Facts For Peace: The Billionaire-Backed Campaign Attacking the Palestinian Cause
A week after Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel, the social media page Facts For Peace was created with the message, “Get the facts on Hamas, Israel, and peace in the region.”
A few days later, the page began advertising its content. “Here is Hamas’ Founding Charter in Their Own Words,” one sponsored post reads alongside video clips of Hamas leaders speaking and snapshots of the document. The page has spent more than $945,000 on Facebook ads since the war began nearly four months ago, and according to POLITICO, was the single largest pro-Israel advertiser between November 2 and December 1, spending over $450,000 on Meta ads. The ads have mainly reached male-identifying Facebook users under the age of 35 in California, Texas, New York, and Florida.
Labeled as a media/news company on Facebook, now Meta, the page’s posts and its supporters appear less concerned with accurate reporting and more involved in shaping public opinion.
In November, news website Semafor reported real-estate billionaire Barry Sternlicht launched Facts For Peace and sought $1 million in donations each from some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. “This is just one of several behind-the-scenes efforts by business tycoons — many, though not all of them Jewish — to support Israel since the attack by Hamas,” Samafor reported.
“Public opinion will surely shift as scenes, real or fabricated by Hamas, of civilian Palestinian suffering will surely erode [Israel’s] current empathy in the world community,” Sternlicht wrote in an email, seen by Semafor, soliciting contributions from Wall Street, Hollywood, and tech moguls. “We must get ahead of the narrative.”
The main objective of the “Facts for Peace” media campaign is to blame Palestinian deaths & suffering on Hamas instead of on their occupier, Apartheid Israel. pic.twitter.com/TaEy7ZNcGJ
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) November 13, 2023
Sternlicht wrote that he’s aiming to raise $50 million from the recipients and secure a matching donation from an unnamed Jewish charity. With the funds, Facts For Peace seeks to “define Hamas to the American people as a terrorist organization” and “not just the enemy of Israel but of the United States.”
According to Bloomberg and Forbes data, the recipients have a combined net worth of almost $500 billion and include media tycoon David Geffen, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Apollo CEO Marc Rowan, investors Michael Milke, Nelson Peltz, and Bill Ackman, and tech tycoons Eric Schmidt and Michael Dell. Facts For Peace did not respond to MintPress News inquiries about its campaign objectives.
Paying for Propaganda
Following its debut ad on the Hamas charter, Facts For Peace has gone on to publish hundreds of sponsored posts, with some conflating support for Palestine with support for Hamas or calling for the destruction of Israel. Only one ad was taken down since Facts For Peace’s launch for violating the platform’s advertising standards by not adding a paid for by disclaimer.
One ad, which hasn’t been active since Jan. 22, 2024, depicts a pro-Palestine march with participants chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
“Does this sound like peace and freedom? No,” the ad reads, followed by stating the protest ballad is a call for “genocide.” The ad then tells the viewer this slogan is sung at nearly every pro-Palestine rally and immediately jumps into saying, “Hamas wants to destroy and take over the entire area where Israelis and Palestinians live.”
The ad then ends with, “Anyone who says these words…is calling for a world without Israel.”
In another advertised video, a man approaches pedestrians in New York City, asking them to sign “a quick petition to help Hamas free Palestine.” He then reads off the petition’s“terms and conditions,” which include, “You agree that every Jew, Christian, and non-Muslim in the world must be slaughtered,” “You believe Iran should use Palestinians as puppets to spread radical jihad and destroy the west,” and “You want a terrorist group that beheads babies and rapes girls to replace the only democracy in the Middle East.”
A similar video shows a man approaching pedestrians in Washington, D.C., asking them to sign the same petition. In this video, the “terms and conditions” outlined include agreeing “Hamas should keep enforcing anti-West values like murdering gay Palestinians,” and “You want Hamas to win the war so they can spread their death cult to the U.S. and massacre all non-Muslims.”
As a reminder, those demonstrating in support of Palestine are generally not siding with Hamas, and using the slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” isn’t genocidal but rather expressing freedom from oppression across the historical land of Palestine.
While pro-Palestine activists have been condemned for this phrase, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not receive similar backlash when he called to take over the “area from the river to the sea.”
“Every area that we evacuate, we receive terrible terror against us. It happened in South Lebanon, in Gaza, and also in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank], which we did it,” Netanyahu said earlier this month. “And therefore, I clarify that in any other arrangement, in the future, the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea.”
Another now-inactive ad encourages viewers to take a quiz to determine “Who do you really support in the Middle East Conflict?” The ad then directs to a Facts For Peace online quiz asking questions related to democracy, human rights, and equality. If you answer positively, your results say, “your views are more in line with Israel’s.”
“It seems that Facts for Peace is another transparent effort to wrap up genocide propaganda in lies and push the public conversation in counterproductive directions,” rapper and activist Lowkey said.
