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Hasbara Ain’t Low-cost, Musk, Ellison, Saudis, All Tapped

EditorialBy EditorialNovember 19, 2025No Comments22 Mins Read

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The practitioners of Hasbara are desperately ratcheting up their management of American company and social media and are reportedly searching for funding from the Arab Gulf states to assist.

The MAGA/MIGA battle that’s splitting Trump’s Republican coalition is one issue stressing zionist narrative management, however basically fallout from Gaza is driving the desperation.

The more and more precarious state of the AI bubble that’s been propping up Silicon Valley and the whole American financial system is placing extra strain on the monetary underpinnings of Hasbara, Inc.

Holocaust Schooling Sending Fallacious Message?

Former Obama, Clinton, Kerry and Gore speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz maybe spoke extra reality than she meant to when talking (video) on the The 2025 Basic Meeting of the Jewish Federations of North America.

Hurwitz begins with a fairly customary condemnation of twenty first Century communications, blaming social media, though it’s attention-grabbing to notice her definition of “mainstream” as not expressing “excessive anti-Israel views.”

I believe that since October seventh, however actually earlier than then, there have been large shifts in America on how individuals take into consideration Jews and Israel.

And I believe that’s very true of younger individuals.

So, we are actually wrestling with a brand new, I believe, generational divide right here.

And I believe that’s significantly true in that social media is now our supply of media.

It was that the the media you bought in America was American media and it was fairly mainstream. It usually didn’t specific excessive anti-Israel views. You needed to go to a fairly bizarre bookstore to search out international media and fringe media.

However right this moment, we’ve got social media, which is a worldwide medium. It’s formed, its algorithms are formed by billions of individuals worldwide who don’t actually love Jews.

And so, whereas within the Nineties, you understand, a youngster in all probability wasn’t going to search out Al Jazeera or somebody like Nick Fuentes, right this moment these media retailers discover them. They discover them on their telephones.

It’s additionally this more and more post-literate media, much less and fewer textual content, an increasing number of movies. So, you’ve Tik Tok simply smashing our younger individuals’s brains all day lengthy with video of carnage in Gaza.

And for this reason so many people can’t have a sane dialog with youthful Jews as a result of something that we attempt to say to them, they’re listening to it by way of this wall of carnage.

So I need to give information and data and details and arguments and they’re simply seeing of their minds carnage and I sound obscene.

It’s additionally noteworthy that she doesn’t see video proof of mass homicide as one thing that needs to be weighed equally with “details and arguments.”

However the novel factor she stated regarded “Holocaust training” which she characterizes as “a really good wager that made” “on this new media surroundings” however is now frightened that it “could also be complicated a few of our younger individuals” into considering that “anti-Semitism is like anti-Black racism” and “the lesson of the Holocaust is that you just struggle Israel.”

I’m quoting this part in full as a result of it’s the form of factor that may have been dismissed as anti-Semitic conspiracy principle if stated by Lyndon Larouche within the Nineties.

And you understand, I believe sadly the very good wager that we made on Holocaust training to function anti-Semitism training on this new media surroundings, I believe that’s starting to interrupt down a bit bit as a result of, you understand, Holocaust training is totally important, however I believe it might be complicated a few of our younger individuals about anti-Semitism as a result of they find out about massive sturdy nazis hurting weak emaciated Jews they usually suppose, ‘Oh, anti-Semitism is like anti-Black racism, proper? highly effective white individuals in opposition to powerless black individuals.’

So when on TikTok all day lengthy they see highly effective Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not stunning that they suppose, ‘Oh, I do know the lesson of the Holocaust is you struggle Israel. You struggle the massive highly effective individuals hurting the weak.’

Caitlin Johnstone titled her response “Zionists Are Freaking Out About Dropping Management Of The Narrative” and I’ll quote a key passage:

It’s simply so fascinating to see a former White Home speechwriter making so lots of the factors that anti-Zionists have been making for years, however taking the precise reverse that means from them.
…
Hurwitz isn’t denying Israel’s abuses or framing its genocidal atrocities as the issue, she’s simply coming proper out and saying that folks acquiring data and ethical readability about these abuses is the issue. The atrocities aren’t unsuitable, what’s unsuitable is individuals seeing these atrocities and calling them what they’re.

I really like the way in which she complains that she appears to be like “obscene” for attempting to put out arguments and narratives justifying the Gaza holocaust for individuals who’ve seen the “wall of carnage” from the genocide. I imply, sure. Sure clearly you’re going to look obscene when you attempt to inform somebody why uncooked video footage of massacres, mutilated kids and emaciated our bodies is definitely displaying one thing that’s justifiable and acceptable.

