Hombre, los plutócratas, en origen negreros, se montaron un régimen al que no iban a llamar así, crudamente, "Plutocracia". Por cuestiones elementales de retórica y mercadotecnia, eligieron la palabra "Democracia", mucho más presentable. Pero a estas alturas, igual podríamos haber empezado a saber cuáles son los conceptos reales que se esconden detrás de las palabras que utilizan los plutócratas.
Mi querido interlocutor ni siquiera tenía en cuenta las nuevas modalidades electrónicas de influencia o fraude, que se han unido a lo que ya era una carrera con muchos obstáculos para que la gente sencilla pudiera entender la realidad y formar un movimiento social y político genuino que le permitiera plantar cara a los diversos poderes that be.
Me vinieron a la cabeza, en ese terreno nuevo, resbaladizo y bastante secreto, un par de conversaciones que había visto/oído recientemente. Aunque las considero sólo un aperitivo para entrar a saco en el tema, peliagudo, complejo, con todo tipo de ramificaciones, acabo de decidir que puede ser bueno divulgarlas aquí, aunque sólo sea para informar un poco y suscitar un mínimo de reflexión al respecto.
La primera conversación fue la que sostuvieron en México Gustavo Petro e Inna Afinogenova y fue emitida el 5.09.2026 por La Base América Latina y Canal Red América Latina.
La segunda, entre los periodistas de investigación Richard Sanders y Antony Loewenstein, fue puesta en línea hace un par de semanas por Double Down News.
Las diversas opiniones de los cuatro interlocutores no son, por supuesto, necesariamente, las mías.
Transcribo ambos diálogos más abajo con acotaciones o enlaces de mi cosecha para aclarar o ampliar ciertas referencias. Que la escucha y, en su caso, la lectura contribuyan a entender mejor cómo funciona hoy, en un ámbito menos conocido, el Régimen de los Señores (honor a Domenico Losurdo), que es también el de la poderosa clase Epstein. Motivo por el cual los medios occidentales sólo te hablarán de esto si toca acusar —con razón y, sobre todo, sin ella—.... efectivamente: a Rusia.
Entrevista COMPLETA a GUSTAVO PETRO con Inna Afinogenova
La Base América Latina y Canal Red América Latina, 5.09.2026 - unos 21'
Desde México, el primer país que visita tras dejar la Presidencia de Colombia, Gustavo Petro conversa con Inna Afinogenova sobre el momento que atraviesa América Latina: las manipulaciones e injerencias en la región, las nuevas formas de colonialismo y la relación entre colonias y colonizadores.
"ES UN SECUESTRO TOTAL": Cómo exespías del Mossad controlan gobiernos extranjeros
Richard Sanders entrevista a Antony Loewenstein, Double Down News, 18.09.2026
Sanders es británico y ha dirigido y producido grandes trabajos de investigación para Al Jazeera, como The Labour Files (episodios 1, 2, 3, 4), October 7 y el largometraje documental Investigating War Crimes in Gaza.
Loewnstein es un periodista australiano-alemán de investigación independiente, autor y cineasta radicado en Sídney. Es judío y cubre el 'conflicto' israelí-palestino.
Empresas privadas de inteligencia israelíes, exagentes del Mossad y redes de bots automatizados están manipulando discretamente elecciones en el extranjero y secuestrando gobiernos democráticos en todo el mundo. En esta entrevista exclusiva para Double Down News, el periodista de investigación Antony Loewenstein pone al descubierto la industria encubierta que está convirtiendo la guerra psicológica de rango militar en un lucrativo negocio global, y revela cómo esas tramas inundan el flujo de tus redes sociales para moldear la realidad.
00:00 - El secuestro global de elecciones 01:45 - Exespías del Mossad a sueldo 04:12 - Dentro de las granjas de bots secretas 06:55 - Cómo se atacó a gobiernos extranjeros 09:40 – Te inundan el flujo: manipulación de algoritmos 12:15 - El silencio mediático y Black Cube 15:05 - La amenaza a la democracia global.
TRANSCRIPCIÓN (con acotaciones y enlaces de mi cosecha) de la conversación Inna Afinogenova-Gustavo Petro:
Inna Afinogenova: Presidente, gracias.
Gustavo Petro: ¿Cómo estás?
Inna Afinogenova: Presidente, bienvenido a Canal Red América Latina, gracias por su tiempo.
Está usted en México en su primer viaje en calidad de expresidente. ¿Por qué México? ¿Cómo ve el país?
Gustavo Petro: México lo veo bien, digamos, sus estadísticas económicas, después ya de varios periodos de progresismo en el gobierno, indican que el modelo y la política económica escogida han sido exitosos: reducción de pobreza, reducción de desempleo, crecimiento económico, industrialización, —que viene de cifras muy altas, ¿no? Porque México y Colombia se parecen que son de los países con mayor pobreza, extrema, pobreza en general, desempleo, informalidad, de América Latina toda.
Incluso Colombia tiene mayores niveles aún, en el pasado, y México ha logrado bajar eso. Eso se llama una política económica exitosa, porque Aristóteles, recuerda, decía que economía es la producción para la vida buena, y darle más vida buena a las personas es un éxito.
En Colombia pasó lo mismo en 4 años: reducción de tasa de desempleo, reducción de tasa de pobreza, incremento de la tasa de ocupados, industrialización, traslado de la producción desde actividades extractivas como el petróleo, el carbón, hacia producir en agricultura, en industria, que da mucho más trabajo. Demostramos que lo que dijimos en campaña se cumplía, y son dos políticas económicas similares que tienen en común una definición: no son neoliberales, son una nueva forma de hacer política económica con prioridad en la vida, con prioridad en la vida buena para la gente.
Inna Afinogenova: Usted llega en un momento en el que el mapa de América Latina se está redefiniendo muy deprisa [vieja tradicion gringa de asolar las Américas en nombre de la Liberty]. Tenemos Chile, tenemos Bolivia, Honduras, Colombia también, con la doctrina Monroe y Estados Unidos hablando abiertamente de su hemisferio, con Venezuela como ejemplo de que pueden usar fuerza militar… ¿Cómo definiría usted el momento que está atravesando ahora mismo América Latina?
Gustavo Petro: Primero es artificial, ¿no?
Inna Afinogenova: ¿Por qué?
Gustavo Petro: La mayor parte de esos triunfos que acabas de nombrar, incluido el de Abelardo [de la Espriella] en Colombia, no son ciertos, son construidos a través, ya los... se probó ya por la policía boliviana, por granjas de bots, de millones y millones de perfiles falsos que inciden en la conciencia de la gente construyendo algo que yo llamaría la “matrix de la falsedad”, de la mentira. Es algo que no es sólo para nosotros, va para el mundo.
Y segundo, en medio de esa falsedad, en el caso colombiano, la alteración del voto de la gente por el de los algoritmos, por los números y las matemáticas, que ocasionaron el triunfo de Abelardo sin haberlo obtenido.