Currently, the page is running two ads on Instagram. On January 28, Facts For Peace launched an ad with the caption, “The International Court of Justice [ICJ] just confirmed Israel’s right to self-defense.” In this video, Facts For Peace said because the ICJ didn’t call for an immediate ceasefire “establishes Israel’s military actions are a defensive response to the Oct 7 attacks.”
The page is also running an ad featuring a video interview with Abbey Onn, an American-Israeli who had five members of her family kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. The video was produced by Middle East Intel, yet the only record of this organization is a black-and-white webpage containing only its name in large font. Another website, Israel Palestine Chronicles, features the same design as Middle East Intel but links to accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube as well as noting that it is paid for by Facts For Peace LLC. These websites mirror Facts For Peace’s own website, which also dons a black-and-white theme and links to its social media pages.
Facts For Peace’s mission falls in line with the United States’ vast Israel lobby. American journalist and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Norman Solomon, explained the lobby’s current tactics since Israel’s war began.
“The Israel lobby extends far beyond literal lobbyists on Capitol Hill,” Solomon told MintPress.
Israel-can-do-no-wrong defenders have been in ongoing damage-control mode since October, and part of that effort is focused on smearing principled supporters of human rights like Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush.”
Facts For Peace appears part of these damage-control efforts with its own media blitz. “The lobby’s influence is inclusive of, and perhaps mainly composed of, ferocious media offensives – now denying that Israel is engaged in the mass murder of civilians in Gaza and slandering the movement that demands an immediate and permanent ceasefire,” Solomon said.
Despite Facts For Peace’s continuous ad expenditure, Solomon doubts, however, that the campaign can make a real impact on public opinion, telling MintPress:
Its website is rudimentary and appears to be going through the motions. Not major players in the manipulative game of smearing people who advocate for human rights of Palestinian people.”
Who is behind Facts for Peace?
Facts For Peace’s website offers little transparency beyond giving a contact email address and social media links and stating it’s paid for by Facts For Peace LLC. Yet who manages the campaign isn’t listed. Facts For Peace was incorporated in New York on September 15, 2022, and was originally called Fulfill the Promise LLC. It changed its name to Change the Narrative Coalition LLC on October 13 before finally landing on Facts For Peace on October 16.
According to Semafor, Facts For Peace hired Josh Vlasto, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and ex-New York governor Andrew Cuomo, to advise it. The number listed on Facts For Peace’s Meta Ad Library account is the same one for Vlasto’s public relations firm, Bamberger & Vlasto. The firm is run by Vlasto and Richard Bamberger, both former Cuomo aides who reportedly assisted Cuomo in his smear attempts against former aide Lindsey Boylan, who accused Cuomo of sexual harassment.
MintPress could not reach Vlasto’s firm for comment. However, Vlasto has already shared Facts For Peace’s content on his X profile. According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Facts for Peace, Israel Palestine Chronicles, and Bamberger & Vlasto, websites all share the same IP addresses, suggesting they are hosted on the same server.
Semafor also reported that Sternlicht discussed Facts For Peace with CNN owner David Zaslav and that Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel agreed to coordinate the endeavor. However, neither Saslav nor Emanuel responded to MintPress inquiries on their involvement.
Facts For Peace’s known head, Sternlicht, has previously funded Birthright, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) through his foundation and according to the foundation’s 2022 tax filing, available on ProPublic’s Nonprofit Explorer database, it gave $20,000 to the American Jewish Committee’s “to support [its] pro-Israel media campaign.”
Barry Sternlicht, the individual heading Israel’s $50 million propaganda campaign, Facts for Peace, has previously funded Birthright, the ADL, and one of Israel’s national institutions, the UJIA.
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) November 13, 2023
Lowkey stressed Sternlicht’s funding ventures should be cause for concern, telling MintPress that:
Sternlicht has a history of funding projects aimed at radicalizing young people and converting them to settler-colonists. Birthright offers free trips to occupied Palestine and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to young Jews around the world.”
The ADL notoriously spied on thousands of Arab students and pro-Palestine and anti-apartheid activists, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and even sold that information to South African intelligence agents in the 1980s.
Another notable person linked to Facts For Peace is ex-Google CEO Schmidt, who co-founded the Israeli tech company Team8 in 2015 with Nadav Zafrir, former head of Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200, which is infamous for surveilling Palestinians. Schmidt has met with Netanyahu over the years, and during their last meeting in Sept. 2023, Schmidt agreed to join Netanyahu’s advisory forum on artificial intelligence.
Project Nimbus is the final phase of Google’s integration into the Israeli military.
Ten years ago, Google head Eric Schmidt held an intimate press conference with Israeli PM Netanyahu; not long after, Schmidt founded a tech hub with the former head of Israeli intelligence. pic.twitter.com/byLghBcBt0
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) November 8, 2022
According to a MintPress investigation, at least 99 former agents of Unit 8200 are currently employed in significant roles at Google, including as Head of Strategy.