You may’t stand in entrance of a pile of kid corpses justifying their homicide after which whine when individuals ignore your spinmeistering and maintain staring on the tiny our bodies. That’s like murdering a whole household after which telling the cops, “However you’re not listening to my causes for killing them!” They’re doing the conventional factor when you are being obscene.

So yea, there’s that.

Now that we’ve set the context and proven the panic driving Israel’s quest for complete narrative management, let’s have a look at among the tactical features of that quest.

Taking Hasbara to Church and ChatGPT

Haaretz dropped a blockbuster report ten days in the past that reveals the aggressive and impressive nature of Hasbara in 2025:

The Israeli authorities has signed contracts price hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in current months to rehabilitate Israel’s standing in American public opinion, each on-line and offline. Amid a pointy drop in assist from the conservative proper, Israel has employed corporations to conduct not simply “hasbara [public diplomacy] campaigns” but in addition campaigns focusing on hundreds of thousands of Christian churchgoers, bot networks to amplify pro-Israel messages on-line, and efforts to affect each search outcomes and the responses given by fashionable AI providers like ChatGPT.

Among the many specialists recruited is a former marketing campaign supervisor for Donald Trump and lots of the different corporations are linked to the Republican celebration or Evangelical communities, indicating that Israel is focusing huge efforts on communities as soon as thought of robotically pro-Israel. Among the many campaigns’ objectives is combating antisemitism, which has risen alongside the decline in assist for Israel. Collectively, these campaigns sign a brand new part in Israel’s post-war public diplomacy technique, and a shift in the way in which it makes use of brokers – each AI and human influencers – for hasbara overseas.
…
Funds are routed by way of Havas Media Germany GmbH, a subsidiary of the worldwide promoting and public relations large Havas. In observe, Havas serves as an middleman, executing contracts with U.S. corporations on Israel’s behalf. The paperwork present that since 2018, the corporate has obtained at the least $100 million to advertise Israeli tourism campaigns in the USA and it additionally works with different nations, together with a number of within the Gulf, on comparable initiatives.

The biggest of the brand new hasbara contracts was signed in August with a agency known as Clock Tower X, owned by Brad Parscale, who performed a lead function in Trump’s digital campaigns in 2016 and 2020. The $6 million, four-month contract – signed between his agency and Havas Media on behalf of the Israeli authorities – requires “strategic consulting, planning, and communications providers to develop and execute a broad U.S. marketing campaign to fight antisemitism.”

Based on the submitting, Parscale’s firm will produce “at the least 100 core items of content material per thirty days” – together with movies, audio, podcasts, graphics and textual content – and “5,000 spinoff variations” month-to-month, aiming for 50 million impressions a month. Eighty p.c of the content material will goal younger People on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Marketing campaign messages shall be distributed through Salem Media Community, a conservative Christian media group that owns greater than 200 radio stations and web sites. Parscale was appointed this yr to steer Salem’s technique.

Profitable work if you will get it and don’t thoughts a bit blood in your fangs arms.

The American Conservative has extra particulars on the Salem Media facet of this caper:

Salem Media, one in all America’s largest conservative media conglomerates, could have already begun integrating paid-for Israeli authorities narratives throughout its intensive community of platforms. The association, formalized by way of a seven-figure contract, raises vital questions concerning the intersection of overseas affect on an more and more fracturing conservative media surroundings. Salem didn’t reply to The American Conservative’s request for remark.

In September, the Israeli authorities retained Salem Media’s chief technique officer, Brad Parscale, to advocate for Israeli pursuits by way of a $6 million monetary association. The contract filed with the Division of Justice explicitly outlines the “integration of narrative messaging into Salem Media Community properties and aligned distribution channels” as one in all its key deliverables.

Salem Media operates 82 radio stations throughout the USA and manages high-profile web sites like Townhall and RedState that function influential platforms in shaping conservative discourse. Salem additionally hosts a number of podcasts that includes outstanding voices within the conservative motion. Amongst these packages are The Charlie Kirk Present, The Dinesh D’Souza Podcast, The Josh Hammer Present, and The Proper View with Lara Trump.

Based on firm information, the community generates 80 million month-to-month web site web page views with 37 million month-to-month app visits. Salem’s publication operation reaches 4 million lively subscribers, delivering 310 million newsletters each month, and likewise touts 44 million “followers” on Fb.

Parscale now serves twin roles: advancing Salem’s enterprise pursuits whereas concurrently working as a registered and compensated overseas agent for Israel. The implications prolong to Salem’s roster of outstanding commentators, significantly Dinesh D’Souza and Josh Hammer, who’ve develop into central figures in an escalating debate inside conservative circles about America’s relationship with Israel and function within the Center East coverage extra broadly.

