THE "SOFT TERRORISM" OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL

by Colin Liddell

One of my recurring points is the large degree to which our open Western societies are "hacked" by the hidden hands of outside agents with specific agendas. With the rise of social media, this has never been easier. Indeed, it is impossible to understand the history of the Alt-Right and other online dissident movements without reference to the central fact of foreign manipulation. 

Naturally, the main case that I have been aware of is Russia, and there is plenty of evidence, but Russia, while most prominent, is hardly alone. China and Iran have also been hard at work subverting and distorting Western opinion in their favour. But possibly the worst case in terms of effectiveness, rather than ambition, has been Israel.

This is because Israel has small but very definite interests, and also because it has always been a lot easier for Israel to play this game, due to the large number of American and other Western citizens who share loyalties between Israel and the countries they live in. Also, many of these people are rich, generous with their donations, and highly influential.

Last November, spurred by the apparent failure of Israeli intelligence to detect the massive Hamas attack the month before, The Nation magazine had an interesting article about something called the "Israel Cyber Shield," an operation funded to the tune of $900 million dollars (!!!) for the express purpose of attacking critics of Israel's occupation of Gaza and changing narratives on Israel in the USA. This is extremely unlikely to have been the first and only such operation.

The article, "Why Israel Slept" by James Bamford, said that this particular operation, dates back to 2015 and a hotel room in Las Vegas:

"By 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was content that his military’s deadly rockets, assassination drones, and snipers were keeping the grass neatly mowed in Gaza. He therefore decided to turn his attention toward launching a new front in his war against the Palestinians. This one, however, would be covert. Its target: the growing numbers of noisy and irritating Americans who dared to protest his government’s brutal occupation.

The shift began behind closed doors in The Venetian Resort, a neon nirvana on the Las Vegas strip. In a back conference room not far from the imitation Italian gondolas and the faux St. Mark’s Square, attendees of the June 2015 conclave were instructed to avoid leaks. “All proceedings, shall remain strictly confidential.” The invitation warned that that they must agree “not to discuss the events of the conference with media before, during and after” the meeting. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

Needless to say, someone leaked.

The key driver of the event was the host—and owner of the Venetian—multibillionaire Sheldon Adelson. Yes, the same billionaire who got behind the Presidential candidate also backed by Russia, namely Donald Trump.

At the meeting, there were several other billionaires in the room and a video link to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Delegitimization of Israel must be fought, and you are on the front lines," Netanyahu informed them, adding that "the Israeli government is committed to launching assertive and innovative programs and to joining you and many others around the world to combat the lies and slander that are leveled against us."

The main target were Americans taking part in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, especially anyone with a big Twitter following. Yes, note the importance of Twitter in this equation and also who bought it not so long ago.

Often Musk is seen as being soft on Russia and indulgent towards the Chinese Communist Party, but could he have had a fourth reason for taking over Twitter besides these two reasons and his own autistic ego? Was Twitter also acquired to weaken the signal of the BDS movement?

Just asking that question for now, not answering it.

The main point here is that Israel was terrified of becoming the new Apartheid-era South Africa in the eyes of public opinion. And who could blame them for that? More blameworthy, however, was the dishonest, dirty, and underhanded methods they took to achieve their goals. 

First, the money:

"Before the night was over, the group had raised upwards of $50 million for Netanyahu’s war inside the United States; tens of millions more would covertly come from the Israeli government through a variety of hidden fronts and shell organizations. At the same time the Las Vegas gathering was taking place, Netanyahu was meeting with his top national security and intelligence officials. He told them they would receive at least $30 million from the government for the campaign, and with the help of Adelson’s group and others possibly as much as $900 million."

So, what was that almost $1 billion going to be used for? For something called "Project Butterfly," an obvious nod to the Chaos Theory.