Eso es diferente un poco a los demás países, no a todos. Quizás se parece a Perú [Peru's Run-Off Presidential Election: What You Need to Know, Center for Economic and Policy Research, 5.06.2026], quizás se parece a Honduras… [Cf. Pedro Lavayen Herrera, Annie Bird, Francesca Emanuele, Alexander Main, David Rosnick: Parálisis institucional, injerencia estadounidense, fallas técnicas y un recuento incompleto: una evaluacion de las elecciones de Honduras de 2025, CEPR, 22.05.2026] Y en mi opinión también es un modelo de exportación. Aquí están haciéndose un experimento. ¿Por qué digo que va a pasar rápido? Porque los pueblos son reales, porque las necesidades son reales, porque comparar una política económica positiva con una que empieza a llevar al abismo a las sociedades, como Argentina, comenzará en Colombia, también, lo que hace es generar un estallido social que solo se puede contener, y esa es la segunda parte de la gran propuesta que viene de Washington, con un control violento, le llaman tecnofascismo, un control construido a partir de la vigilancia de algoritmos desde satélites y una represión brutal, que en Colombia ya tiene muertos.
Hoy se paseaba el presidente, entre comillas, de Colombia, Abelardo, entre 23 cadáveres, como si nada hubiera pasado, producto de un bombardeo, a, entre ellos, niños.
Eso no es humanidad, eso simplemente es un modelo absurdo, sin razón, de la construcción de un control humano, que solo… un control sobre la gente humana, que sólo tiene un objetivo, que es de Washington y es de Israel, el de llevarse, el de expoliar, el de recoger los recursos naturales no renovables para una estrategia que tiene que ver con la geopolítica y la lucha contra países árabes y contra China.
5:04
Inna Afinogenova: Presidente, hablando de fraude en las elecciones colombianas, usted lo empezó a denunciar desde casi… desde que se anunciaron los resultados. Me gustaría entrar, brevemente, en unos tecnicismos, ¿no? Una cosa es que el sistema sea vulnerable, otra cosa es demostrar que el sistema haya sido vulnerado y una tercera cosa es demostrar que esa vulneración efectivamente cambió el resultado. ¿Cuál de esas tres cuestiones se puede demostrar a día de hoy?
Gustavo Petro: Eh, las tres, y las dos últimas que me mencionas son algo sinónimos, pero la primera… ya desde el año 2018 y por sentencia judicial, que ordenaba el cambio del software, que no se hizo, un desacato a la justicia por el registrador y el establecimiento político colombiano, se afirmaba que el software era vulnerable, atacable desde adentro y desde afuera.
Eso digamos es un hecho y es una sentencia judicial de la sala plena del Consejo de Estado, la máxima instancia administrativa del país.
Las otras dos es si se hizo y si cambió el resultado de tal manera que ganara Abelardo. Pues se hizo; se hizo en 1.350 puestos de votación definidos exactamente con lugar en 13.000 mesas definidas con su número en cada puesto de votación, a partir de un software israelí, que inoculó, voy a poner esa palabra, el software de los hermanos Bautista [se refiere a la empresa Thomas Greg & Sons (TGS), empresa de la Familia Bautista. Gustavo Petro escribió su denuncia pública en X el 22.06.2026], que es un software privado de escrutinios, la misma empresa que lo hizo en Honduras, en la ciudad de Los Ángeles, en el consulado de Colombia, a través de un servidor al cual le llegaba, primero que todo, primero que el público, primero que el escrutinio final, toda la información que iba saliendo elevada a internet antes de que se viera y tenía un algoritmo que automáticamente producía, en el caso de que Iván Cepeda estuviera por encima de Abelardo, que los tuvo en el 88% de la votación, con 500.000 votos por arriba, el cambio automático en los 1.350 puestos para que le dieron la victoria a Abelardo.
El hecho está probado estadísticamente, lo hemos puesto en la justicia, mesa por mesa, pero adicionalmente todo eso se produjo por una violación de la ley, que la justicia colombiana debería investigar. Es que existe un tratado internacional que es ley en Colombia de todo documento PDF, que es la forma de software para documentos que sean no modificables, exige para ese objetivo lo que llaman el candado hash [en teoría sirve para comprobar que un archivo es exactamente el mismo que el que se verificó inicialmente]. Es obligatorio para un cheque, para un documento bancario... Tú, los cheques los firmas con la cifra delante. Hoy, aquí, en Colombia, tuvimos lo siguiente: las firmas no estaban donde está la cifra, sino una página diferente para modificar dónde estaban los datos.
Y los PDF de 120.000 formularios E14 no tenían candado hash en contra de la ley, es decir, eran modificables en todo momento y lugar, una vez se subían a internet. Eso ya, eso sólo, es un fraude y es una violación de la ley.
Inna Afinogenova: Hablando de [Fernando] Cerimedo, ese escándalo que ha estallado, usted lo siguió, Nadia Beller [abogada y analista/activista política boliviana. En agosto de 2026, Beller fue tiroteada en Santa Cruz de la Sierra y sobrevivió. Posteriormente acusó a Cerimedo de estar detrás del ataque; Cerimedo niega haber participado], su expareja… ella dijo que Cerimedo se acercó a la campaña de la Espriella, pero que no trabajó con ella finalmente. Pero usted dijo que fue Javier Negre, el de Derecha Diario, operador de extrema derecha español…
Gustavo Petro: Negre, Negre.
Inna Afinogenova: ¿Cómo funcionó esa operación en Colombia?
Gustavo Petro: Pues está en las fotos… el señor, señor Abelardo pone… ahí está la foto con el señor Negre.
Inna Afinogenova: Pero usted sabe cómo fue esa operativa, quién pagó a quién…
Gustavo Petro: La operación, la operación… y no solamente Negre... Yo puse una denuncia específicamente con un fondo estadounidense, porque es de allí originario, con capitales que vienen de empresarios del oro ilegal, narcotraficantes y dinero público de la ciudad de Medellín, manejados por dos personas con nombre propio, que también financiaron este tipo de política de manipulación de la mente a través de falsedades y perfiles falsos.
Eso se llamó…, tiene un nombre, pero yo mismo puse la denuncia ante la justicia. Pero el señor Negre, que aparece ahora, efectivamente fue asesor de la campaña de Abelardo de la Espriella.
El número de bots que nosotros hemos logrado contar es de 2 millones, y el lugar desde donde se irradiaban hacia las redes diferentes de los colombianos es Miami y Medellín. La dirección del bot, de la granja de bots en Medellín, yo la obtuve y se la entregué a la Policía Nacional. Eso fue… víspera de la elección ya.
La policía nacional se la entregó a la policía de Medellín, que es su alterna, y no pasó nada.
Inna Afinogenova: Usted deja Colombia muchísimo mejor de lo que la recibió.
El salario mínimo ha subido muy por encima de la inflación. El desempleo está en niveles bajísimos. Millones de personas salieron de la pobreza y, sin embargo, Iván Cepeda pierde las elecciones por un margen muy estrecho. Dejando de lado a Cerimedo, a Javier Negre, a Donald Trump, ¿qué pasó en la campaña?