However Parscale can’t do it on their lonesome.

Musk’s X No Longer Translating Hebrew

Clearly this can be a time to depart no stone unturned for Crew Hasbara, so that they mopped up an embarrassing element this week, or perhaps Elon Musk did all of it on his personal out of his honest concern about anti-Semitism.

I’ll let Grok clarify:

Translation from Hebrew was disabled as a result of it usually amplified inflammatory or policy-violating content material, like requires violence, to a worldwide viewers through inaccurate or literal renditions. X prioritizes free speech for opinions however limits options that exacerbate hurt with out…

— Grok (@grok) November 16, 2025

As to why Elon Musk may suppose this was crucial, right here’s one instance translated from the Hewbrew:

pic.twitter.com/yDseDDhbg2

— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) November 19, 2025

TikTok Is Now a Zionist Free Speech Zone

Whereas it’s not solely clear that a brand new possession consortium together with Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Rupert Murdoch, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz have accomplished their takeover of TikTok (primarily based on I don’t imagine something Trump 2.0 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant says and he’s the one saying the deal is finished), what is obvious is that their new Public Coverage Supervisor, Hate Speech, Erica Mindel is on the J-O-B.

Earlier than we have a look at Mindel’s work, let’s assessment what’s been reported concerning the new house owners, through Forbes:

Software program large Oracle, personal fairness agency Silver Lake and MGX, an AI-focused funding agency established by the federal government of Abu Dhabi, are anticipated to personal round 45% of the brand new TikTok.

Silver Lake additionally has vital ties to the Gulf States with Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Funding Co. proudly owning 5% of the VC agency.

However let’s get again to Erica Mandel and her work at Tik Tok, through Mel the Village Loopy Woman:

Keep in mind that time that Congress held a billion hearings on “antisemitism on TikTok” as a result of individuals have been sharing movies from Gaza?

Nicely now that Zionists personal the platform, that is what their areas sound like: https://t.co/cH2hE2pSyK pic.twitter.com/jRJqFT5EUp

— Mel (@Villgecrazylady) November 18, 2025

Each movies function a person recognized as “Older Millennial” who’s indulging in grossly eliminationist rhetoric like “if we depart a scrap of Palestinian DNA in Gaza…”, “if we destroy the whole lot in Gaza what would be the loss to mankind”, and within the high video he proposed issuing “searching licenses” to these wishing to homicide Palestinians in Gaza.

Cleaning Tik Tok of Professional-Palestinian Voices

Lest you suppose Mindel has been idle, since she got here on board Tik Tok not serves up something in response to searches for Nick Fuentes, and is “banning customers from calling the IDF “terrorists” and rolling out automated moderation that retroactively wipes posts. Customers report “Free Palestine” feedback disappearing in actual time and Israeli war-crimes movies taken down” per Drop Website Information.

Glenn Greenwald spoke to Man Christensen, an American advocate for Gaza and Tik Tokker with 3.5 million followers on the platform concerning the new Hasbara regime on the location.

The 19-year-old Christensen explains that previous to October 7, 2023, he was a non-political poster on the platform with over 2 million followers when “my feed was flooded with pro-Israel propaganda dehumanizing Palestinians. And me having no prior data about Israel was shocked. I used to be disgusted by what I used to be listening to, not like not realizing something. And, that shock provoked me to dig into the fact of Gaza.”

Christensen was “disenrolled” from Ohio State College in Might after finishing his freshman yr.

The univeristy claimed it “obtained ‘myriad communications’ from ‘members of the college group’ expressing their ‘worry of violence and for his or her private security primarily based on (Christensen’s) social media posts.’

Christensen blames Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi and Democratic Congressman Richie Torres, amongst others, for driving his expulsion. The ACLU has taken up Christensen’s trigger in a lawsuit.

However again to our subject, relating to the brand new Tik Tok insurance policies Christensen says:

They mandate that folks must condemn terrorist teams designated by the US State Division, when talked about in any movies, even when talked about in a impartial, investigative context.

They opened the door to classifying anti-Israel speech as hate speech primarily based on their new clause about nationwide origin. They ban the studying of manifestos. They limit movies from the feed that present movies from conflict, aka Gaza. And so I’ve been compelled and different individuals have been compelled to cease displaying actual footage, actual imagery from the destruction of the Palestinian nation within the Gaza Strip.

As quickly as these uh modifications went into impact, my movies began getting banned or faraway from the advice feed left and proper.

And to form of put this into perspective, during the last, you understand, virtually 2 years earlier than these modifications, as I used to be posting persistently about Palestine each single day, there’s solely been a handful of movies that I’ve ever gotten eliminated.