Other Facts For Peace’s email recipients have also expressed support for Israel as of late. Wall Street executives Ackman and Rowan criticized universities’ handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations — calling to withhold their donations.
Facts For Peace’s ads are often stuffed with prominent voices like comedian Mikey Greenblatt, actors Nathaniel Buzolic and Zach Sage Fox, and Mosab Hassan Yousef, a Palestinian who worked undercover for the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service and has strongly opposed calls for a ceasefire.
Despite this Rolodex of high-profile support, netizens have questioned the campaign and its agenda in a Reddit forum.
One user responded:
answer: It’s a Zionist propaganda group manufactured to try and counter, belittle, and discredit the organic anti Zionist sentiments on social media.
Edit: their increased presence is fueled by monetary investments by pro Zionist individuals and groups that dislike the fact that younger individuals are anti Zionist.
Jewish ≠ Zionist
Jewish ≠ Israeli
Anti Zionist ≠ Anti Semitic
Public opinion polls indicate that support for Israel is waning, with a November 2023 Reuters/Ipsos survey noting that around 68% of respondents in the U.S. agreed with the statement that “Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate.” And with Israel charging forward with its unrelenting war on Gaza — killing more than 26,000 Palestinians so far in the assault — amid growing international pressure, sponsored social media ads may not be enough to return Israeli favor in the world’s eyes.
Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist for MintPress News covering Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Gulf News.
The post Facts For Peace: The Billionaire-Backed Campaign Attacking the Palestinian Cause appeared first on MintPress News.
World Panics after Death Of Last Remaining Adult
Relatives of the world’s last living adult Frank Barnstaple have confirmed that the 93 year old grown up has passed away, leaving the residents of the world frightened and bewildered.
“When I was a kid there were adults everywhere making sure the world ran smoothly,” said terrified Gwawley Bay app designer Felicity Coughlan. “Who’s going to organise for all the food to get to the supermarkets, stop us having wars with each other and fix all the leaky taps? Certainly not my generation.”
Barnstaple, known for wearing a suit unironically, was found slumped down at the kitchen table in the middle of filling out some important looking forms with a serious looking newspaper by his side.
“Adults basically ran the world up until about 1980,” said historical blogger Pete Kristopherson. “They can often be seen in grainy old black and white photos standing in front a half completed dam or something wearing a hard hat and holding plans in their hands. They would be pointing at something and the all the people around them would be listening to what they had to say.”
“It’s a mystery why all the adults started dying out and not being replaced,” said medical diagnostic robot Dr Jane Summons. “It appears to be some kind of virus targeting the DNA sequence that codes for informed decision making and knowing not to eat too many lollies.”
Frank Barnstaple’s funeral will be handled by some kind of burying people facilitator who hopefully knows how to arrange for a hole to be dug and locate an organ player.
Peter Green
http://www.twitter.com/Greeny_Peter
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TSSA staff fearful as new bullying complaints rock Eslamdoust
“Among the staff, there is now an atmosphere of anxiety, hypervigilance and worry. The trust in the leadership…has completely collapsed…staff are once again feeling demoralised, ignored, distrusted and exhausted…in this toxic environment” – GMB letter to new TSSA general secretary
Maryam Eslamdoust
TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust has been rocked by new allegations of bullying in the union after a letter from the GMB union – which represents TSSA staff – leaked to the media.
Eslamdoust was elected last year in what many considered an unfair election, after the TSSA executive asked union members to vote for her despite her being an outsider and two other experienced union candidates being in the frame – and despite Eslamdoust’s lack of relevant experience and a union background, which she attacked Skwawkbox for scrutinising. Eslamdoust had claimed in her campaign to be ‘an exceptional trade union professional’ with ‘high level trade union experience’ – yet her Linkedin profile indicated that she had never worked for a union or in an elected union role.
The election took place after former TSSA boss Manuel Cortes was removed over allegations of sexual harassment and bullying by him and other senior TSSA figures.
Now she has been accused, in a letter from GMB’s London organiser Andrew Harden, of presiding over a ‘toxic’ culture that has made staff fearful and led to them constantly looking over their shoulder:
Among the staff, there is now an atmosphere of anxiety, hypervigilance and worry. The trust in the leadership that was burgeoning has completely collapsed and in general, staff are once again feeling demoralised, ignored, distrusted and exhausted from the pressures and strains of working in this…toxic environment.
Harden’s letter also accuses Eslamdoust of ‘abject’ failure to put anti-bullying procedures into practice after the recommendations made by Baroness Kennedy, whose damning report toppled Cortes. The union told the press that all recommendations ‘have been completed or are being acted on’.