10:39
Gustavo Petro: No los puedes dejar de lado. Pero, bueno, digamos… Trump hoy no lo repitió, pero lo dijo públicamente, dijo, "El tigre ganó las elecciones gracias a mí", dijo Trump. No a mí el presidente, sino a él, a Trump. Creo que confesó la verdad y es así. Pero no ganó las elecciones con gente, sino con algoritmos.
Ahora, me puedes preguntar que los millones efectivamente de personas humanas que votaron por Abelardo, ¿por qué votaron por él si eran también trabajadores, campesinos, gente popular, en un porcentaje elevado?
Por la manipulación de los votos.
Es que ese es el objetivo de un bot, no del bot, que no es más sino un algoritmo en una máquina, sino de los dueños y los que pagan las granjas de bots, que tú votes contra ti misma, no que no votes por aquel.
Si aquel no te representa, pues puedes no votar y no necesitas que los bots te manipulen. Pero si aquel representa los intereses de la mayoría de la población por la práctica ya ejercida en el gobierno, como tú acabas de decir, pues se necesita un gran poder de manipulación para que la gente beneficiada, o que se podría beneficiar, opte por la opción contraria, es decir, voten en contra de su propio interés. El trabajador contra el salario, el viejo contra su pensión, la mujer contra sus derechos femeninos o el joven contra la universidad.
Eso no es lógico, no es razonable, no es de la razón: es de la sinrazón.
La sinrazón es la máquina.
Simplemente son gentes con mucho poder económico usando máquinas de alta tecnología para reproducir en las redes un mensaje que, como Goebbels decía, el comunicador de Hitler, entre más insista con la mentira, algo queda. Ese algo queda son millones de personas minoritarias, sí, en el total de la población, pero que hacen la diferencia votando contra sus propios derechos.
Inna Afinogenova: Ahora, Brasil y México enfrentan procesos electorales importantísimos. Brasil ya, México en junio. Si pudiera sentarse con Lula, con Sheinbaum, ahora mismo, ¿qué les diría que tendrían que hacer ya mismo que quizás no pudo hacer Colombia?
12:58
Gustavo Petro: Bien, en Colombia yo vi esta… y tú me preguntabas un poco, los vacíos de la campaña de Iván, que permiten, en parte, el que haya sucedido el fraude electoral. El vacío se llama comunicación. Comunicación tanto publicitaria y de expresión de programas como la de captar ese mundo de bots y de manipulación y contrarrestarlo. Porque si tú tienes 2 millones de votos afectando la… constriñendo la libertad del voto, tú debes tener 2 millones de personas contrarrestándolo.
Eso es organización popular, pero primero tienes que saber que el poder está en la comunicación. Y eso se transmitiría… Lula que lo sabe, pero hay muchos ingenieros, cuadros medios, personas que toman decisiones, que, a veces por el ego, encierran un candidato, lo silencian, para que otra persona mejor no entre a la campaña, etcétera, etcétera. Y eso pasó mucho en la campaña de Iván, hubo un silenciamiento de la campaña, sobre todo en primera vuelta, que a mí me parece nefasto, no comunicar suficientemente, mientras el otro tenía 50 millones de dólares de… actuando en Estados Unidos, desde Israel, etcétera, ilegalmente, inconstitucionalmente, pero actuando contra Iván Cepeda y contra el movimiento progresista y los derechos de la gente.
Inna Afinogenova:¿Usted se planteó renunciar a la presidencia para sumarse a la campaña de Iván Cepeda?
Gustavo Petro: Eh, se me pasó por la cabeza, sí, pero hubiera salido peor.
Inna Afinogenova: …por todo esto que está diciendo, ¿no?
Gustavo Petro: Sí, sí.
Inna Afinogenova: 14:30 Por los vacíos de la campaña.
Eh, no le puedo no preguntar sobre Venezuela, esta Venezuela post 3 de enero. Hace pocos días Washington y Caracas anunciaron un acuerdo histórico que le cede el control a Estados Unidos de 65.000 millones de barriles de las reservas de crudo venezolano. Delcy Rodríguez dice que Venezuela mantiene la soberanía.
¿Cómo interpreta usted que el gobierno que quedó después de Nicolás Maduro ahora esté negociando con la potencia que le ha secuestrado el presidente y ha bombardeado Caracas?
Gustavo Petro: Yo pienso, Trump cree que obtuvo un triunfo militar. Es una operación militar la que se lleva a Maduro y, por tanto, del otro lado lo que hay es una derrota militar. Y cuando gana un ejército conquistador a otro, sin derrotarlo completamente, pero le gana, se cree dueño de los recursos, el botín que hay en el país, y se lo lleva.
Creo que ya no es el caso de Venezuela. A Venezuela le ganan con misiles. A nosotros nos están ganando con algoritmos, pero el objetivo es el mismo, llevarse el petróleo, el oro, el agua, usar la tierra fértil, que es uno de los objetivos de Israel para expoliar. El objetivo del control de un país sobre la sociedad de un país diferente es expoliación. Y eso es lo que están haciendo.
16:04
Inna Afinogenova: Quiero reivindicar su papel en la defensa de Palestina. Hemos visto mucho públicamente cómo Colombia rompía las relaciones diplomáticas, cómo dejaba de exportar carbón a Israel. Todo eso fue público. Quiero saber qué fue detrás de las cámaras, qué presiones recibió, cuáles fueron las más difíciles, de embajadas, de mercados, de lobbies, etcétera. Si nos puede contar.
Gustavo Petro: Yo, desde pequeño, veo la política como el ejercicio de actuar contra la injusticia en donde esté, que yo soy revolucionario y nací revolucionario y me crie revolucionario, más que nací, porque eso se construye.
Y por eso estuve en el M19, queriendo hacer una revolución en Colombia y, de alguna manera, he logrado algunas cosas.
Pero Palestina es una injusticia, es un genocidio. Me pareció que lo natural era que cualquier presidente del mundo lo dijera. Me quedé un poquito solito al principio. Me metieron en la OFAC [Office of Foreign Assets Control (Oficina de Control de Activos Extranjeros) del Departamento del Tesoro de EE. UU; la oficina que administra las principales listas de sanciones financieras que organiza la mafia de Washington], metieron a [Francesca] Albanese en la OFAC, los magistrados, casi todo el que quiso hacer justicia, dependiendo de su posición, ha terminado siendo perseguido.
Y el genocida está actuando, libremente, y lo reciben con aplausos en Washington.
Eso no puede ser. Y yo creo… porque si no va a haber más genocidios. Nos encaminamos es a un holocausto global, porque todo fascismo trae un holocausto.
Sólo que este fascismo que hoy… tecnofascismo le dicen los intelectuales, que hoy se extiende por el mundo, y por nuestra América Latina, es global. Entonces, lo que puede producir no es un holocausto étnico en una nación, como está sucediendo con Palestina, sino un holocausto global. Ya es que nos llevan hacia un control global de la humanidad, una esclavización de la humanidad por recursos públicos, por una competencia que están perdiendo con China, porque quieren ser el poder mundial. Por codicia, diría yo, en una sola palabra.
