Netanyahu’s Disinformation Machine Backfires! Is Destroying Democracies Its New Target?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has turned perception management operations and disinformation into instruments of foreign policy and political power, employed the same methods in his own country to manipulate the elections. This time, however, the strategy failed to deliver the desired result.
The 2023 “Team Jorge” scandal had previously exposed how Israeli covert operations companies had manipulated more than 30 elections worldwide through sabotage and automated disinformation campaigns. In the Israeli elections, however, we witnessed this mechanism being turned directly against Israel’s own domestic politics and democracy.
Having resorted to AI-powered manipulation ahead of the elections, the Netanyahu camp reverted to their familiar tactics when the ballot box failed to deliver their desired outcome. In a classic case of “the guilty party turning the tables on the victim”, Netanyahu’s camp sought to manipulate the process in its own favour. Even before voting had concluded, Netanyahu alleged that the elections had been stolen through bribery, threats and fraud, following to the letter the scenario that Haaretz had reported before the elections were over.
Nor did Netanyahu stop there. He targeted both Türkiye and Qatar with baseless allegations that Arab political parties had received funding from abroad. These accusations were refuted not only by the countries concerned but also by Israel’s own Central Elections Committee. Nevertheless, the Netanyahu government, unwilling even to recognise the decisions of its own institutions, did not hesitate to openly target democracy and the rule of law.
The reaction from Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar Party, to Netanyahu's camp's attempt to gain the upper hand through manipulation drew considerable attention. Arguing that Netanyahu and his allies had reached a dead end, Eisenkot emphasised that they had become accustomed to wielding unrestricted power and were now directly attacking democratic institutions. Eisenkot further revealed that he and his party had also become targets of this disinformation machinery, with deliberately fabricated news reports about them circulating in recent days.
Despite Netanyahu’s allegations and his attempts to create an atmosphere of chaos, President Isaac Herzog’s decision to entrust Gadi Eisenkot with the task of forming a government rendered all these efforts futile. With Eisenkot assuming the mandate, Netanyahu's attempts to discredit the election results collapsed entirely.
Although the intensive use of information manipulation and disinformation during the electoral process proved insufficient to secure Netanyahu's desired political outcome, it nevertheless exposed, in tangible terms, the broader risks that disinformation poses to democratic governance and the formation of public opinion on a global scale.