I appeared and during the last yr previous to September thirteenth, it was one or two that you would even depend.

So in a short time (after the brand new insurance policies have been carried out) I racked up about 10 violations both (movies) eliminated fully with none recourse to enchantment or they have been shadowbanned.

I might get like um 100 views from individuals who solely went on to my profile to view it and my fellow collaborators fellow individuals within the motion on TikTok, I reached out to them they usually reported again the identical actual factor.

Many accounts apart from Christensen’s, together with Breaking Factors Krystal Ball, have been throttled, banned, or shadowbanned on Tik Tok since Mindel took over “hate speech” on the platform.

Nobody is even bothering to faux that Chinese language manipulation of the algorithm, the ostensible purpose the platform was banned by the U.S. Congress, was actually a priority.

Somewhat the Washington Publish handwrings concerning the 17-to-1 preponderance of pro-Palestinian movies vs pro-Israel movies on the platform.

The hasbara occurs out within the open now.

The Ellisons Have Been Busy Hasbara Elves at Paramount

Since I final up to date about David Ellison (Larry’s nepo-baby) and Paramount, the crew has been busy cracking down on free speech.

Per Selection:

An Oct. 29 spherical of roughly 1,000 layoffs hit girls in high-profile roles exhausting. Among the many 14 reported TV executives who obtained a pink slip — spanning CBS, BET and MTV — 11 have been girls. Over at CBS Information, some cuts — like Tracy Wholf, a senior producer of local weather and environmental protection — have been seen as Trump-friendly strikes. One staffer says that the ax conspicuously fell on these whose reporting featured an anti-Israel bent, together with overseas correspondent Debora Patta, who had been protecting the conflict in Gaza for the previous three years.
…
Paramount’s management has not shied away from making its views on the conflict in Gaza public. In September, it grew to become the primary main studio to denounce a celebrity-driven open letter signed by A-listers like Emma Stone and Javier Bardem that known as for a boycott of Israeli movie establishments implicated in “genocide and apartheid” in opposition to Palestinians. (Warner Bros. adopted, however cited authorized causes for its choice.) And sources say Paramount maintains an inventory of expertise it is not going to work with as a result of they’re deemed to be “overtly antisemitic” in addition to “xenophobic” and “homophobic.” Whether or not the boycott signatories are on that listing is unclear.

[Update, Nov. 7: Other sources intimately familiar with Paramount said that while an itemized list does not exist, the management team shares a set of values and has no desire to work with anyone who expresses hate in public and damaging ways].

Bari Weiss’ takeover at CBS Information can also be getting press, from Puck on the finish of October:

she has had actual discussions concerning the feasibility of their switch. Her targets have included Fox Information anchors Bret Baier, Invoice Hemmer, and Dana Perino, in addition to CNN analyst Scott Jennings; and, as I reported earlier this week, she has additionally mentioned increasing Anderson Cooper’s function on the community past 60 Minutes.

In an business the place expertise acquisition has its personal set guidelines of engagement, Bari’s instinctive and freewheeling strategy has struck many as unorthodox. To many TV information veterans, it’s also seen as an indication of her inexperience and lack of managerial finesse. Community executives lock their expertise into yearslong contracts—Anderson’s runs by way of 2026, Bret’s into 2028, and Dana’s into the 2030s—and embody specified negotiation home windows that don’t open till the ultimate three to 6 months of the settlement.

Savvier community leaders are inclined to re-up their stars earlier than that window ever opens. Getting out of those contracts isn’t inconceivable, in fact, but it surely doesn’t occur on a whim—and it often requires fairly a little bit of discretion.

The informal, D.I.Y. strategy could be very on model for Bari, and presumably one of many causes that David Ellison introduced her in to disrupt the enterprise. In her very first days on the community, she made an impression on workers by personally texting main friends—Bibi Netanyahu, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Hillary Clinton, Condi Rice—to ebook them for segments on the Israel-Gaza battle. (On Friday, Trump sat down with Norah O’Donnell for his first interview on the community since he sued 60 Minutes.)

Paramount Alone Isn’t Sufficient

However Paramount is small beans within the general media image, which explains the Ellisons’ drive to accumulate WBD (Warner Bros Discovery).

Be mindful, streaming has fully upended the American media enterprise. The lumbering titans that purchased up a lot of the nation’s TV networks and film studios are getting pwned by Netflix and Alphabet’s YouTube.

pic.twitter.com/fqYJtLxYmu

— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) November 19, 2025

Let’s hear from The New York Instances relating to Paramount’s efforts to accumulate WBD:

Over the course of 4 weeks, Paramount made three gives to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, ratcheting up the monetary stakes of a deal that may reshape the media panorama.
…
The transfer primarily kicked off a public frenzy of curiosity from different potential suitors this week, together with Comcast and Amazon. In the event that they bid, that would strain Paramount to additional improve its supply.