The letter was published in full by former assistant TSSA general secretary Steve Coe, who described the developments as ‘worrying’ and linked it to the union’s decision to disband a key women’s group:
Worrying developments at TSSA. This follows the Executive's decision to disband TSSA Women in Focus, the group that called for the reports that exposed wrongdoing and abuse of power by past senior officials. pic.twitter.com/r7k1j8zzZZ
— Steve Coe (@stevecoe1057) January 20, 2024
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Exclusive: police try to gag Greenstein, invade privacy through bail conditions
Human rights activist arrested by anti-terror police for a single tweet faces censorship and snooping for speaking out against genocide
Image: S Walker
Brighton-based Jewish left-winger and human rights activist Tony Greenstein faces censorship and an assault on his privacy after he was arrested last week for a single tweet supporting Palestinian resistance in Gaza against Israeli genocide.
Greenstein was bailed until spring after a nine-hour detention and the confiscation of his electronics, but Skwawkbox understands that the bail conditions imposed upon him represent a severe invasion of his privacy and an assault on his freedom of speech:
- Greenstein must reside at his flat and sleep there every night – a significant issue when he has a son with special emotional needs living at a separate address
- He is banned from commenting on Twitter/X about Gaza and Palestine
- If he buys a new phone – his previous one remains with police – he must notify police of the phone number and also of the IMEI number of his handset
Phone manufacturer Blackview strongly recommends that anyone with a mobile phone keep their IMEI number – the unique 15-digit identifier of the physical handset – private and do not share it with anyone untrustworthy(!), because of the grave security risks, because possession of the IMEI allows a third party to:
- Track your phone. If your phone is stolen, the person who stole it can use your IMEI number to track your phone’s location [even if it is switched off or the SIM card is swapped]
- Block your phone from being used on a network. If you report your phone as stolen, your phone carrier can block your IMEI number from being used on their network. This will prevent the phone from being used to make calls, send text messages, or use the internet.
- Use your phone to commit fraud. Some criminals use stolen phones to commit fraud, such as making unauthorized calls or sending spam messages. They can also use your phone to access your personal information, such as your bank account details.
- Clone your phone. It is possible to clone a phone’s IMEI number. This means that the criminal can create a duplicate of your phone that has the same IMEI number. This can be used to commit fraud or to track your movements.
Of perhaps even greater concern is the ban on posts about Gaza and Palestine. As one of the UK’s most outspoken Jewish advocates of Palestinian rights and Israel advocates’ war on freedom of speech in the UK and elsewhere – and a fearless critic of Israel’s fake news and invented evidence used to justify its genocide in Gaza – Greenstein’s importance to the political debate is considerable – which may well be a contributing factor to his targeting by police, presumably acting on complaints from pro-Israel right-wingers.
Greenstein was given a suspended sentence in September after a farcical trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court in which he and fellow Palestine Action activists were convicted of criminal damage against Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit despite no damage being done, and so faces the imposition of that sentence if convicted of the latest accusation. The pro-Israel lobby, however, has no qualms about seeing troublesome opponents jailed for speaking out against mass murder and apartheid.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
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2023 in Review – The end of academic social media as we know it?
Following the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk academic social media has undergone a period of change and fragmentation. This review highlights the range of responses featured on the blog this year, from coverage of new and emerging platforms, to reflections on what made academic twitter good and why we even bothered with it in … Continued
Social Group Man-Child Attends BBQ With Cadbury Favourites Instead Of Actual Food
Local man-child and social group deadweight, Trevor Millson (33), has again attended a Christmas social bbq with his friends brandishing nothing but a $10 box of Cadbury favourites.
Wearing a t-shirt and jeans combo recycled from his laundry hamper, Trev arrive 90 minutes late to the BBQ at Bicentennial Park, with even the group’s younger generation giving him a sideways glance as he sauntered over.
“I made a God damn quinoa and chicken salad for today, making sure I had all the dietary requirements covered,” steamed an upset Angie, school friend and historic babysitter to Trevor, “Michael brought half a bloody butchers shop, even Andrew picked up some non alcoholic beers for the designated drivers.”
Unaware or ambivalent to the ire of his friends, Trevor dumped the Favourites on the main table before scoffing down 2 chops, 3 sangas, and a six pack of craft beer.
“Ahh, Trev’s ok,” Michael told UnOz reporters, “it’s just sometimes I think my 6yr old has her shit together more than he does.
After lunch Trevor started complaining about having to buy a Kris Kringle present for a family event, before spending the rest of the afternoon swiping right on Tinder.
GK Kidd
@GKTweetsHard
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X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads… TikTok? How to choose in a fractured academic social media landscape
Over the past year the landscape of academic social media has become increasingly complex, leaving researchers with the question of where best to spend their energies. Taking stock of the current platforms Andy Tattersall weighs up their pros and cons and how they might best be used by academic for social microblogging. Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was … Continued
Visegrád 24: The Polish Government-Funded Fake News Factory Driving The Online Israel-Palestine News Cycle
Named by Gizmodo as the most influential source of news on Israel/Palestine on Twitter/X, Visegrád 24 has shot to prominence, amassing more than one million followers across social media platforms. Yet it has consistently shared blatantly false information in an attempt to ramp up support for the state of Israel’s crimes in Gaza. Worse still, the semi-anonymous account pushing a far-right agenda worldwide is known to be funded by the deeply conservative Polish government.
A Viral Sensation
If you have spent any amount of time on social media following the Israeli attack on Gaza, you are sure to have come across Visegrád 24 and its ultra-viral content. The Polish news aggregator is perhaps an unlikely candidate to become a key player in the information war. But in just a few short weeks, it has gained hundreds of thousands of followers across its platforms, especially Twitter/ and TikTok (currently at 843,000 and 183,000 followers, respectively).
A study published by the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, titled “The New Elites of X,” identified Visegrád 24 as the most influential account engaged in Israel/Palestine discourse. One measure of its reach is that, in the first three days following Hamas’ surprise attack, the six traditional media outlets with the most followers on Twitter/X (CNN Breaking News, CNN, the New York Times, BBC Breaking News, BBC World News and Reuters) who collectively have nearly 300 million followers, received 112 million views on Israel/Palestine related content. Visegrád 24, by comparison, received 370 million views over the same period. Since then, its influence has only grown.
Its massive reach has led many to equate it with reliability, and the account is regularly cited in establishment media such as Newsweek or Fox News. But this is far from the case. Indeed, its accounts appear to exist to lionize Israel and its supporters, demonize Palestine and its supporters, fearmonger about refugees, and promote ultra-conservative politics in general.
Fake News Factory
Part of what makes Visegrád 24’s rise problematic is its propensity to publish blatantly fake news. Earlier this month, for example, it posted footage of Israeli satirist Yoni Sharon playing a character mocking Palestinians, telling its audience he was a real Palestinian.
“A Palestinian man thanks Hamas for making sure that all the Palestinian people who used to commute into Israel to work will now be unemployed. He also thanks Hamas for making sure Palestinian kids will no longer receive surgeries in Israel Great job!” it wrote.
A Palestinian man thanks Hamas for making sure that all the Palestinian people who used to commute into Israel to work will now be unemployed.
He also thanks Hamas for making sure Palestinian kids will no longer receive surgeries in Israel
Great job! pic.twitter.com/NJz05eMW9E
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 12, 2023
Perhaps most shamelessly, however, Visegrád 24 has, on multiple occasions, taken footage from Motaz Azaiza, a Palestinian photographer who has worked with MintPress News and twisted the images of Israeli crimes to present the apartheid state in a good light. Azaiza’s video showing Israeli forces shooting at a large caravan of fleeing refugees was repackaged with the caption, “Hamas terrorists shooting at a large group of Palestinians trying to flee south along the humanitarian corridors set up by Israel.”
Spooky propaganda accounts @TheMossadIL and @visegrad24 lied and claimed a video of Israeli soldiers opening fire on Palestinian civilians fleeing south actually showed Hamas militants shooting at them. But @azaizamotaz9, the journalist who filmed the shooting, called them out.… pic.twitter.com/erygCVcZSf
— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) November 19, 2023
Another time, Visegrád 24 reposted an Azaiza video claiming that it showed a merciful Israeli Air Force dropping leaflets urging Gazans that the area was not safe and asking them to move southwards for their own well-being. “Stop the lies,” Azaiza replied, “I’m the one who filmed this. The leaflets [were] saying if you have any information about the kidnapped [Israelis], call us.”
In addition to this, it has repeated and amplified the beheaded babies hoax, called to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, described climate activist Greta Thunberg as a “Hamas propagandist,” and labeled pro-Palestine demonstrators as “thugs” and “mobs.”
It has also not been above sharing racially insensitive content depicting Palestine supporters as clueless liberals who would be executed in a second if they set foot in Gaza or asking highly-charged questions such as “Without Googling, name something that was invented, discovered or created by Muslims over the centuries.” The clear implication in the question is that Muslims have never contributed anything to society, which can perhaps explain why Visegrád 24 spends so much of its energy fearmongering about a wave of Muslim immigrants to Europe.
Go educate yourself! pic.twitter.com/oNErqOEPly
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 13, 2023
Follow the Money
Visegrád 24 began as a Twitter account in early 2020. But for the longest time, its funding and the identities of its key staff remained shrouded in mystery. The news aggregator does not even have a website; instead, it directs readers to a crowdfunding platform that shows they have received only 723 donations.
For an operation believed to be around 12 people, this is clearly not sufficient to be financially viable. There is another source of confirmed funding, however: the ultra-conservative government of Poland. Last October, the Polish chancellery gave 1.4 million PLN (roughly U.S.$350,000) to Visegrád 24, a decision approved by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. It is not known whether Visegrád 24 has received any subsequent government funding.
