Israeli politics briefing · Monday, July 20

HostAn undercover effort worth forty-five million dollars… millions of fake text messages sent to phones across America… and a plan to change what the world’s most popular AI bots say about a war. There's a massive digital campaign running right now, and it's being paid for with Israeli government funds. We'll get into exactly how they're trying to shape what you think, and who's running the show, in just a bit.

HostBut first, we have to look at what happened yesterday evening on a beach near the Gaza border. Thousands of people and nine high-level government ministers gathered on the sand to demand the right to move back into land they left nearly twenty years ago. It's a move the Prime Minister says won't happen, yet his own cabinet is on the ground cheering for it.

HostIt leads us to a big question. How does a leader who's facing pressure from the world and huge legal battles at home manage to keep his hold on power so tight? It's Monday, July 20, and this is what's happening in Israeli politics.

HostWe start with a fight that feels like it belongs in a movie, but it's playing out in press releases and legal threats. It involves the Prime Minister, the Mayor of New York City, and a trip across the ocean that's still months away.

HostYesterday afternoon, the Prime Minister’s office put out a statement that didn't pull any punches. He told the Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, to focus on his own city instead of attacking the leader of the Jewish state. This all started because the Mayor ordered a legal review to see if the city could actually arrest the Prime Minister when he lands in New York this fall.

HostThe core of the fight is a trip to New York planned for this September. That's when the United Nations holds its big General Assembly. But the Mayor wants to know if the city can act on warrants from the International Criminal Court. The Prime Minister didn't hold back. He called that court a kangaroo court… a place where the rules are fake and the outcome is decided before the trial even starts.

HostNow, you might wonder why a leader would get into such a loud, public spat with a city mayor. But there's a reason this fight helps him back home. See, Israel is heading for a big election on October twenty-seventh. By standing up to a politician in New York, the Prime Minister gets to frame himself as the only person who can defend Israel against a world that's out to get it. It's a way to look strong when you're under fire.

HostWhile that fight was playing out on the world stage, things were also shifting inside his own party. In politics, power is often about who gets to keep their job, and yesterday afternoon, the Prime Minister made sure he's the one who makes that call.

HostA special group inside the Likud party, called the Constitution Committee, met to vote on a new plan. And the plan they passed gives the Prime Minister a lot more weight. In the past, he was allowed to personally pick three people to put on the party’s election list. These are spots that don't require a vote from the party members. They're just his to give away.

HostUnder the new rules approved yesterday, that number has jumped from three to eight. He can now handpick eight people to join the team for the next election. On top of that, they added an emergency rule. It says that if the security situation makes it too hard for people to gather and vote, they can skip the primary elections altogether.

HostFor a normal voter, a primary is how you choose who represents your party. But if those are skipped, the power stays at the top. This move has some people inside the party very worried. One senior lawmaker, David Bitan, has been vocal about it. He argues that this move basically breaks the democracy inside the party. It means the leader can stack the deck with people who are loyal to him, rather than people the party members actually like.

HostThis consolidation of power means that when the election comes in October, the faces you see on the Likud posters will be there because the Prime Minister wanted them there. He's making sure that no matter what happens, he's surrounded by his own recruits.

HostBut even as he tightens his grip on the party, he's facing a different kind of pressure from the people who keep his government in power. This brings us back to that beach I mentioned earlier.

HostYesterday evening, as the sun was going down, thousands of people gathered at Zikim Beach. It's a spot right near the border with Gaza. They were there for a rally with one very clear goal: to move back into Gaza and build Israeli towns there again.

HostThis is a very sensitive topic. Back in 2005, Israel pulled all its soldiers and all its citizens out of Gaza. People had to leave their homes, and the towns were torn down. At the rally yesterday, people were holding signs with the names of three of those old communities: Elei Sinai, Dugit, and Nisanit. They want to go back and start over.

HostWhat makes this more than just a protest is who showed up. Nine different government ministers were there, including the men in charge of the country’s money and its national security. They stood on that beach and told the crowd that rebuilding these settlements is the only way to fix the security mistakes of the past.