Warner Bros. Discovery stated on Tuesday that it was initiating a sale due to “the unsolicited curiosity of a number of events” for each some components and the entire firm.

Paramount’s first bid was for $19 a share, earlier than shifting as much as $22 in late September.

Paramount’s newest bid was delivered on Oct. 13, providing to pay the corporate’s shareholders $23.50 a share in money and inventory, in response to the letter. That supply represented an 87 p.c premium to Warner Bros. Discovery’s share worth earlier than its intent to make a bid for the corporate was first reported on in early September. On Wednesday, Warner Bros. shares closed at $20.53.

A takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount can be a tectonic shift for the media business. It will mix two of the most important Hollywood studios, Warner Bros. and Paramount, granting large clout on the field workplace and placing CNN and CBS Information beneath the identical company umbrella, which might give the brand new firm huge sway over the information business. It will mix Paramount+ and HBO Max, two of the most important streaming providers, bringing the corporate’s films and reveals into a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of dwelling rooms.

Based on Selection (in a report which Paramount denies), Paramount is “placing collectively a $71 billion bid for WBD along side funds from three Arab nations: Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund (PIF), the Qatar Funding Authority (QIA) and the Abu Dhabi Funding Authority (ADIA).”

Relating to Paramount’s denial, one media insider reviews:

Sources acquainted with the talks say the connections behind that capital didn’t seem on their very own.

Ari Emanuel has lengthy standing ties throughout Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi, and he publicly supported Ellison’s earlier Paramount effort.

Paramount issued a denial, however a number of business sources confirmed {that a} holding firm construction permits outdoors capital to take part with out ever showing on Paramount’s stability sheet.

I’ve beforehand posted on Ari Emanuel’s involvement within the Ellisons’ acquisition of Paramount.

Yahoo Finance had extra on the wheeling and dealing occurring within the Trump White Home this week whereas the POTUS is internet hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (and chopping some personal Trump group offers of their very own):

Elon Musk, Tim Cook dinner, golfer Bryson DeChambeau and different notables will be a part of Ellison at a black-tie dinner held within the Saudi royal’s honor, an individual acquainted with the visitor listing tells Deadline. Earlier Tuesday, Trump met with Cristiano Ronaldo, the soccer star who lately re-upped his $200 million-a-year contract with Saudi membership Al-Nassr. Ronaldo was additionally on the visitor listing for the dinner.

A Selection report, citing nameless sources, stated a coalition involving Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, had shaped in assist of a forthcoming $71 billion bid by Paramount for WBD, which might be a notch larger than prior bids within the $60 billion-plus vary.

Now why would David Ellison must go to the Gulf States to fund his hasbara?

Perhaps Daddy’s firm Oracle is having some monetary points?

Oracle Doesn’t Have Infinite Cash

CNBC reviews that Oracle has misplaced one third of its market cap since September and is issuing $38 billion in debt to “finance its AI buildout”.

Reuters is reporting that investor sentiment on that Oracle debt is bearish:

Oracle bonds have taken a success in current days following a report that the cloud and synthetic intelligence service supplier plans so as to add one other $38 billion to its heavy debt load to fund its AI infrastructure, in response to analysts and traders.
…
“What’s attention-grabbing is a lot of the (main tech) corporations try to maintain their (inventory) buyback packages on the similar time that they’re spending on capex at present and to do this, they’re really borrowing and they also’re utilizing debt,” stated Lisa Shalett, chief funding officer of Morgan Stanley Wealth Administration.

The worth of Oracle’s bonds maturing in 2033 with a 4.9% coupon has dipped, pushing yields up greater than three foundation factors during the last two weeks, whereas the yield on its newer bonds maturing in 2032 with a 4.8% coupon has risen virtually two foundation factors in a single week, in response to market contributors.

And The Monetary Instances put out a doozy of a report asserting that “Oracle’s web debt is already at 2.5 instances ebitda, having greater than doubled since 2021, and it’s anticipated to just about double once more by 2030. Money movement is forecast to stay unfavourable for 5 straight years.”

The piece included a number of charts, together with this significantly brutal one:

pic.twitter.com/TTs0b2Q1Hw

— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) November 19, 2025

Time will inform if the Ellisons’ hasbara-promoting media empire will develop even bigger, however for the time being it seems to be on the proverbial knife’s edge.

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