what the world has witnessed. They can continue to shut down accounts and shadow ban journalists, commentators, and even ordinary people for what they post, but those who are doing so will not suddenly forget.

Additionally, paying influencers $7,000 per pro-Israeli post they make, as was recently revealed by Wikileaks that Zionists are doing, will not overcome the committed public outcry in opposition to genocide.

The Israeli failure to convince the world of its lies can be found in the arrogance of Zionists. They wrongly believe that they can pay everyone off and intimidate them, the same way they do to our politicians in the Western World. The difference here is that these politicians are professional propagandists who make their living off of lying their way into office, taking money from anyone who will continue to pay them, so long as they remain in positions of power.

Yet, even the reliance on these spineless politicians is short sighted. Despite their public professions of love for the Zionist project, they are the kinds of individuals who will eventually pretend they never supported the Israeli wars of aggression they have, when the time comes for them to change their stances to benefit their careers. 

Or, alternatively, these hollowed out money grubbing politicians will be voted out of office, as appears to be already happening. Take for instance the rise of Zohran Mamdani, who won the New York Mayoral primary race in large part due to his pro-Palestinian stances. Many such Democrat politicians are now rising to challenge their AIPAC endorsed opposition.

All these decades and the billions of dollars spent by the Zionist Lobby on its propaganda, think-tanks and purchasing politicians, is being rapidly undone, all thanks to the Israeli murder machine exposing itself. Although older Republicans in the US may still be pro-Israeli, this is even slowly changing, which is why the pro-Israeli propagandists are trying desperately to push anti-Muslim hatred and tie support for Zionism with the ongoing culture war over right-left identity politics.

None of these tactics are going to work, leaving the base of pro-Israeli supporters in the West as the hardline anti-Muslim types, people who are obsessed with a religion that half of them couldn’t even spell. The likes of Tommy Robinson in the UK may be able to lead a crowd of thousands, but the scope of support for these kinds of decisive personalities is not broad.

So, the Israelis are now left with a group of hardline anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim types, along with an older right-wing crowd. The same exact crowd harbouring the same kinds of hatred that once would have been directed towards European Jews, except at this particular chapter in history they have chosen to direct that hatred towards Muslims instead.

Regardless of what they do and how much money they try to inject into attempting to brainwash the Western public, they have already been exposed. Over time, they will lose even more support, and in the future, even some of their staunchest allies will testify against them.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
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Robert Inlakesh

Robert Inlakesh

Political Analyst, Journalist, and Documentary Filmmaker.

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