HostHere is where it gets tricky. The Prime Minister has said on the record, very clearly, that Israel doesn't plan to settle in Gaza again. He has told the world that this isn't the plan. But when nearly a dozen of his own cabinet members show up at a rally saying the exact opposite, it sends a very mixed message. It shows a growing push from the right wing of his team to make these settlements a reality once the war is over.

HostIt puts the leader in a tough spot. He has to tell the world one thing to keep his allies happy, while his own ministers are telling the voters something else to keep their support. It's a balancing act that gets harder every day.

HostNow, we need to talk about that forty-five million dollars. Because while the fight over land is happening on the ground, there's a whole other war being fought on your phone and on your computer.

HostReports came out yesterday about a massive campaign funded by the Israeli government. The goal was simple: change how people in the United States feel about Israel. But they didn't do it with traditional ads. Instead, they used artificial intelligence.

HostThe report says they sent out millions of text messages to Americans. These messages didn't say they were from a government. They were designed to look like they came from a local, grassroots group… just regular people sharing their thoughts. They also tried to change how AI chatbots answer questions. If you asked a bot about the conflict, they wanted to make sure the answer favored their side.

HostThe person reportedly running this whole thing is a former digital adviser to Donald Trump. And they weren't just targeting everyone. They were looking for young conservatives and people who support the MAGA movement. Why? Because polls have shown that favorability for Israel has been slipping in those groups.

HostThis is a huge shift in how a country tries to win friends. They're not just sending diplomats to give speeches. They're using high-tech tools to blend into the daily lives of people thousands of miles away. It shows just how much the government is willing to spend to make sure the American public stays on their side.

HostAnd that brings us to the latest numbers on where the voters stand. A new poll came out early Monday morning from the public broadcaster, and it paints a very difficult picture for anyone trying to replace the current government.

HostTo run the country, you need a majority in the parliament, which is sixty-one seats. Right now, even if all the main opposition groups teamed up, the poll says they would only hit fifty-nine seats. They're just two seats short.

HostThere's a new alliance in the mix, led by some former ministers, and they're trying to shake things up. But even with them, the math isn't working out yet. The poll does show that a newer party led by a former army chief, Gadi Eisenkot, is doing very well. They're actually leading the pack with twenty-two seats, which puts them just slightly ahead of the Prime Minister’s Likud party.

HostBut in the Israeli system, it doesn't matter who's in first place if you can't get enough partners to reach that magic number of sixty-one. So, despite all the legal trouble and the protests, the path to a new government still looks very narrow and very steep.

HostSo, when we look at the last twenty-four hours, we see a leader who's building a fortress. He's pushing back against mayors in America, he's taking more control over who gets to run for his party, and he's letting his ministers rally for a future that he officially says he doesn't want.

HostIt's a strategy of holding on tight while the wind blows from every direction. We're going to see how this plays out in the coming weeks, especially as the party starts to reveal who those handpicked candidates are actually going to be.

HostWatch for the official list to come out on the Likud website soon. That will show us exactly who the Prime Minister trusts to stand by him when the election finally arrives.

HostWe'll be right back with more on how that digital campaign actually worked, and what it means for the future of how countries talk to each other.

HostTo understand how that forty-five million dollar campaign really worked, you have to think about how we use our phones today. We’re used to getting spam texts, right… those annoying messages from numbers we don’t know. But the reports that came out yesterday show something much more clever. These weren’t just ads saying… vote for this or believe that. They were messages written by AI to sound like a person living right down the street from you.

HostThe campaign reportedly used these smart programs to create a fake grassroots movement. In politics, we call that astroturfing… it looks like green grass from a distance, but when you get close, it’s all plastic. Millions of these messages were sent out to people in the United States. They were designed to look like they came from a neighbor who was worried about the same things you are. And the specific target was very narrow: young conservatives and people who support the MAGA movement.

HostThe goal was to fix a problem the Israeli government saw in its own data. They noticed that favorability for Israel was dropping among those groups. So, they brought in a pro. The reports say the whole operation was managed by a man who used to be a digital adviser to Donald Trump. He knows that audience… he knows what words they use and what they care about. By using AI, he could send out millions of different versions of a message, testing which ones worked and which ones didn't, all in real time.