Yo creo que una campaña que hay que levantar es la lucha de la humanidad por sacar de las de las sanciones a todos los jueces, magistrados, etcétera, y juzgar a Netanyahu.
Inna Afinogenova: Pero no me contestó la pregunta. Si hubo presiones… de las que no nos enteramos...
Gustavo Petro: No, yo no la sentí. Lo sentí después de, porque obviamente me sancionaron, pero, antes de, yo dije lo que tenía que decir.
Inna Afinogenova: Su última visita, como presidente, fue a Cuba. ¿Por qué cerrar su mandato en Cuba?
Gustavo Petro: Como presidente… Colombia es el presidente del Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas y quise, en el ejercicio de esa presidencia, ir a Cuba para pedir que cese el bloqueo. No sólo de Cuba: de cualquier país del mundo. Un bloqueo es también un genocidio, mata de hambre. Un bloqueo es una violación sistemática de lesa humanidad, de derechos que son de la humanidad, no de los gobiernos. Ahí no están bloqueando un gobierno, están bloqueando al pueblo cubano; como bloquean en otras partes al pueblo venezolano, a pueblos árabes, iraníes, a otros pueblos del mundo.
19:26
Inna Afinogenova: La izquierda vuelve a las filas de la oposición en Colombia, tiene un historial de exterminio en Colombia real. ¿Usted no teme por la seguridad propia y la de su compañero?
Gustavo Petro: También nos hemos acostumbrado. Yo llevo… de mi vida, más o menos,… 45 años, 50 años, de lucha en Colombia —nunca me he ido realmente, y he pasado por las diferentes fases, y muchas situaciones de borde de la muerte, pero los colombianos sabemos resistir. Somos como el jaguar.
20:01
Inna Afinogenova: Ahora vuelve a Colombia y va a estar allí.
Gustavo Petro: Sí.
Inna Afinogenova: Sin fuero presidencial y con de la Espriella gobernando.
Gustavo Petro: Vamos a ver… si es un tigre, que no existe en América en ninguna parte —el tigre no es de América. Como los leones tampoco son de América—, puede con los jaguares y las jaguares.
20:21
Inna Afinogenova: Si no se anulan las elecciones, reconocerá… terminará…
Gustavo Petro: No, ya es un fraude. Y fue un fraude, y quedará en la historia como un fraude electoral, una ilegitimidad, un insulto al pueblo colombiano cometido desde la Casa Blanca. [Hoy EEUU, Israel y compañía saben dar golpes incruentos ...o casi]
Inna Afinogenova: Presidente, muchísimas gracias.
Gustavo Petro: Gracias a ti, muy amable.
___________________________________________
TRANSCRIPCIÓN (con acotaciones y enlaces de mi cosecha) de la conversacion Richard Sanders-Antony Loewenstein (en Double Down News):
Capítulo 1: The Global Election Hijack (El secuestro global de las elecciones)
Antony Loewenstein (periodista 'freelance' de investigación que emite su propio podcast):
What Israel has been doing is finding ways to assist candidates they want, using bot farms, social media manipulation, other kind of tools. They were able to profoundly manipulate and also delay elections.
Black Cube, staffed and founded [en 2010 por Avi Yanus y Dan Zorella] by former members of the Mossad [Efraim Halevy, número uno del cuerpo entre 1998 y 2002, figura en el "consejo asesor internacional". Meir Dagan, director del Mossad entre 2002 y 2011, también estuvo vinculado a la empresa hasta su fallecimiento en 2016. El plantel de asesores lo completan excomisionados de la Policía de Tel Aviv, militares retirados de las Fuerzas Coloniales de Israel y antiguos generales del Ejército de EE. UU.], the Israeli intelligence arrived in the country on private jets [cuenta con oficinas en Tel Aviv, Londres y Madrid]. They go to meet the political candidate, getting instructions in what information should be spread about an opposition candidate… The end result is that the more pro-Israel candidate is now in power.
There are lots of cases in the last 6 or 12 months with a particular company called BlackCore [“Elite Intelligence Solutions – Turning Intelligence into Impact” (sic)]. They're Israeli. They're almost certainly made up of former intelligence officers, and they've been intervening in various ways.
When you are trying to manipulate elections, or push certain candidates forward, or get massive narcoleaders released from US prison, then that to me is on a whole different level of concern.
Election systems in the West and elsewhere is actually quite vulnerable to this kind of manipulation. But the other part of it is trying to influence AI chat bots.
If you would put in questions about what Israel is doing in Gaza, are they committing genocide? They are hoping to influence the sort of responses and returns that you will get as a user.
The amount of money that Israel is spending on propaganda, tens and tens of millions of dollars, flooding social media with complete bullshit. We are, within a few years, I don't think going to be able to know whether information that you and I watch about a candidate is real or not. That to me is petrifying and it gets barely any mainstream media coverage.
There's been this western obsession in the press about Russian and Chinese intervention, interference, but what's rarely talked about is the fact that Israel…
Capítulo 2: Ex-Mossad Spies For Hire (Exespías del Mossad a sueldo)
Richard Sanders: In June, French law enforcement accused the Israeli private intelligence company BlackCore of interference in elections in France, Scotland, New York, Togo, and Angola. In March, Slovenian law enforcement accused another Israeli intelligence firm, Black Cube, of interference in elections there.
The outgoing Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, has said BlackCore was behind his party's narrow defeat. And recordings released earlier this year appeared to show the groups aligned to Israel facilitated the release of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández from jail in the US, where he'd been convicted of drug trafficking.
In every instance, the Israelis appear to have intervened on behalf of right-wing figures supportive of Israel.
Why this sudden surge of activity and how serious a threat does it posed to free elections around the world?
I spoke to Australian investigative journalist Antony Loewenstein, who's been tracking Israeli activity.
********
Richard Sanders: The Israelis have always been very keen to shape public opinion internationally, but their intervention in elections around the world has really become quite crude in the last few years. Why is that? Why this change?
Antony Loewenstein: I think one of the things, and I've been following this in the last few years, a lot of research, is that, particularly since 2016, there's been this Western obsession in the press about Russian and Chinese intervention, interference, which is true —I’m not denying that Beijing and Moscow don't intervene in elections—, but what's rarely talked about is the fact that Israel —obviously Netanyahu's been in power now for a hell of a long time; so, it's mostly under his prime ministership— believes that there is a way to intervene to get candidates up that they like, or at least try to. That's either through the Israeli government itself or companies that are working almost as proxies for the State. And there's lots of examples in the last years of sometimes successful campaigns, sometimes they fail to push candidates who they like. At the moment, in the last 6 to 12 months, there's been an explosion of candidates across Latin and South America who are very pro-Israel.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting they're only winning because of Israel. That's obviously not true. Sometimes there's disillusionment with the candidates who are the alternatives.
It's a complicated picture.
4:09 Capítulo 3: Inside the Secret Bot Farms
But what Israel has been doing, increasingly successfully, using everything from bot farms to social media manipulation, and other kind of tools, is finding ways to assist candidates they want.