Around the same time it was receiving government money, Polish media identified some of the key figures running the operation. One is Adam Starzynski, a Swedish-born Polish journalist who formerly worked at the English-language program Poland Daily, produced by TV Republika. Starzynski has experience in running conservative social media, as he operated the ultra-conservative @BasedPoland Twitter account. @BasedPoland spread nationalistic propaganda and anti-Muslim content, gaining more than 150,000 followers before it was banned.
Starzynski is a key figure in the resurgent Eastern European conservative movement. This “Make Europe Great Again” movement supports far-right populists like Donald Trump, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
A second key figure in what Visegrád 24 calls its group of conservative friends is Stefan Tompson, a Polish-South African PR strategist. Tompson grew up in London and cut his teeth working for the “Leave” campaign during the Brexit referendum, a vote marred by widespread fake news and disinformation. He has his own YouTube channel about Polish history and is a contributor to the Polish government-owned TV channel Telewizja Polska. He is reportedly preparing to launch a brand new media company to capitalize on Visegrád 24’s success.
Ukraine Brain
Visegrád 24 established its brand and built a following, posting content strongly supportive of the Ukrainian military and their attempts to repel the Russian invasion. Poland and the other Eastern European NATO states have been particularly vocal opponents of Russia. While it now focuses on Israel/Palestine content, it continues to post content calling for greater European involvement in the war. For example, last week, it shared a video of a dying Ukrainian soldier and demanded to know “why the West is holding back crucial weapon systems from Ukraine?” and “Why they aren’t allowed to strike Russia?”
19-y-old Ukrainian soldier records a video after his unit is surrounded
He says they won’t make it out alive. He was right
Can somebody explain why the West is holding back crucial weapon systems from Ukraine?
Why they aren’t allowed to strike Russia? pic.twitter.com/wsZ2So6nVb
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 20, 2023
Unfortunately, the news aggregator displayed the same propensity to publish incorrect information on Ukraine as it does with Israel. Among the fake stories it has promoted include:
- Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio donating $10 million to Ukraine
- Polish politicians supporting a Polish-Ukrainian union
- PornHub being blocked in Russia.
In their haste to drum up support for the Ukrainian cause, media in the West often overlooked or whitewashed the fascist or Neo-Nazi elements active within the Ukrainian armed forces. Chief among these is the Azov Battalion, a group whose insignia was directly lifted from the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division, a unit responsible for carrying out some of the worst crimes of Hitler’s holocaust. Andriy Biletsky, the Azov Battalion’s founder, said in 2010 that he believes Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen” – the word Hitler used to describe Jews, Poles, Ukrainians and other peoples he designated for extermination.
“It’s possible to both support Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression and be critical of neo-Nazis elements in Ukraine’s army,” Visegrád 24 once posted on Twitter. Yet analyzing all Visegrád 24 content containing the word “Azov”, it is difficult to find any posts that even take a neutral tone, let alone a critical one.
As such, they often appeared to act like an unofficial press agency for the group. Many posts humanize the soldiers, showing their mothers and wives or presenting them as brave defenders of the motherland. Others are glowing obituaries of heroic Azov fighters who lost their lives.
Heartbreaking messages from the mothers and wives of the 53 Azov soldiers killed in the prison camp at Olenivka. pic.twitter.com/TeZvCVtj8N
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) July 30, 2022
“Every year, the soldiers of the Azov Regiment gather on the shortest night of the year to honor their fallen brothers-in-arms. This year, especially after [the battle of] Azovstal, they had more men to honor than ever. Through new recruits, the group has grown significantly in size since Azovstal,” they wrote in December.
While the European far-right is consistently and often virulently anti-Semitic, they regularly display strong support for the State of Israel and its policies, seeing the ethnostate Israel is creating as a blueprint for their own designs. Thus, an unlikely alliance now exists between fascist movements in Europe and the state where the descendants of the people those groups failed to kill just 80 years ago now live.
Information War
“Israel is losing the information war,” lamented Visegrád 24’s Stefan Tompson on Twitter. “Social media is dominated by pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli, if not overtly pro-Hamas and/or antisemitic content. If things are not turned around, the Hamas lobby will successfully not only appropriate but also redefine the ‘Holocaust,’” he added.
Putting aside the dramatic prediction, Tompson is correct that Israel is experiencing difficulty influencing worldwide public opinion. The genocidal destruction has brought millions of people around the world out into the streets to attend marches, lectures, protests and demonstrations. An estimated one million people filled the streets of London on November 11, despite direct instructions from the government not to do so.
In the United States, too, the situation in Gaza has ignited a massive reaction, with hundreds of large demonstrations taking place across virtually every major city. Pro-Israel demonstrations, meanwhile, have been comparatively poorly attended. President Biden’s support for Israel is a significant reason for his dwindling polling numbers.
