Fara Docs: Israel is Spying On Millions Of Christian Americans In Their Churches

 Alan Macleod

If you are a Christian living in the Western United States, you have almost certainly been targeted with pro-Israel, anti-Palestine propaganda, paid for directly by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Your searches, location, and internet activity is being monitored by Israel, and your algorithms and search results across multiple platforms are being manipulated by Israeli government in what its American partner calls the "largest geofencing and targeted Christian digital campaign ever."

Amid a massive drop in support from the Christian community, Israel is spending millions of dollars to target individuals entering churches or Christian colleges with ads, and paying pastors across the country to promote propaganda and false "anti-Palestinian" narratives every Sunday, documents filed with the United States' Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) show.

The 86-page disclosure reveals that Israel is recruiting Hollywood celebrities and sports stars to promote the country, while also manipulating Christians' social media feeds. And they are doing it by spying on you through your phone.

MintPress explores this explosive story, largely ignored in corporate media.

Propaganda Storm

In September, Show Faith by Works LLC, a San Diego-based company led by conservative activist Chad Schnitger, filed a sworn document with the U.S. Department of Justice. The declaration revealed that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs was paying Show Faith by Works $4.1 million to carry out a massive, covert, digital surveillance operation targeting Christian communities across multiple states, including California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.

The document noted that all students at every Christian college and every congregant at "every major church" in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado has been spied on through their phone's location data, and targeted with propaganda extolling Israel's "moral superiority" and "linking the Palestinian population with extremist factions." The campaign estimates that it has reached well over eight million Americans.

Show Faith by Works itself divides its messaging into two themes: "pro-Israel" and "anti-Palestinian". Its primary goals, in its own words, are to "combat low American Evangelical Christian approval of the Nation of Israel," by "using biblical arguments to highlight the importance of Israel and the Jewish People to Christians." It also wishes to "educate Christians on the historical importance of Israel and its significance in the region," and to "counter new and evolving pro-Palestinian messaging as the global narrative shifts."

Many of their anti-Palestinian talking points are highly controversial, dubious, or even blatant falsehoods. Their principal messaging on Palestine is that there never was (or should be) a Palestinian state in history, that "Palestinians shelter terrorists" and "hide weapons in their schools and hospitals," and that they are not a trustworthy actor, as the Palestinians' goals are "genocidal."

They also share ads and messages with American Christians claiming that Gazans kill U.S. Christian aid workers distributing food to them, and that "Israel is the birthplace of Jesus." (In fact, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, in the Palestinian West Bank.)

The overall message, then, is one extolling Israel's supposed virtues, encouraging Americans to visit, while dehumanizing Palestinians (including the  12.5% of historic Palestine who were Christians themselves) as genocidal terrorist intent on destroying the world.

Show Faith by Works projects that this content will receive 47 million impressions across the United States in its first twelve months in operation.

Hi-Tech Targeting

Show Faith by Works and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs are able to carry out this sophisticated operation by taking advantage of a technology called "geofencing." Geofencing creates invisible digital boundaries around real world locations (in this case, hundreds of churches and universities). Any phone or smart device entering a church on Sunday or a college during term time is logged and recorded. The operation then begins sending targeted advertisements and messaging to each device through ad networks, promoting Israel and demonizing Palestine. These messages appear in Google searches, on social media, and on any number of apps and platforms.

Your behavioral data - how you respond to the ads, what you click, or how long you watch for, is fed back into the operation in order to tailor messaging to each individual, making future targeting more effective. Over time, the system builds up an enormous amount of data on each individual - their locations, beliefs, preferences, and actions, in order to better manipulate them.

Once you enter a church or college targeted by Israel, there is almost nothing you can do about it. They are paying to manipulate your search results, news feeds, and algorithms. What you see online will be decided by Israel, not by you. And virtually none of the millions of people affected are aware this is happening.

Is Your Pastor a Secret Israeli Agent?

The operation admits that it has "digitally target[ing]" every large church in four western states. This includes 219 in California, 39 in Arizona, 32 in Colorado, and 14 in Nevada. Some of these megachurches boast congregations of up to 45,000 people, helping reach an estimated 3.9 million individuals. It has also geofenced hundreds of smaller churches across the country, reaching a further 3.8 million Christians, primarily in urban locations.