And this is from Latin and South America, parts of Africa, and beyond. And it's deeply worrying and it gets barely any mainstream media coverage, Richard.
Richard Sanders: Now, some of it is really quite crude. Yes, we have the social media manipulation and so on, but in France, for example, in ?????? elections, down in the south, there was a false accusation of rape made against one candidate.
[Aunque no capté la ciudad francesa mencionada, entiendo que Richard Sanders se refiere a la mediterránea “Marseille », Marsella, y al caso, en concreto, de Sébastien Delogu, de La France Insoumise, a quien cuentas de redes sociales llegaron a atribuir un falso cargo de violación, algo, por supuesto, particularmente infamante. VIGINUM (Service de vigilance et de protection contre les ingérences numériques étrangères), según una noticia de FranceInfo del 20.05.2026, atribuía el montaje digital a una operación de (des)información vinculada a Israel —no era fontanería interna como, por ejemplo, en el caso de la acusación de narcotráfico a Miguel Urbán en España—, cf. Une société israélienne identifiée par les services de l'Etat parmi les responsables d'une opération d'ingérence numérique étrangère visant LFI lors des municipales en mars 2026 – De nombreux candidats LFI avaient été visés par cette campagne, comme David Guiraud ou Sébastien Delogu, FranceInfo, 20.05.2026. Extracto:« Les autorités françaises soupçonnent la société israélienne BlackCore d’avoir permis le déploiement d’une opération d’ingérence lors de la campagne des élections municipales 2026, selon les informations de FranceInfo mercredi 20 mai. Le ministre de l'Intérieur, Laurent Nuñez, a annoncé ce même jour qu'une "action judiciaire" était "engagée" suite à des soupçons d'ingérence numérique étrangère visant LFI pendant la campagne. »Otro miembro de LFI afectado por este ventilador de inmundicias en las municipales francesas fue François Piquemal, candidato en Toulouse.
Viginum, por cierto, conectó la infraestructura de BlackCore con operaciones idénticas fuera de Francia, por ejemplo, contra el exministro escocés John Swinney, contra Zohran Mandani en las municipales de Nueva York, en 2025, u otras en Togo o Angola.
Por su parte, France 24 informaba el 30.06.2026, en relación con el caso “Rokh Solis”, de la existencia de una campaña sofisticada de BlackCore de desinformación y difamación, intoxicación y desgaste, dirigida contra LFI, la única oposición de peso en Francia al Capitalismo Psicópata y Genocida hoy triunfante en todo “Occidente”:« Une campagne de dénigrement inédite, menée depuis Israël, a visé La France insoumise (LFI) durant les élections municipales 2026, selon l’enquête menée par Viginum, le service français de lutte contre les ingérences numériques étrangères.Recordamos, por si alguien no había reparado en ello, que, en armonía con la axiología colórica tradicional del supremacismo blanco, “dénigrer”, del latín “denigrare”, literalmente “noircir”, “ennegrecer”, es el exacto antónimo de “blanchir”, “blanquear”… Quien prefiera evitar ese racismo lingüístico, puede utilizar, en vez de “denigrar”, verbos como “atacar”, “calumniar”, “difamar”, “desacreditar”, “desprestigiar”, “injuriar”, “vituperar”, “menoscabar”, “enfangar”, etc. En cuanto a "polariser", calco del inglés, la periodista bien podría tal vez haber tomado la valerosa decisión de utilizar alguno de los excelentes términos de que dispone la lengua de Voltaire para referirse a las intoxicaciones deliberadas destinadas a difamar y confundir.]
Jusqu’où sont prêts à aller des acteurs malveillants pour polariser le débat public en France ? »
4:45
Antony Loewenstein: Sometimes it's crude, but you and I say, it's crude, but that presumes that a potential voter A is aware of that, B doesn't believe it, and C gets alternative information before an election. And there are lots of cases in the last 6 or 12 months with a particular company called BlackCore. There's not much known about them. They're Israeli. They're almost certainly made up of former intelligence officers. As history would suggest, they're likely to still be close to the Israeli State, and they've been intervening, in various ways, from France to potentially Colombia. There was a recent presidential election there.
So, some of it is crude, but I'm not convinced necessarily not effective. Does a candidate win? Now, obviously, another example would have been the recent election in Hungary. Now obviously Orbán lost. Orbán lost for a range of reasons. Had he won it wouldn't have been just because of Israel. He was an unpopular leader after years of corruption, etc.
But there are lots of cases I think you can make credible arguments that Israeli assistance is certainly boosting a particular candidate.
And, as an example, there's the Brazilian election in a few months. In October, there is… it's Lula versus Bolsonaro's son. Now, at the moment, Lula is ahead. And again, just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that if one of them wins or loses, it's just because of Israel. But, for example, when Bolsonaro's son announced his campaign in the last week publicly, Netanyahu was on the big screen at the rally endorsing him. And there's evidence to suggest that there is a particular concerted campaign in Latin and South America, as I said, in the last 6 or 12 months with some degree of success.
I mean there is candidate after candidate after candidate, in a region that was 10, 15, 20 years ago quite leftwing, which is now in fact frankly far right. And I think there's lots of efforts happening behind the scenes, with certain companies and governments including Milei and Argentina, the Trump administration, Israel and others, to push these candidates forward and I think it should worry us deeply. It worries me.
Capítulo 4: How Foreign Governments Were Targeted
6:57
Richard Sanders: And we have that extraordinary story in Honduras —which we reported a couple of months ago— where it was revealed people allied, certainly connected to the Israeli State, appeared to have paid for the pardon for the ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández, and there was very strong evidence, very strong Israeli and American interference in the elections there.
It's extraordinary entirely ignored by the mainstream media that story, despite the fact these tapes were out in the public domain.
7:24
Antony Loewenstein: I mean it's a wild story. I spent time reporting from Honduras about 10 years ago. It was then —and, to some extent, still now— one of the world's biggest narco States. A lot of the drugs coming into the US is going via Honduras.
Hernández was a former leader of Honduras. He was taken to the US years ago and put on trial. A massive narco leader, essentially funnelling drug money to his political campaign. He was found guilty. I think he was given 45 years, give or take, in jail. He was in jail.
And then this incredible, as you said, Richard, story emerges of basically a really conspiracy between Trump administration, elements in the Honduran elite, and others, to get him released, to allow him to work on assisting the overthrow of more left-wing governments. It was particularly targeting Mexico and elsewhere. The current leader of Honduras —there was an election a few months ago, people may remember—, and the candidate that won was really arguably successful because Trump had essentially threatened Honduras with almost economic pain if that guy did not win. That the agreement seems to be that the US and Israel get access to special economic zones and parcels of land in Honduras.
Now, you know, these cases are so… on the one hand because Latin and South America gets no coverage in the Western press at all anyway, even at the best of times. But the idea that Israel, which historically, as I discovered in the Palestine Laboratory, has a long history of course with funding and arming huge amounts of regimes in that part of the world. So, on the one hand, it's not that unusual. But to me —and a lot of my work in the last 10 years has focused on issues around say Israeli spyware, which clearly is still an issue, and Israel is still selling that all over the globe—, but this to me takes it to a different level. Surveilling a particular person is bad. I'm not for a second excusing that. But when you are trying to manipulate elections, or push certain candidates forward, or get massive narco leaders released from US prison, then that to me is on a whole different level of concern.