HostBut the most futuristic part of this is what they did with chatbots. You know… those windows where you can type a question and a computer gives you a full answer. We’re starting to use those like we use search engines. When you ask a bot to explain a war, it has to pull information from somewhere. The report yesterday said the Israeli government funded efforts to shape what those bots say. They wanted to make sure that when a curious person asks a bot a question, the answer they get is the one the government wants them to see. It’s like trying to write the script for the world’s digital brain.

HostNow, here is where you might stop me. And look, you might be thinking… if this is just digital marketing, why does it matter? Every country has a PR team. Every country tries to make itself look good to its allies. That’s just diplomacy, right?

HostWell, here’s the catch. There’s a big difference between a diplomat giving a speech on the news and a secret computer program pretending to be your neighbor in a text message. One is a country telling you what it thinks. The other is a country trying to trick you into thinking your own friends and neighbors agree with them. When the lines between a government and a regular person get blurred like that, it changes how we trust anything we see on a screen.

HostWhile this digital push was happening across the ocean, the math of power was being worked out back home in Israel. This brings us to that poll from the public broadcaster that dropped early Monday morning. It shows us why the Prime Minister is working so hard to keep his team together.

HostTo run the country, you need sixty-one seats in the parliament. That’s the magic number. If you have sixty, you’re stuck. If you have sixty-one, you’re the boss. The new poll shows that even if every single person who wants to replace the current leader teamed up… including a new group led by former ministers Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper… they would still only get to fifty-nine. They're just two seats short. It’s like being a few inches away from the finish line but never being able to cross it.

HostThe poll also tells us that the most popular guy in the room right now isn't the Prime Minister, but he isn't exactly winning either. Gadi Eisenkot, who used to be the head of the army, has a party called Yashar. The poll says they would get twenty-two seats, which is more than the Prime Minister’s party, Likud. But in this system, being the biggest party doesn't mean you get to lead. You have to be able to play well with others. And right now, the poll suggests the math is just too messy for anyone to get to sixty-one easily.

HostThis brings us back to our big question. How does he do it? How does the Prime Minister keep such a tight grip when there's so much noise and so much pressure?

HostWhen you look at everything that happened yesterday, you see a three-part plan. First, you control the party. By taking the power to handpick eight people for the election list and setting up a way to skip the primary votes, he’s making sure his team is made of people who owe their jobs directly to him. If you want to be on the list, you have to be his person.

HostSecond, you play to the base. Even though he tells the world he won't settle in Gaza, he lets nine of his ministers go to a beach and tell thousands of people that they will. It keeps the most intense part of his support happy. He’s letting them dream of a future he officially says won't happen.

HostAnd third, you try to control the story being told to your most important ally. That forty-five million dollar AI campaign shows a leader who isn't just waiting for people to like him. He’s trying to build a machine that makes them like him, or at least makes it seem like everyone else does.

HostSo, to answer that question… he stays in power by building a fortress out of these different pieces. He’s managing the reality of his party, the reality of the ground in Gaza, and the digital reality on our phones. It’s a strategy of being everywhere at once, even when those different parts of his plan seem to crash into each other.

HostIt all leads to that date in October. But before we get there, we have that fall trip to New York. The fight with the Mayor wasn’t just about an arrest threat… it was a preview of the defiance we’re going to see. The Prime Minister is framing himself as a man standing alone against a world that doesn't understand the risks Israel faces.

HostAs we wrap up, keep an eye on the Likud party website. They're expected to post the official election framework and that list of candidates very soon. That’s where we’ll see the names of those eight handpicked loyalists. Those names will tell us a lot about who the Prime Minister thinks he needs by his side to survive the next few months.

HostWe started today with a story about a mayor in New York trying to plan an arrest and a prime minister telling him to mind his own business. It felt like a small, punchy spat. But now we see it’s part of a much bigger picture. From the sands of Zikim Beach to the AI bots in our pockets, every move is about holding onto the wheel. The math of fifty-nine versus sixty-one is the only thing that matters in the end. And as of this Monday morning, that math is still on his side, even if it’s only by a few seats.