A wide range of Christian denominations has been targeted, including some traditionally associated with the conservative right-wing, such as the Southern Baptists and Pentecostals, generally associated. But the operation also focuses on others, such as the United Methodist Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Churches of Christ, and the American Baptist Churches USA.

A full list of confirmed churches and Christian colleges likely targeted can be found at the end of this investigation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has  described the battle for American public opinion to be the "eighth front" of the war, comparing it to the seven-front campaign he is already waging. In order to win this crucial struggle, Israel is employing Show Faith by Works to insert its messaging directly into the sacred sanctuaries of American churches.

The company was  involved in the 1000 Pastors Project, an endeavor that saw some 1070 American clergymen accept an expense-paid trip to Israel in December in order to equip them with the ability to serve as unofficial ambassadors for the country. Thousands more pastors are expected to be invited on a similar trip this year.

Show Faith by Works has designed, published and distributed "pastoral resource packages" to hundreds of churches, packages that include "pro-Israel educational materials," like the ones discussed previously, information "debunking pro-Palestinian popular arguments," and helps to organize group travel trips to Israel. They also recruit pastors to write newspaper op-eds, and produce 3-5 minute pro-Israel video lectures designed to be played in churches across the nation.

There is also a special effort to reach minority communities, with content specifically aimed at young women, Catholics, and Hispanic Christians being produced, while their pro-Israel material is also translated into Spanish, Vietnamese, and Russian.

American Colleges Get "the October 7 Experience"

Young American Christians are moving away from their traditional positions on the Middle East. A 2021  poll found that support for Israel among evangelicals aged 18-29 had dropped from 75% to just 34% over the past three years.

To that end, dozens of Christian colleges, with a total student body of well over 100,000 students have been geofenced. The Israel/Show Faith by Works project goal is to establish a major presence at Christian universities and seminaries, including making connections with professors, and hiring student representatives to spread the word and hand out specially designed merchandise.

The campaign includes creating an interactive travelling virtual reality exhibit called the "October 7 Experience" that will tour campuses, showing "atrocities from 10/7" and explaining the difficulties that the Israeli Defense Forces face while "fighting bad guys in hostile territory."

Celebrity Agents of Israel

According to the documents, the October 7 Experience would be constructed by the company's (unnamed) Hollywood coordinator, who would use their Tinsel Town connections to build a five-star exhibit. The coordinator's job also included making connections with "top-tier Hollywood talent to book Christian celebrities and Christian athletes to deliver pro-Israel messaging."

Among the names floated as possible hires include actors Jon Voight and Chris Pratt. From the world of sports, they aim to recruit former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, three-time World Series winning pitcher Clayton Kershaw, and NBA star, Stephen Curry. Curry has expressed a deep interest in Israeli culture, has told the press that he is learning Hebrew, has two Hebrew tattoos on his wrists, and has invested heavily in Israeli defense corporations founded and staffed by IDF officers. For more on the NBA's connections to Apartheid, see the  MintPress investigation, "From Dunks to Drones: The NBA Has an Israel Problem."

Another key category of influencers the project was looking to recruit was celebrity megachurch pastors. These included Mark Driscoll, Rick Warren, and Greg Laurie. Together, it was hoped that this stable of prominent Christians could use their power to influence the opinions of millions of followers nationwide, shoring up Israel's sliding approval ratings in the United States.

Manipulating the Media

The Israeli government considers the online war as important as its military attacks against Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and beyond. The documents show that Show Faith by Works planned to flood the internet with digital content - websites, social media posts, podcasts, and videos - in order to overwhelm both search engines and ordinary users with pro-Israel content.

Search engine optimization (SEO) - the practice of enhancing media's visibility in search results - is a key part of this. As the document explains, the group will "optimize SEO traffic so that favorable coverage is increased and unfavorable information is decreased," by "redirect[ing] nearly all web traffic to friendly sites based on key [search] terms," "ensur[ing] that [our] website is the top of all search results," and "prioritiz[ing] our information to key demographics."

A less well-known tactic the group is using is generative engine optimization, or GEO, a new technique aimed at influencing how A.I. chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude "learn" in order to make them espouse pro-Israeli views. Show Faith by Works planned to deluge the internet with fake questions and answers written by them, in order that A.I. will parrot their talking points to users across the world.

Other media projects listed included starting Christian podcasts designed to sneak pro-Israel messaging to listeners, paying for pro-Israel ads and messages to be read out on other faith-based shows, and hiring a pastor to "keep up with Isreal [sic] news and to highlight pro-Israel, anti-Hamas news."

