A billionaire real estate mogul in the United States is mobilizing support for a costly media crusade to burnish Israel’s image and demonize the armed group Hamas, amid global protests of pro-Solidarity solidarity. Palestinian.
The media campaign – called Facts for Peace – is seeking $1 million in donations from dozens of the world’s biggest names in media, finance and technology, according to an email seen by news site Semafor .
More than 50 people are being courted, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Dell CEO Michael Dell and financier Michael Milken. They have a combined net worth of about $500 billion, Semafor said.
Some people, like investor Bill Ackman, have publicly threatened to blacklist pro-Palestinian students who criticize Israel. On October 10, Ackman wrote on Israeli policy in Gaza.
“Get ahead of the story”
American billionaire Barry Sternlicht, who launched the project, said the campaign would help Israel “get ahead of the narrative” as the world reacted to intensive Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.
“Public opinion will surely shift as scenes, real or fabricated by Hamas, of Palestinian civilian suffering will surely erode (Israel’s) current empathy in the global community,” Sternlicht wrote in an email soliciting contributions from wealthy individuals shortly after the Hamas attacks of October 7. on Israel, according to Semafor. “We have to anticipate the narrative. »
Israel has carried out relentless airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip since October 7, killing at least 11,078 Palestinians, including 4,500 children, displacing 1.5 million people and destroying much of the territory’s infrastructure, officials say from Gaza.
Hamas’ surprise attack on Israeli territory on October 7 killed some 1,200 Israelis, according to Israeli officials.
Sternlicht’s media campaign aims to portray Hamas as a “terrorist organization” that is “not only the enemy of Israel, but of the United States,” he wrote. The goal is to raise $50 million in private donations, combined with a matching contribution from a Jewish charity. Hamas is already designated as a “terrorist” organization by the United States and the European Union for its armed resistance to the Israeli occupation.
It’s unclear who the donors are, but the campaign has already raised at least a few million dollars, Semafor reported, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
He is advised by Josh Vlasto, a communications strategist who previously worked for U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Semafor reported.
The United States is Israel’s strongest ally in the world, providing billions of dollars in aid and strong diplomatic support each year. Despite the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the US government has continually rejected global calls for a ceasefire and reiterated that Washington would not give Israel “red lines” in the war. On November 2, the US Congress passed a $14.3 billion emergency military aid package for Israel.
However, public support for the US position appears to be waning, with nearly half of US Democrats disapproving of Joe Biden’s handling of the conflict, according to a recent poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Social media giants such as Instagram, X, YouTube and TikTok have been accused of censoring pro-Palestinian voices by reducing their reach, a practice known as shadowbanning.
Axios reported last month that pro-Palestinian posts on TikTok were viewed four times more than pro-Israeli posts. It came as people around the world reacted with horror to the rising death toll in Gaza, where most of those killed are civilians.
Facts For Peace, the media campaign launched by Sternlicht, aims to regain public favor in Israel’s favor, posting videos on its social media channels blaming Hamas for the plight of the Palestinians and denying allegations of Israeli rights violations.
The most recent video posted on his Facebook page claims that “Israel is not an apartheid state.”
This contradicts the findings of Palestinian, Israeli and international rights experts, including the United Nations, that Israel practices apartheid through its “deeply discriminatory dual legal and political systems” in the occupied territories.
Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 war, then annexed East Jerusalem. It withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005 but continues to maintain a siege on the territory of 2.3 million people. Israel continued to expand its settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem – a move considered illegal under international law.
Settlements pose the biggest obstacles to achieving an independent, sovereign Palestinian state living alongside Israel, experts say. The United States condemned settlement expansion, but did little to stop its closest ally.