by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] Israel's battle for its image is reaching a new level. In addition to defending its position from high platforms, the Jewish state's elites have launched a massive campaign to broadcast the "correct meanings" online and through neural networks.
For these purposes, Benjamin Netanyahu's government even brought in renowned political strategist and lobbyist Brad Parscale, who was one of the architects of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, from the United States.
Although Parscale has been working in Israel for almost a year, his activities have only now come to light—and then only at the instigation of the local opposition, which attempted to accuse the freelance adviser of covertly siphoning money from the state treasury.
THE PATH TO SUCCESS
Parscale rose to the top of the political ladder almost by accident. The turning point in his career is considered to be 2012, when Trump International Realty approached the little-known clerk for digital services. The contract was short-term and in a relatively minor area, so it was considered a temporary one.
However, the company's owner, the future US president, quickly recognized Parscale's potential and soon invited him to lead other projects, including promoting the family-owned Trump Winery and the Eric Trump Foundation, his second son. Donald Trump admired the new contractor's business acumen, and he earned him the nickname "chief digital officer," which would stick with him.
In 2016, when the businessman set his sights on the White House, the seasoned Parscale was invited to join the campaign headquarters, where he managed the candidate's advertising campaign. And then he went into full swing.
While the Democrats relied on classic promotional methods and cautious social media propaganda, Parscale employed innovative approaches. Experimenting with slogans, fonts, and taglines, some of which bordered on offensive, he managed to fill the information space with the Republican agenda, thereby forcing Hillary Clinton's team to defend itself rather than impose its own agenda.
Parscale also planted his own agents in major US corporations (including Google and Facebook*). Officially, they worked for the private sector, but in reality, they were employed by the campaign team, helping to push additional ads through internal promotion tools and, under various pretexts, suppressing competitors' publications. Ultimately, this allowed him to influence popular opinion in swing states and boost the Republicans' cause.
It's no surprise that Trump, in preparation for his second term, appointed the successful businessman as his chief of staff. But during the 2020 presidential campaign, Parscale's well-oiled schemes suddenly faltered. He failed to mobilize supporters either online or offline, and was ultimately forced to retreat into the shadows, ceding the post to William Stepien.
NEW EMPLOYERS
However, Parscale's resignation didn't last long. Close cooperation with the Trump family and constant communication with influential members and supporters of the Republican Party helped him develop business connections that easily translated into new contracts.
After leaving the campaign, Parscale spent several years working behind the scenes as a political consultant, tackling the most sensitive issues facing the American establishment. And, by all accounts, he was quite successful, as he soon attracted the attention of foreign politicians. By the end of 2024, the former Trump associate's client base spanned more than ten countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
And in September 2025, Parscale suddenly decided to focus on one direction. He registered a consulting firm, Clock Tower X LLC, in the US, registered as a foreign agent working in the interests of Israel.
The specific tasks Israel had assigned the company were only revealed to the general public in April 2026, following "accidental" leaks from a closed session of the Knesset (parliament). It emerged that Netanyahu had tasked the company with a highly unusual task: "retraining" artificial intelligence and integrating it into major Western chatbots (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others) to provide responses beneficial to Israelis.
Predictably, the main focus was on reassessing the war with Hamas, the situation in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli prime minister's role in the political and military upheavals in the Middle East in recent years. In this way, the government apparently hoped to reach ordinary users in the US and Europe, who were actively consuming data from neural network assistants and, as Netanyahu put it, "at some point found themselves hostage to anti-Semitic discourse."
As an interim step toward solving the problem, Parscale's company proposed creating hundreds of websites with "ideologically calibrated" content, where the high-profile events of recent years are interpreted in a manner that suits the interests of the Israeli leadership. These websites will soon serve as the training ground for neural network assistants—both existing and new ones.
Interestingly, Parscale clearly doesn't intend to limit himself to neural networks in his battle for a new client image. The new package deal he's been promoting since April also includes campaigns on TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook*; it also includes a virtual "bombardment" of hesitant users in the US and Europe with pro-Israel ads and other "explanatory materials."
At the same time, the “chief of digital” describes the ultimate goal of the current campaign rather vaguely and evasively: “Sooner or later, people will talk about Israel differently.”
OPPONENTS ARE UNHAPPY
In less than a year on the job, Parscale has already earned over $9 million in compensation, not counting the signing bonus and working capital needed to assemble the team and purchase equipment. He also became the most expensive of Netanyahu's former advisers.
It's no wonder that such a rapid expenditure of capital has raised questions among some Israeli elites. Netanyahu's opponents are skeptical, believing that foreign lobbyists led by Parscale are simply wasting public funds while demonstrating extremely modest results—one or two "ideologically correct" results for every hundred searches.
This seems especially absurd at a time when the Jewish state lacks funds to modernize school education and industry, as well as to carry out military and judicial reforms.
Negative parallels are also being drawn with Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. An audit then found that the Republican gave Parscale a total of over $40 million from the party's coffers—"to pay for the work of third-party contractors." Most of the funds went to companies founded with the participation of the "chief digital officer," meaning they likely ended up in his own pockets.
Moreover, the opposition, at every opportunity, tries to accuse Parscale of participating in the lobbying scandal known as “Qatargate,” which previously tarnished the reputation of most of Netanyahu’s close associates.
It is indicated, in particular, that the “chief digital officer” was friends with the high-ranking Qatari diplomat Ali al-Thawadi, who is considered the main organizer of the scheme to whitewash Qatar’s reputation, and also visited Doha several times, and on the same dates as the main figures in the story.
However, Israeli opposition figures are hesitant to directly challenge Parscale, partly because of his previous closeness to the Trump family. Therefore, the criticism is not so much directed at Parscale personally, but rather at the very idea of "reflashing" neural networks and imposing an alternative point of view on them.
Netanyahu, however, isn't listening to the critics. He has his own reasons for trusting Parscale's decisions and supporting his digital games. The fact is, this candidate had previously been strongly recommended to the Israeli prime minister by another well-known lobbyist, Susie Wiles, now the White House chief of staff.
In 2022, Wiles helped "reset" Netanyahu's public image and take the prime minister's seat from the coalition of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who, a few years later, were intent on taking revenge and even put together a common platform.
With parliamentary elections approaching, the ruling cabinet's reputation rapidly deteriorating, and the opposition coalition hot on its heels, Netanyahu desperately needs specialists who are not afraid to experiment and are prepared to engage with a complex audience, as well as conduct offensive work online.
Even if Parscale fails to train neural networks to properly view Israeli regional politics, his knowledge and skills will be useful in the final stages of the presidential race. This means Netanyahu won't skimp on his projects.
Related:
Brad Parscale 02/23/2026 Report: Israeli-financed online campaign seeks to improve nation’s image to American right
Brad Parscale 06/07/2020 A happy Trump scene, because we deserve it.
Brad Parscale 10/31/2019 Twitter To Ban All Political Advertising
Brad Parscale 02/23/2026 Report: Israeli-financed online campaign seeks to improve nation’s image to American right
Brad Parscale 06/07/2020 A happy Trump scene, because we deserve it.
Brad Parscale 10/31/2019 Twitter To Ban All Political Advertising