9:28
Richard Sanders: Why does Israel care so much about Latin America?
Capítulo 5: Flooding Your Feed: Algorithm Manipulation
Antony Loewenstein: I think it's because they feel it's malleable. I think it's because…, and this I think has to me ties very much to why Israel sells and continues to sell and has sold for years weapons to pretty much anyone who will buy it. It's basically a way to make friends. I see it as a way to make allies. I would say they're transactional friendships.
But the idea that you would have, which you now do have, in Latin and South America, about five or six or seven key allies, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, potentially others, who will support you at a time where Israel internationally is increasingly isolated —not particularly, I mean diplomatically, not hugely yet in public opinion—, it's a way to make friends.
For example, a lot of these newly elected leaders are talking about moving their embassy to Jerusalem. I think it's a way, Richard, that a state that is desperate for acceptance and legitimacy sees far-right parties, who've historically, of course, have been antisemitic and racist against Jews, are a worthwhile ally, which yeah, is an absolutely ridiculous short-term thinking, which I don't think would change, by the way, much if Netanyahu loses at the election this year, which he may or may not.
Richard Sanders: Now, you've mentioned BlackCore. There's also Black Cube, isn't there? For some reason, they always seem to give themselves sort of Bond villain names, you [laughter] know.
Antony Loewenstein: Yeah.
Richard Sanders: Let's just, you know, do a case study. Slovenia [cf. «Los espías israelíes acusados por el Gobierno de Eslovenia de "injerencia" electoral tienen en Madrid su sede de la UE», Público, 23.03.2026; «¿Qué es Black Cube, el último juguete israelí para interferir en elecciones?», Público, 1.08.2018]. Are you able to talk me through what actually they did in Slovenia? Because it's very interesting.
11:08
Antony Loewenstein: The Slovenia obviously people know as a country in Europe. There was an election not that long ago. There were attempts to manipulate certain information about various candidates. Black Cube, Black Cube has been around for a number of years. It's basically staffed and founded by former members of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence. They got notoriety about 10 or so years ago, because they'd been hired by Harvey Weinstein, when he was still a Hollywood mogul, to try to smear his enemies, women who accused him of rape, etc.
Black Cube also was going after Ronan Farrow, the US journalist who was doing a lot of that investigation.
So, they have a long pedigree, and in Slovenia, the end result is that the more pro-Israel candidate is now in power. Again, I want to the caveat to all this is none of this is simply because Netanyahu wanted that to happen. It doesn't work that way. It's much more complicated. But there was a very concerted, frankly quite successful campaign of smearing information, which was released into the public, almost into the electoral bloodstream, put out through Black Cube and other like-minded corporations, and I would argue they almost kind of disappear into smoke.
Capítulo 6: The Media Silence & Black Cube
I mean these companies —and there's evidence of reading reports into this— arrived in the country on private jets. They go to meet a certain political candidate. They —one has to presume— are getting instructions in what information should be spread about an opposition candidate. You know, you were talking before about the fact that some of these campaigns are very crude. And again, I caution that thinking, because if a person in the public is gathering information about a particular candidate, where do they get that information from, these days? Maybe mainstream media or social media. And where else you going to get it from?
And if that information is manipulated, or certainly skewed, then we can't be surprised if a potential voter doesn't really know, or suspects that candidate X or candidate Y is corrupt or has had an affair or done something dodgy against his wife or whatever it may be. Right?
So… yeah, Slovenia again, and it's interesting just finally on this that often the countries in the last 6 or 12 months that have been targeted are not countries that get much interest in the western press. I don't know if that's deliberate.
I mean Slovenia… when Slovenia last mentioned in the Western press just never gets talked about.
Latin and South America is basically ignored.
Parts of Africa… There's been involvement in places like Kenya in the last 10 years manipulating certain elections…
I mean, people may also remember just finally there was a big really impressive investigation a few years ago, in the Guardian [a massive February 2023 international investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories and published heavily in The Guardian], called about Team Jorge [Es el nombre en clave de una unidad encubierta de contratistas privados israelíes; está dirigida por Tal Hanan, un exoperativo de las fuerzas especiales de Israel que actúa bajo el seudónimo de «Jorge». Periodistas de medios como Haaretz, Radio France y TheMarker se infiltraron haciéndose pasar por clientes potenciales interesados en retrasar unas elecciones en un país africano. Grabaron en secreto a Hanan mientras presumía de que su equipo había interferido en 33 campañas electorales presidenciales en todo el mundo, en 27 de las cuales con éxito. Para ello, emplearon técnicas de pirateo informático (infiltrándose en cuentas de Telegram y Gmail), cibersabotaje y un sistema de software automatizado llamado AIMS, con el fin de controlar decenas de miles de bots falsos en redes sociales y difundir desinformación dirigida.], which is basically this Israeli based organization, which proudly they did undercover reporting.
I know some of the journals behind it and they reveal that this company proudly boasts of impacting elections in dozens of countries.
Now, even if you think that's an exaggeration, there's credible evidence that they were able to profoundly manipulate social media and also delay elections in ways that I don't cannot think of many other countries that would have that capability to do it. Russia and China could, the US certainly could, the UK could. Israel's in the top five are those manipulators and yet it never gets Western coverage at all.Richard Sanders: In this age of engineered algorithms, if you really want to keep informed, please like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and click on the bell so you never miss a video. And if you want to support the vital work we do exposing the Powerful, please consider joining Double Down News on Patreon.Richard Sanders: Now, the Team Jorge story was three years ago, wasn't it? So that's clearly been going on.
Antony Loewenstein: And they're still going, by the way…
Richard Sanders: Slovenian…
Capítulo 7: The Threat to Global Democracy
15:09
Antony Loewenstein: …they're still going as an organization, by the way, because I was speaking to a source recently. They are still very much alive and well. In fact, for them, just finally, the Guardian coverage, I now know from reliable sources, was not seen as a problem, but in fact, great PR for them.
Richard Sanders: The Slovenia case, I just… as an example of specifically how they work, as I understand it, the Israelis set up a fictitious company. They did interviews with people close to the ruling sort of left of centre government —job interviews, what were posing as job interviews. These people then sort of boasted about their access and influence, as you do in… when a job interview. This was then portrayed as corruption, and this was filtered out into the public domain. All of course without the public being aware that this was being done by an Israeli influence company…
Antony Loewenstein: …and again goes to the same point. Is it crude? Yes. Is it effective in the end? Arguably it was, certainly was a contributing factor to the party that was more pro-Israel winning. They are now in government. Israel's image is in the toilet. If you can make friends this way, this is exactly what Israel, I think, will keep on doing and in fact will keep on. Well, I don't see any chance of that stopping, unless there is some kind of intervention or regulation against these industries, which likely spyware is just absent.
