By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of “influencers” gathered at Israel’s Consulate General in New York on Friday that TikTok is the most important “weapon” to be purchased in the propaganda war.
“Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, met today with American social media influencers and told them that TikTok is the ‘most important’ ‘weapon’ in the fight to secure Israel’s base on the right,” Drop Site reported on X.
“‘Weapons change over time… the most important ones are on social media,’ Netanyahu said, before quizzing the group on what’s the most important one that is being ‘purchased’ right now. One influencer guessed ‘bots.’ Netanyahu corrected them: ‘TikTok.’ He added that the other key platform is X, stressing Elon Musk is ‘not an enemy’ and must be engaged,” Drop Site continued.
“He urged the content creators to help secure support on the right for the Israeli apartheid state,” Drop Site added.
The video was taken by pro-Israel hasbara “influencer” Debra Lea, who graciously uploaded it to X for all to see (they’re not sending their best).
Lea noted how Netanyahu and the Likud party “are cut from the same ideological cloth as Trump and the GOP in America” and asked the PM what the Jewish community’s “backup plan” will be now that they’ve lost the support of all Americans outside of evangelicals.
As Netanyahu said, their plan is to try and take over TikTok and X.
As I reported last week, TikTok — which the US government moved to ban last year for allowing criticism of Israel to go viral — is on the brink of being bought by a small group of Zionist billionaires.
As we can see from Netanyahu’s comments, they’re barely even trying to hide the fact this takeover is happening to advance Israeli — not American — interests.
As I broke exclusively in July, TikTok — under pressure from the ADL — hired ex-IDF instructor Erica Mindel to “develop and drive the company’s positions on hate speech” with a focus on combatting “antisemitism.”
Anti-Zionist TikTokers are now reporting that their Israel-critical videos are being censored more than ever.
It will be interesting to see how the Trump administration and TikTok move forward. The way MySpace died after Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp purchased it comes to my mind. Trump said earlier this week the Murdochs may come in on the deal.
Frankly, I’m skeptical that any level of censorship at this point could put the genie back in the bottle.
For around two years now, it has felt like every attempt to censor criticism of Jews and Israel has completely backfired.
That said, they’re still pushing forward on their plans.
Jewish Insider reported just last week that the ADL is lobbying lawmakers to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act to suppress criticism of Jews and Israel.
“The ADL advocates are also set to lobby in support of the HEAL Act, which would order an audit of national Holocaust education programs; for ‘robust funding’ for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which House Republicans and the Trump administration have aimed to cut significantly; and for lawmakers to send letters to elementary and secondary schools in their districts, calling on the schools to implement clear policies on antisemitic harassment,” Jewish Insider reported.
“In the Senate, the advocates are set to push for the passage of the Protecting Students on Campus Act, which aims to make it easier for students to file discrimination claims, requires schools to report annually on instances of discrimination on campus and requires the Department of Education’s Inspector General to audit schools with high levels of discrimination complaints.”
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a speech last week in Israel that “fighting anti-Semitism cannot be separated from the broader counter-terrorism fight.”
“Anti-Semitism is a national security threat that must be defeated,” he told his Israeli counterparts.
Greenblatt’s conflation of “anti-Semitism” with “terrorism” is particularly disturbing considering the statement he made earlier this year before the Knesset that the kind of “genius” behind the pager attack on Lebanon is now needed to fight anti-Semitism.