Israel unprepared for foreign interference in election campaign, experts warn

The image on X depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara surrounded by menacing soldiers.

Beneath the picture, a caption read: "Their end will be the same as the Ceausescus... It's them or us."

The message, posted by an account under the name "Daniel Omer", appeared to be wishing the right-wing premier the same fate as Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, summarily executed with his wife in 1989.

It was widely circulated by Netanyahu supporters as evidence of a campaign of incitement against Israel's longest-serving prime minister, who faces a tight re-election contest on October 27.

The account that shared the image, however, appeared to be linked to an Iranian influence operation, according to FakeReporter, an Israeli non-governmental group that tracks fictitious social media accounts.

The organisation believes the incident highlights the risk of foreign interference ahead of the election, which comes at an especially tense time following years of war in Gaza and the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Foreign actors may attempt to exacerbate existing divisions within Israeli society over issues such as the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews and the investigation into the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

The influence campaigns target voters across the political spectrum, including even Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Arab Israeli citizens.

"Interference networks radicalise people, bring out reactions that might not otherwise have been expressed, and then encourage them and amplify them," Roy Shushan of FakeReporter told AFP.

According to the group, Iranian networks are behind most of the campaigns in Israel, with some also emanating from Russia.

Nearly one-fifth of the identified disinformation campaigns succeeded in having some information picked up by Israeli media and reported as genuine information, according to FakeReporter.

- A global threat -

Disinformation has been of growing concern in Western democracies in an age when so many voters rely primarily on the internet for information. In the United States, an intelligence report concluded that Russia meddled aggressively in the 2016 election to support Donald Trump.

Israel itself has long invested heavily in influence campaigns overseas. In the war in Iran, pro-Israeli accounts have sought to highlight discontent against the ruling clerics.

In 2024, FakeReporter said a covert Israeli campaign used fictitious accounts to influence lawmakers and the public in the United States, Israel's key ally where criticism had grown over the relentless offensive in Gaza.

But the watchdog and experts warn that Israel itself is not equipped to fight disinformation, having neither a national policy nor a specialised authority to counter the threat.

Israel remains "completely unprepared" to face foreign influence operations, said a June report by Israel's State Comptroller.

It warned of bot campaigns designed to sow fear and anger, citing as an example a network called Isnad, which uses sophisticated psychological warfare techniques.

The group of fake accounts became particularly active during Israel's June 2025 bombing of Iran, seeking to undermine public morale through fabricated content, such as doctored images of burning buildings that exaggerated the scale of the destruction in Israel.

Isnad, which describes itself as a grassroots movement, was founded by an exiled Egyptian activist.

David Siman Tov, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said Israel has faced a "conceptual failure" on how to handle foreign interference.

Israel must "shift from a paradigm of protecting infrastructure to one of protecting the cognitive space", he said.

According to reports in the Israeli press in July, Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, already considers foreign interference a top-level threat. It has reportedly sent staff to countries facing similar risks to study their methods.

- Undermining social trust -

Disinformation was ranked the world's number one short-term global risk by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2025.

"The objective is not necessarily to change the outcome at the ballot box, but to undermine confidence in the integrity of the process," Siman Tov explained. "It is enough to plant the idea in the public consciousness that the election is rigged."

Generative artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) now allow the production of highly targeted content in flawless Hebrew within seconds and at minimal cost.

Disinformation campaigns can be deployed on election day to spread false voting instructions, discourage certain voters from going to the polls, or preemptively cast doubt on the election results.

And with so many people now relying on AI for daily information, "we are entering an era of 'data contamination' in which hostile actors pollute and distort the information used to train and feed these models," Siman Tov warned.

With such a flood of information online, experts say the burden also lies with citizens to be cautious.

When faced with content designed to provoke an immediate emotional reaction, Shushan advised: "Pause before sharing, commenting or liking."

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