Israel targets X users, right-wing media with $2 million ad push

The Israeli government paid a Republican Party-aligned public affairs company $9.9 million to advertise and promote content in American social media and news sites, according to a new disclosure made to the Department of Justice. The firm, Targeted Communications Global, purchased nearly $2 million in ads on the social media platform X, $40,000 in conservative media outlet Breitbart, and $7,500 in the Daily Caller.

Targeted Communications’ work for Israel appears to be among the most lucrative active foreign lobbying contracts in the U.S. Driving it are prominent Republican strategists seeking to book pro-Israel voices on TV programs while overseeing ad campaigns seen by hundreds of millions of people.

As part of its work for Israel, Targeted Communications oversaw a now-dormant ad campaign called “Freedom Not Terror.” Starting in October 2025, the campaign began posting clips on TikTok, Instagram, X, YouTube, and Facebook.

It appears to have found the most success on YouTube, garnering more than 224 million views across all of its videos. One of the videos , titled “Religious Freedom,” claims that Iran “built sleeper cells in the U.S.” The ad, which has over 23 million views, features an interview with former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, who says that “young people have been educated to believe that the most sacred thing they can do is stab a Christian in the heart.” The Freedom Not Terror accounts have not been active since December of last year.

Freedom Not Terror’s most viewed post on X, a 90-second video with 1.7 million views, positions Israel as a peace-seeking nation. “America, Israel, and Arab nations agreed on a plan to bring peace to the Middle East. Hamas and radicalized Palestinians want to continue their culture of hate and reign of terror,” says the narrator. (At the time the video was posted, human rights group Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said the Israeli army was engaged in routine violations of the ceasefire, including daily bombardment, gunfire, and destruction of homes in Gaza.)

Targeted Communications’ deal with the Israeli government is being subcontracted through Havas Media, a French public relations conglomerate. Havas has hired seven subcontractors in the U.S. that have registered to work for Israel under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in the past year. Most recently, Havas hired Daniel Rosenberg, the producer of Spike Lee’s “Inside Man,” on a $900,000 contract to produce pro-Israel media content.

A spokesperson for the conservative news site The Daily Caller said their publication was not aware they were doing business with the Israeli government when they sold advertising space to representatives of Targeted Communications last October.

“We had no direct transaction with either the Government of Israel or Havas Media Group. The ad buyer was listed as LAPAM and our rep was unaware of what that entity was,” The Daily Caller communications manager Conor Coutts told Responsible Statecraft. LAPAM is the Hebrew acronym for the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, which produces the ads featured in The Daily Caller, X, Breitbart, and YouTube. The Daily Caller has published a number of articles in recent weeks that are critical of Israel’s new influence campaigns.

Throughout the fall of 2025, Targeted Communications also pitched news content or guests to CNN, Fox News, Newsnation, BBC, the California Post, and other mainstream news outlets, according to communications documented in the filing. The firm facilitated “TV bookings,” “media pitches,” and “PR management” with these news outlets, contacting Fox News the most (48 times), followed by CNN (22), NewsNation (13), and Newsmax (10).

Targeted Communications’ ad payments in conservative media mirror some of the work of former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, who is overseeing a $46.5 million contract with the Israeli government. Parscale has funneled $500,000 worth of ads into Salem Media Representatives, a subsidiary of Salem Media, a right-wing media conglomerate. Parscale is also running a mass texting campaign, creating websites to manipulate AI chatbot results, and integrating pro-Israel messaging into conservative media, as Responsible Statecraft previously revealed.

A majority of the foreign agents on the Targeted Communications contract are listed as staff of an affiliate organized, Targeted Victory, a go-to consultancy for Republican candidates. Its current and past clients include Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Both Targeted Communications and Targeted Victory are subsidiaries of Stagwell Group.

Neither Targeted Communications nor Targeted Victory responded to requests for comment.

A few of the registered foreign agents involved in the Targeted Communications contract are also media figures.

Matthew Gorman, Chief Communications Officer at Targeted Victory, is an NBC contributor at the same time as he is working for Israel. NBC’s Meet the Press does not disclose Gorman’s work moonlighting for the Israeli government. Targeted Communications communicated with NBC about TV bookings on at least three occasions.

David Sable, vice-chairman of Stagwell, wrote publicly about Israel while working on the contract. Sable penned two pieces in a blog published by the Times of Israel, which did not disclose to readers that he is a registered foreign agent of Israel.

The Israeli government also made two separate payments of $500,000 and $250,000 to an unnamed “U.S.-based consulting firm” in 2025. Under FARA, any contractor or subcontractor representing a foreign government is typically identified by name to the DOJ and the public. This is because FARA requires “a degree of specificity necessary to permit meaningful public evaluation” of the actions of lobbyists on behalf of foreign government clients. So long as Targeted Communications withholds the name of this consulting firm, Americans have no way of knowing which companies are operating on behalf of Israel.

Ben Freeman, the director of the Quincy Institute’s Democratizing Foreign Policy program, said that if a company is directing $750,000 to an unknown firm on behalf of a foreign government, it has to disclose who that consulting firm is.

“FARA is a transparency statute, and that’s the most basic level of transparency. It’s also very odd that all the other receipts of Israeli money are disclosed except this one,” said Freeman. “It really makes you wonder what they’re trying to hide here.”

Stagwell, the parent company of Targeted Communications, has engaged in plenty of other pro-Israel work. Last year, Israel hired another subsidiary of Stagwell — a Democratic-aligned firm known as SKDK — on a $600,000 deal. The scope of SKDK’s work included running a “bot-based program” to amplify pro–Israel narratives on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other platforms.

A day after the investigative outlet Sludge revealed that part of the firm’s work involved a bot program, SKDK revealed that it was cutting its contract with the Israeli government. A spokesperson from the firm told Politico that its work was “focused solely on media relations and nothing else.” Ultimately, Israel paid SKDK a total of $150,000 for its work. SKDK also runs the 10/7 Project, a public relations initiative to promote bipartisan support for Israel.

A Gallup poll earlier this year showed that more Americans sympathize with Palestinians (41%) than Israelis (36%). Mark Penn — CEO of Stagwell, the parent company of Targeted Communications and SKDK — blamed misinformation for the cratering of public support for Israel in a December interview with the Jerusalem Post. “[Young people] don’t know which side is democratic. They don’t know about gay rights in Israel. They don’t know the basics,” said Penn.

Penn is still optimistic about delivering for his Israeli government clients, pointing in particular to young people who don’t have set views on the issue. “You can win back a lot of that 15% that’s confused or misinformed,” he said.