The Biden administration continues to back Israel at the United Nations. But it is increasingly isolated. In October, the U.S. voted against a UN resolution calling for a cessation of the violence, one of only a handful of countries to do so.
Israel’s once rock-solid support among Americans is also floundering. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that overall sympathy for Israel has dropped seven points since October to 54% of Americans, with 24% saying they sympathized more with Palestine.
Most concerning for Israel supporters is that they appear to be losing the next generation. The same Quinnipiac poll found a huge generational gap in understanding of the conflict. While older voters stood solidly behind Israel, a majority of Americans aged between 18-34 said their sympathies lay with the Palestinians, while only 29% said they supported Israel.
Much of this chasm can be explained as a result of how the different generations get their news. Older Americans continue to rely on established legacy media, such as cable news and print, which continue to display extraordinary bias in favor of Israel. Younger generations, however, primarily use social media. While hardly free of restrictions, platforms like Twitter or TikTok allow a far more comprehensive range of news and views to circulate, including opinions from ordinary people.
Israel has attempted to game this system, spending heavily on ads targeted at Western audiences. Between October 7 and October 19, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spent more than $7 million on YouTube advertisements, equating to nearly one billion pairs of eyeballs. The top five countries targeted were France, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom and the United States. The MOFA also ran ad campaigns on Instagram, Facebook, mobile games and apps like language trainer Duolingo.
Meanwhile, on Twitter, pro-Israel trolls attempted to hijack the Community Notes function, attaching argumentative notes and warning labels undermining any post showing Israel in a negative light. And several prominent TikTok creators revealed they were offered large sums of money to record simple videos endorsing Israeli actions.
Despite this, there has been an unprecedented outpouring of sympathy for the people of Palestine. On TikTok, for example, between October 23 and October 30, 87,000 posts were using the #StandWithPalestine hashtag, garnering 285 million views. The equivalent pro-Israel #StandWithIsrael hashtag, meanwhile, generated only 9,000 posts and 64 million views.
In response to the news that their citizens are not receiving the preferred message on Israel/Palestine, U.S. government officials are pushing to simply ban TikTok altogether as a solution to the problem. GOP presidential candidates Chris Christie and Nikki Haley have repeatedly called for the total prohibition of the popular app. Senator Marco Rubio (R—FL) demanded that it was “time for TikTok to go,” accusing the company of “downplaying Hamas terrorism.”
Democrats have proven that censorship is a bipartisan issue. Senator Chris Murphy (D—NJ), for example, described TikTok as a Chinese-controlled platform that is “turning America against each other” through its promotion of “virulent pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic material.”
These calls were echoed by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who complained that users were being “brainwashed” by pro-Palestine content. TikTok has defended itself, claiming that its algorithms do not take sides and that young people are simply more sympathetic to Palestine.
Unlike TikTok, there have been no official calls to ban Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or other social media sites, perhaps because they are cooperating with authorities to censor dissenting voices. Twitter recently announced it had deleted more than 325,000 tweets relating to the violence and had removed more than 3,000 accounts, many linked to Hamas. It has not deleted any accounts affiliated with the Israeli government. Instagram locked a number of the most prominent pro-Palestine accounts, including Eye On Palestine (with 9.2 million followers).
Meanwhile, the Israeli Attorney General’s Office revealed that approximately 94% of the 9,500 requests it has made to Meta (the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) to delete content had been granted.
Literally all Arab dishes. “Israeli food” doesn’t exist. https://t.co/5P7JgaexOZ
— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) November 23, 2023
Just as important as the troops on the ground is the information war playing out in cyberspace. Israel could not carry out its actions without support from the Western public. On this front, it has found a key ally in Visegrád 24, a news aggregator that has exploded in popularity and influence of late. Unfortunately, the shadowy, Polish government-funded organization not only reports facts from a pro-Israel perspective but also consistently publishes blatantly false or misleading content. This, however, is far from unusual. In war, truth is always the first casualty. Visegrád 24’s rapid rise to prominence is a testament to this.
Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News featuring Visegrád 24 staffers Adam Starzynski and Stephan Tompson
Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.
The post Visegrád 24: The Polish Government-Funded Fake News Factory Driving The Online Israel-Palestine News Cycle appeared first on MintPress News.
The absolutist
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“From The River To The Sea” Is Genocide, But Actual Genocide Is Not Genocide
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/dc2e49df5c834d08e464a75ec4500357/href
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Elon Musk has announced that common pro-Palestine phrases like “from the river to the sea” and “decolonization” are now banned on Twitter and will result in suspension, falsely claiming that they “necessarily imply genocide”. This move is likely an attempt to appease key advertisers who have been pulling out of the platform in response to a tweet Musk himself made about Jewish communities pushing hatred toward white people.