16:22
Richard Sanders: A lot of these inquirers are being carried out, and a lot of these accusations are being made by law enforcement. This isn't journalists doing this. It's law enforcement in France, in Slovenia and other places, which have actually uncovered this activity. The French in particular have said that the Israelis BlackCore, again, were involved in the Mamdani election in New York and the recent elections for the parliament in Scotland as well, where they had it in for John Swinney and the SNP [Partido Nacional Escocés].
Those are two interesting examples of course of where they failed.
Antony Loewenstein: True. True. And look, you're right. It doesn't always succeed. In fact, one of the points of that Team Jorge investigation in 2023, as an organization, they admit that they don't always succeed. They sometimes fail, but they'll take your money in the process of trying to do this. And in some ways, so many election systems in the West and elsewhere is actually quite vulnerable to this kind of manipulation.
And I think we're entering an age now —this is not just because of Israel, but entering an age where we are, if not now, within a few years, I don't think going to be able to know whether information that you and I watch about a candidate, about some piece of information, is real or not. I think now you and I can probably tell if it's an AI image or video. You can still kind of tell. We are not far away from not being able to know the difference. I did not doubt that for a second. That to me is petrifying.
So, if you basically use that kind of confusion about, is a candidate really saying that, is the prime minister of Britain actually saying that or is it fake? The time it can be corrected, the lie is out.
I mean this is where I think Israeli election companies will have real power, because I don't think the public is going to be able to know the difference often between what's real and what's not. And that scares me a lot, to be honest.
18:19
Richard Sanders: Now, let's just talk more broadly about Israeli ‘hasbara’, as it's called, which is the Hebrew word that simply means ‘explaining’, but it's the word that's always been used for Israel's sort of propaganda efforts around the world.
The Quincy Institute [for Responsible Statecraft] did a very interesting piece on this just recently. [Nick Cleveland-Stout, "The Eighth Front: Inside Israel's $1 Billion Influence Campaign", Quincy Paper nº 19, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, July 2026. Detalla cómo el gobierno israelí ha reestructurado y multiplicado su presupuesto de hasbará (diplomacia pública e influencia) superando los mil millones de dólares para intentar moldear la opinión pública en el extranjero. Además de la investigación escrita, la institución publicó un artículo de análisis resumido en su revista digital titulado "How much is your support for Israel worth? Try $1 billion", e incluso organizó una mesa de discusión virtual sobre este mismo tema denominada "Rehabilitating a Cratering Image: Israeli Influence in America"Executive SummaryThe Israelis have spent a billion pounds on hasbara, internationally, since October the 7th, 2023, clearly because they feel their reputation is taking an absolute hammering.
The Israeli government has spent more than $1 billion in direct expenditures on public diplomacy since the Hamas–led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, a dramatic escalation in such spending. This represents Israel’s new reliance on influence operations in the United States, funded directly by the country’s government and subject to American laws on foreign influence.
For most of the US–Israel relationship’s history, Israel garnered unrivaled influence in US politics through an informal lobby made up of American citizens and organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and Christians United for Israel, or CUFI, as well as individual mega-donors. These organizations are not required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, because they are funded by Americans and nominally act independently of the Israeli government. This system gave Israel enormous influence without triggering the disclosure requirements for direct foreign lobbying.
The deep unpopularity of Israel’s post–Oct. 7 military offensives among the American public spurred Israel to reassess the scope and structure of its influence operations. The Israeli government subsequently reinvented its public relations strategy by hiring registered foreign agents directly so that it could control messaging, target specific demographics, and act with speed and precision. Since 2023, Israel has spent over $100 million on influence in the US under FARA.
This paper uses FARA data, Israeli government procurement documents, and interviews with dozens of sources to trace the size and effects of this shift. Israel’s FARA spending is set to triple from 2024 to 2026, and the country is on track to become the single biggest FARA spender this year. Much of this work flows through the French firm Havas Media, which subcontracts with American firms that specialize in reaching the once most reliable sources of support that Israel is now losing: Evangelicals, conservatives, and young Americans. The tactics are new in kind, not just scale: paying influencers directly, funding a mass texting operation, and, the most novel of these new approaches, hiring firms like Clock Tower X to build networks of websites designed to shape how artificial intelligence chatbots characterize Israel.
This shift toward FARA–registrable engagement creates a new paper trail. But significant gaps in compliance and transparency remain: Organizations conducting clear lobbying activities have failed to register as lobbyists, some new firms working for Israel have openly flouted transparency requirements, and paid influencers have not disclosed their financial relationships with the Israeli government.
Israel’s new tactics are transforming America’s influence landscape, but they have so far proved insufficient to counter the erosion in public support that is being driven by Israel’s deeply unpopular policies. That said, Israeli influence operations have a commanding record of shaping American public opinion, and the infrastructure that Israel is now building is unlike anything previously deployed — it should not be underestimated.]
An awful lot of it focused on America, where traditionally they've operated through AIPAC and so on, which don't have to formally register as being lobbyists.
Theoretically they're American institutions, American funding, American individuals. The Israelis clearly now feel they need a sort of more direct hands-on approach, which means we do see it happening more, because companies lobbying companies they employ have to register under FARA, the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
And let's just look in particular at Brad Parscale [consultor digital, estratega de datos y asesor político estadounidense. Saltó a la fama internacional como el cerebro digital de Donald Trump que diseñó la estrategia que lo catapultó a la Casa Blanca en 2016], who was Trump's campaign… well, he sort of organized Trump's social media, in 2016, didn't he? Then, his life went off the rails a bit. He got arrested in his underpants after an altercation with his wife [27.09.2020].
He's clearly on the up again now.
Antony Loewenstein: He hasn't.
Richard Sanders: Who hasn't?
Antony Loewenstein: You [risas] know…
Richard Sanders: He's clearly on the up again now, because he's landed a very large contract. I think close to $50 million ongoing contracts in fact, and it's very interesting what he's up to. Can you can you talk to me a little bit about what Brad Parscale does for the Israelis in America?
19:47
Antony Loewenstein: So, he's doing quite a few things, but let me just briefly summarize.
So, one of the things that Israel is worried about is even communities that traditionally have always supported Israel, for example, the evangelical community is now splintering, where historically they were the most pro-Israel community. In fact, much more so than Jews even.
That is now changing. Many of them still are, but less so.
What these contracts between Israel and this particular company, and multiple companies, is doing two particular things.
One, they are flooding social media with complete bullshit. I mean, that's part of it, part of it is, I've seen lots of the ads, they're doing videos on YouTube, stuff on X, stuff on Instagram, stuff that you and I would watch and find it utterly unconvincing, but that's part of it, to try to say Israel is looking for peace, and they're fighting a war on terror, etc., etc.
Okay. But the other part of it is trying to influence AI chat bots, essentially, that if you would put in… in months and years to come questions about what Israel is doing in Gaza? Are they committing genocide? Was it a legitimate war? All these kinds of questions…, they are hoping to influence the sort of responses and returns that you will get as a user. And there was a recent report in Drop Site News, and I've been doing some of my own research as well.