They also plan to pay Christian influencers on social media to post about the virtues of Israel and "counter pro-Palestinian propaganda with response videos." This strategy is similar to that of a similar Israeli campaign called the Esther Project, which paid influencers a  reported $7,000 per post that supported Israel. None of the individuals receiving the money, however, has followed the law by filing as a foreign agent under FARA, leading to rampant speculation online about who has become rich accepting cash from Tel Aviv.

In short, then, the project's goal is to create an enormous astroturfed wave of support for Israel in the Christian community by paying pastors, celebrities, and influencers to espouse their support and admiration for the country, its society, and its geopolitical goals.

Unbeknownst to the tens of millions of Christians seeing these messages in their ads, search engine results, chatbot answers, or in their churches and universities, none of this is natural. Rather, it is the result of a deliberate and designed strategy to manipulate their thoughts and opinions into supporting a state carrying out a genocide - including against Christians.

Israel's War on Christians in West Asia

Palestine was once a land where large numbers of Christians and Muslims lived side by side in relative harmony. Today, that is not the case. During the Nakba - the 1948 establishment of Israel, Israeli  ethnically cleansed 90,000 Palestinian Christians, and shut down dozens of churches.

Since 2023, the attacks on Christians have greatly increased. Every church in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. This includes the historic Church of Saint Porphyrius, the third-oldest Christian place of worship in the world. The site has been targeted multiple times by Israeli forces, leading to the partial collapse of the religious building, which can trace its history back to 425 A.D.

Also targeted was the Al Ahli Church and Baptist Hospital, where repeated Israeli strikes  pulverized the complex, killing hundreds.

Inside Israel, attacks on priests, pastors, and other clergy are a regular occurrence. Last month,  footage of a 48-year-old French nun in East Jerusalem being pushed to the ground and kicked by a settler went viral, as did images of Israeli soldiers gleefully  desecrating a church and taking a  sledgehammer to a statue of Jesus in Southern Lebanon.

For decades, Christians have had to endure the  common practice of Jews spitting on them. This sort of overt daily hostility towards Christians has proved to be a problem for pro-Israel conservative American church groups traveling to the region. Last year, conservative commentator and podcaster Brandon Tatum drew international ridicule, when, in an interview with Netanyahu, he  thanked the Israeli prime minister and revealed that his Christian group was "only spit on once" during their trip to his country.

One of Show Faith by Works' key talking points that it promotes, however, is that "Israel protects Christians like no other nation in the Middle East."

American Christians Losing Faith in Israel

Support for Israel among Christians is  crashing. This is reflective of a broader trend across the country; an April  poll conducted by Pew Research found only 37% of Americans see Israel in a favorable light, as opposed to 60% unfavorably.

For decades, Israel has enjoyed widespread support from American Christians, particularly Evangelical Protestants, as many believe its existence is a prerequisite for the end of days, when Jesus Christ will return to Earth to establish his heavenly kingdom.

Nevertheless, its popularity, especially among younger Christians, is cratering,  falling to just 34%. This age discrepancy is partially down to different patterns of media consumption. Elderly Americans continue to get their news from TV networks owned and controlled by billionaires such as  Larry Ellison and  Rupert Murdoch, both of whom are extremely close personal friends and passionate supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's expansionist policies. Younger Americans, by contrast, rely primarily on social media as their number one source of news.

Explaining this phenomenon, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of pro-Israel pressure group, the Anti-Defamation League, stated that "we have a TikTok problem...a Gen-Z problem."

To that end, Israel has poured vast amounts of resources into targeting Americans. The government's yearly public relations budget has  ballooned to $730 million - a roughly 100-fold increase on pre-October 7 levels. And it is Americans that are the prime targets of Israel's focus. Indeed, the word "target" appears 44 times in the 86-page document, indicating that Show Faith by Works sees them as threats to be neutralized.

Christians report that being singled out like this in their sacred place of worship feels like a violation. Millions of American Christians are being secretly spied upon, and bombarded with propaganda. Christians in Palestine, Lebanon and the broader region, meanwhile, are surveiled, harassed, and bombarded with drones and missiles. In both cases, Israel is carrying out a coordinated, sophisticated and sustained attack on the Christian community. In Palestine, however, they are paying for it with their lives.

There now follows a list of all places of worship listed as targeted in the disclosure.

 mintpressnews.com