If actually carried out this would arguably be the single greatest escalation in online censorship of all time, because it would be banning normal political speech on completely false grounds. “Decolonization” is just standard left-wing discourse, and as The Washington Post explained a few days prior to Musk’s announcement, “from the river to the sea” is a phrase that has been in use since the 1960s as a call not for genocide but for freedom and democracy.
https://medium.com/media/17b93e140616606e17079e81239782b3/href
Palestinians are clearly not free in apartheid Israel. Saying you want them to be free throughout that entire region is very plainly not a call for genocide.
Nobody truly believes “from the river to the sea” is a call for genocide, they just pretend to believe it to advance a political agenda, in the same way they pretended to believe Jeremy Corbyn was a closet Nazi for a while to advance a political agenda. Really they’re just lying.
Meanwhile Musk allows the platform to be used by Israeli officials who routinely express explicitly genocidal ideations on the platform, and then actually do the thing they’re calling for.
That’s right kids: actual genocide is not genocide — the real genocide is saying words that make Amy Schumer feel uncomfortable.
https://medium.com/media/afd4095b0295df6b477edc4b98ca5d58/href
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The claim that Israel is not an apartheid state is not a position anyone needs to take seriously. It’s crazy how Israel apologists have convinced the public that this is still a question up for debate when all the relevant mainstream institutions regard it as a settled matter.
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The last six weeks have soundly discredited the idea that Israel is good at propaganda. The US empire is good at propaganda and its media are pro-Israel, but Israel itself is terrible at propaganda.
A big part of this may just be the fact that good propaganda requires a certain amount of creativity and artfulness, and the more of a stuffy right-wing authoritarian you are the less likely you are to be creative and artistic. It’s hard to imagine the far-right fascists who are closest to power in Israel having any ability to access the most human parts of themselves enough to connect with people and convince them of things the way a western liberal propagandist can.
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Israel will pound a Palestinian population’s homes into rubble and forcibly displace them in droves with a relentless military onslaught, look you dead in the eye, tell you those people now need to be moved to foreign countries “for humanitarian reasons”, and call it “voluntary”.
https://medium.com/media/8d4574a777d9525061a39cd38e8b3024/href
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If you think it’s disgusting that Israel is murdering children by the thousands, pause and reflect on the fact that there are also weapons manufacturers who are making an immense profit from it.
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Liberals celebrated when Biden won and then he pushed Ukraine into an unwinnable war and sponsored a literal genocide. Every part of the US imperial power structure is irredeemably evil.
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We don’t talk enough about the self-evident contradiction between the idea that Hamas is hiding in underground bunkers and the idea that Israel has been flattening all the buildings in Gaza because Hamas is hiding in those buildings.
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Caitlin Johnstone on Twitter: "Western officials: Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties in GazaIsraeli officials: We're doing genocideWestern officials: They follow the rules of warIsraeli officials: We're gonna do way more genocideWestern officials: It's self-defenseIsraeli officials: Burn them all https://t.co/SW0ciH2Rl7 / Twitter"
Western officials: Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties in GazaIsraeli officials: We're doing genocideWestern officials: They follow the rules of warIsraeli officials: We're gonna do way more genocideWestern officials: It's self-defenseIsraeli officials: Burn them all https://t.co/SW0ciH2Rl7
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Israel apologists say anyone who criticizes Israel does so because they’re an anti-semite. When asked for evidence that the accused is an anti-semite, they will point to their criticisms of Israel as their evidence. This is called circular reasoning, and it’s a logical fallacy.
This fallacious reasoning occurs with big-picture analysis too. Narrative management operations like the Anti-Defamation League try to divert criticism of Israeli atrocities in Gaza by pointing to giant spikes in anti-semitic incidents since October 7, but if you look at the actual data they’re using to make that claim they’re citing things like pro-Palestine demonstrations as incidents of anti-semitism (including pro-Palestine demonstrations by Jewish groups). We’re told to be careful about criticizing Israel because there’s a surge in anti-semitism, and as evidence that there’s a surge in anti-semitism they cite criticism of Israel. This is circular reasoning.
Actual hatred of Jews absolutely does exist in western society, but it’s much more peripheral than racism toward immigrants and people of color. You don’t typically see the average westerner espousing a hatred of Jewish people unless they dive down some pretty obscure and fringey rabbit holes that leave them babbling about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and denying the Holocaust and such nonsense. Jewish people simply are not othered that much in western society compared to other minorities, so if an Israel apologist needs to shout down western criticism of Israeli atrocities as arising from a hatred of Jews, they must necessarily resort to fallacious reasoning.
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Friendly reminder that all my writings and paintings are creative commons and can be used in any way by anyone, with or without attribution. I keep getting new followers asking permission to use my stuff but there’s no need to ask, just use whatever you want however you want to use it.
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