Now, on the one hand, you and I look at that evidence and think, well, it's hard to imagine that's going to convince a lot of people who have been seeing the images on our phones and computers since October 7, particularly, in Gaza, the West Bank.
Now, people can't unsee that.
On the other hand, there are lots of people who either haven't seen that information, don't know that information, generations coming up, who didn't experience the last 3 years... I am far from convinced that that's going to work. But then, the question really is, and this is something I think in my darker moments, is, what exactly does working mean?
Israel's image is tanked. Israel has no restrictions on what it can do. in Gaza, the West Bank or beyond, right now. Zero.
Yes, now and then, Trump stops them flying to Iran to bomb shore [the coast], but day-to-day and the West Bank, saying Gaza, they can do roughly what they want.
So, yes, public opinion is shifting, and they don't know how to manage that.
But the amount of money that Israel is spending on propaganda, which is not just LLMs [Large Language Models, Grandes Modelos de Lenguaje; estamos hablando aquí de la tecnología de Inteligencia Artificial en la que se basan herramientas como ChatGPT, Claude o Gemini. Loewenstein menciona los LLM para referirse a la automatización de la propaganda gracias a la Inteligencia Artificial: bots hiperrealistas, manipulación de algoritmos, creación masiva de “contenido”], but also, by the way, influencers coming over to Israel, showing them what a glorious democracy it is, etc., etc. I mean, as people may be aware, earlier this year, Tommy Robinson, the far-right thug from the UK, was paid for his trip to Israel. I mean, Israel didn't even deny that. It was seen as an obvious connection between Tommy Robinson and Israel, which I think speaks volumes about how they see each other.
So, yes, Brad has moved from being in his underpants in an unfortunate position to taking tens and tens of millions of dollars to try to influence Israel's image in the US.
I'm far from convinced it's working. And some sources of mine have also said that Israel is not convinced it is working. But, again, I do wonder in the long run, is that going to matter? Does it matter? And I don't know the answer to that, actually.
It matters to the fact that Israel feels it needs legitimacy, It needs support in the public which therefore puts pressure on politicians. But, right now, it does not have support. I mean there was a poll this week, which found that half of Americans wanted the US to arrest Netanyahu if he came to the US. And obviously, he's there right now meeting Trump.
So, public opinion has shifted. It's flipped. And yet… there's no pressure on Israel. At least not now. Not yet.
23:40
Richard Sanders: Let's just unpick a little bit what Brad Parscale does, because he… what he does is he sets up all these websites, which are supposedly sort of information websites, where you can go to get information and so on.
Haaretz did a piece where they pointed out no one's following these sites. No one's logging into them. But… and this is the subtlety, isn't it? What it's intended to do is to influence AI.
So, when AI is searching the internet, it comes across these sites and treats them as legitimate sources. And the point of the Drop Site investigation was that it shows that it is working. It is influencing the AI results.
So, it's on a really quite deep and subtle level, isn't it?
Antony Loewenstein: And clever. I mean, obviously, and again, it's worth saying that other countries are also doing this. I know that Russia and China are also involved in similar kind of campaigns to try to influence these… and the US. I mean, we know less about… ironically less about what the US is trying to do in terms of influencing people's views about the US, and especially since Trump has returned. But no, it is subtle. And in some ways, maybe it's about accepting the fact that the current generation, particularly young Americans who have seen the last… nearly 3 years in Gaza, and maybe they regarded as lost causes. But younger people, if you're five or 10 or 15, you're not going to have been exposed to the carnage in the last years. You probably haven't even got access to a phone. My kids certainly don't. Now, what would they be thinking in 5, 10, 15, 20 years? I don't know. And you don't know either. No one knows.
So, if there's a way to influence what people might be receiving on these platforms, which are clearly going to be more and more ways we get information, I think Israel is betting that they can maybe turn some people back or at least bring some people on board.
…Call me sceptical, but I think it would be a fool to say that it definitely won't work.
Richard Sanders: I'm interested, you know, looking at the Tommy Robinson thing, for example, but also in Latin America, Milei, and Hernández in in Honduras, they're throwing in their lot with very right-wing figures, which seems a risky strategy, because it means you're rather alienating another huge swathe of the electorate and the political class.
25:48
Antony Loewenstein: Well, ironically, you're also alienating the majority of liberal Jews in America, who vote Democrat, who don't support Trump. I mean, obviously they're often being quite pro-Israel, to be sure, less so now… Look, I think this alliance, something I've been writing about, Richard, for years, is something that is particularly being pushed by Netanyahu and the people around him. They see the far right ideologically as quite similar to them! It's a lot to do with a loathing of Islam, multiculturalism, diversity, a framing of a war of civilization that Israel sells itself as fighting on the front lines… I mean the line that, I remember, that Israel has been saying pretty much since October 7th, October 8th, that we're fighting a war here… so, you don't have to fight that over there, meaning Europe, America.
Now, I'm not convinced many people actually buy that, but if you look at many many far-right parties in Europe, AfD in Germany, National Front in France, those in Sweden, Tommy Robinson in the UK, Reform, they are fundamentally loving Israel, they support its agenda, I mean, Geert Wilders, the far-right leader from Netherlands, was literally going on settler raids in the West Bank this week, right?
I mean, this alliance historically on the one hand should disturb us all, because the far right historically does not like Jews and is anti-Semitic, and yet Israel is willing to overlook that, which is why so many people now, including me as a Jew, says this is endangering all of us. If you are partnering with people who historically were often in the Nazi party, or were far right, or racist, or eugenicists…, these are the friends you want to have?
And Israel would say, if they're being honest, which they're not, we need friends wherever we can get them. And these people love us, and we love them back.
It's a dangerous, dangerous relationship to put it mildly.
Richard Sanders: Anthony Loewenstein, thank you very much for joining us.
Antony Loewenstein: Thanks for having me.
Richard Sanders: Since we recorded this interview, the National newspaper in Scotland has reported that it placed a freedom of information request with the UK government for material relating to BlackCore’s interference in Scottish elections.
The government refused to provide documentation. The reason it gave was the need “to avoid giving offense to other nations and to retain the trust of our international partners”.
In other words, it couldn't afford to offend Israel.UK withholds files on Israeli firm meddling in Scottish electionsAt Double Down News, we will continue to hold the rich, the powerful, and governments to account. No attempt to game the algorithm will divert us from this essential task.
THE UK Government has refused to publish any information it holds on a shadowy Israeli firm caught meddling in the Scottish parliament elections, citing a Freedom of Information (FOI) exemption that allows documents to be withheld if they would “prejudice relations between the United Kingdom and any other state”.
FOTOS de Andy Burnham y John SwinneyPrime Minister Andy Burnham's (left) UK Government refused to publish any files linked to the Israeli firm BlackCore, while First Minister John Swinney's Scottish Government published some documents (Image: PA)
By Xander Elliards, The National, 11.08.2026.
(...)
But this is only possible with the support of our viewers.
So, if you can, please support Double Down News in this vital mission by joining us on Patreon.
___________________________________________