Second, the goals:

"Within a few months, Netanyahu’s war began. Key Jewish donors in the United States were secretly approached with a proposal by Psy-Group, an Israeli psychological warfare fi rm with close connections to Mossad. Code-named “Project Butterfly,” the proposal outlined a clandestine operation within the “theater of action,” as the company referred to the United States. Its purpose was to damage specific Americans and US organizations associated with the boycott movement. It would develop ways to disrupt their activities, lead them to be falsely investigated by the authorities, and run a hidden media influence campaign against them."

Third, the methods:

"According to its secret internal operations plan, Project Butterfly was aimed at 'executing intelligence and influence efforts' against Americans by creating an 'infrastructure for narrative warfare— alternative messaging and negative platforms.' In other words, by creating fake news outlets, phony Facebook personas and posts, and other forms of information warfare, Psy Group’s goal was to deliberately deceive the American public about Israel and its actions against the Palestinians. 

To accomplish these goals, the group was seeking for the operation’s first year of a three-year plan and promised it would conduct its activities in utmost secrecy. All links to the donors would be hidden and none of the actions would be traceable to Jews or Israelis. The importance of the operation and its closeness to Netanyahu can be seen in Project Butterfly’s top officials. Among them was Netanyahu’s former deputy director of Mossad and director general of the Ministry of Intelligence and Strategic Affairs, Ram Ben-Barak, who was the project’s strategic adviser. Comparing the effort against the American boycotters to “a war,” he said, “you don’t kill them but you do have to deal with them in other ways.”

If it's starting to sound a bit like soft terrorism, that's because it is.

So, what are those "extra-curricular" methods? That too was detailed in the Project Butterfly Operational Plan:

"'The Butterfly initiative uses PSY’s proprietary intelligence-gathering and influence techniques to destabilize and disrupt anti-Israel movements from within,' it said, referring to the United States. In addition to spying on innocent Americans, the group created fake news outlets in an Orwellian effort to brand the nonviolent boycotters and their supporters as 'terrorists.' According to Psy-Group’s Project Butterfly operations plan, the covert Israeli organization 'achieved high-impact results against targeted individuals' while making sure its own activities are 'not connected to Israel'."

It seems that bribing Congressmen and Senators and buying off the media, like in the old days, is no longer enough. The democratisation of the news-and-opinion space through social media requires new, aggressive methods as well as new targets. Quite clearly this is all legally questionable:

"...they opened the door to potential criminal rosecution as agents of a foreign power, a very serious off ense punishable by up to a decade in prison. According to 18 USC § 951: “Whoever, other than a diplomatic or consular officer or attaché, acts in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General…shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both…. For purposes of this section, the term ‘agent of a foreign government’ means an individual who agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official."

So, pretty much busted, then!

But what is interesting here is the potential synergy between Israeli government interests in subverting America and those of Russia in doing the same.

Like I said above, Adelson was Trump's biggest donor and no-one "loved" Israel more than Trump, but Trump was also, quite clearly, the "preferred" candidate for the Kremlin, who went that extra mile to get him elected. Both countries would benefit to some degree from a measure of international anarchy.

Maybe another reason Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 was because she was just too much of a mainstream "globalist" American candidate, instead of a real and parochial partisan of Israel. Yes, the Alt-Right was a thing in that year, but not for strictly organic reasons.

Also, notice the importance given to the main social media accounts. Zuckerburg at Facebook clearly rallied behind Biden in 2020 and played a pivotal role in "fortifying the election," as they said at the time. But nothing was as important as Twitter. We all know Musk's rather odd positions on Russia and China, but what exactly has he been doing at Twitter with regard to BDS? This is a question that still needs to be answered.

One more thing: 2015 was also the year when Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party. Corbyn was a hard-line hard-left BDS anti-Occupation politician who greatly boosted the "Muh Palestinians" cause in the UK. With the inevitable ebb and flow of UK two-party politics, it was almost inevitable that he would become UK Prime Minister. Was the campaign to tar him as a "anti-Semite," a ludicrous idea, merely the British end of Operation Butterfly?

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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia).