An allied government seeking influence in the United States no longer needs to purchase a television network, control a newspaper or distribute propaganda through diplomatic offices. It can hire the former manager of a presidential campaign, commission thousands of pieces of digital content, purchase tens of millions of impressions, penetrate trusted media environments and attempt to influence how artificial intelligence systems answer questions about war, history and foreign policy.

That is the operation described in a September 2025 federal filing from Clock Tower X, a company controlled by Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager. Working through Havas Media Germany on behalf of the State of Israel, Clock Tower agreed to run a national communications campaign with a budget of $1.5 million a month. At least 80 percent of its content was supposed to target Generation Z through TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, podcasts and other digital channels. The contract called for at least 50 million impressions each month, 100 original creative products and thousands of variations designed for different audiences.

The filing described the official purpose as combating antisemitism. The machinery it created, however, was far broader than a conventional educational campaign. It included political style audience research, influence mapping, conservative media distribution, search engine manipulation and an explicit effort to shape the information presented by generative artificial intelligence. Later disclosures showed that the program grew into a network of Republican consultants, media companies, data firms, content producers and digital personalities working within the same political ecosystem that helped elect Trump.

Charlie Kirk saw the political crisis before much of the Israeli government did. In a private May 2025 letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the late founder of Turning Point USA warned that Israel was losing support inside the American right, including among young conservatives who considered themselves part of the MAGA movement. He urged Netanyahu to treat Israeli public diplomacy like a permanent political campaign, complete with rapid response teams, centralized messaging, short videos, trusted surrogates and an online information headquarters. By the end of that year, Israel had begun putting many of those recommendations into practice.

A Foreign Influence Operation Built at Campaign Scale

The public filings describe something far larger than a limited payment program for a few online personalities. In its initial agreement filed with the Justice Department, Clock Tower X outlined a combined campaign budget of $1.5 million a month for four consecutive months, placing the opening value of the operation at $6 million before any matching funds contributed by the company. The agreement required audience research, political sentiment analysis, influence mapping and a messaging framework designed specifically for the American public.

The campaign was built for enormous digital reach. The same Foreign Agents Registration Act filing required at least 100 original creative products and 5,000 adapted versions each month. At least 80 percent of the material was to be directed toward Generation Z through TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, podcasts and other digital outlets. Paid advertising was expected to generate at least 50 million impressions every month, while search optimization work would promote favorable narratives and attempt to influence how artificial intelligence systems framed discussions about Israel.

The spending later appeared to accelerate dramatically. A June 2026 amendment signed by Parscale listed $4.5 million in digital advertising for each month from April through October 2026. If every scheduled payment was executed, that phase alone would total $31.5 million. The filing does not establish that the full amount had already been paid, but it shows the scale of the advertising operation that Havas Media Germany and Clock Tower planned to conduct.

A separate Israeli program handled through Bridges Partners carried a total scheduled budget of $900,000 for influencer payments, production and campaign administration. The Esther Project contract filed under FARA listed monthly amounts of $60,000, $140,000, $200,000, $250,000, $200,000 and $50,000 between June and November 2025. The documents anticipated five or six initial influencers, additional participants during later phases and approximately 25 to 30 posts during several months of the campaign.

That influencer program was administered through a different contractor and should not be presented as part of Parscale’s Clock Tower agreement without evidence connecting the payments. Viewed together, however, the filings show a coordinated Israeli strategy that used conventional advertising, political consultants, content producers, social media personalities, search optimization and data driven distribution to influence American audiences.

The central story is the scale and structure of the campaign. Israel was not merely purchasing a small collection of supportive posts. It was financing multiple communications programs designed to operate inside the American information system with the targeting capacity, repetition and message discipline of a modern presidential campaign.

Parscale Brought Campaign Technology Into Foreign Public Diplomacy

Parscale became nationally prominent through Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, where he oversaw a large digital advertising operation and helped translate voter data into targeted political messages. Trump later named him campaign manager for the 2020 election before removing him from that role during the campaign.

Since leaving formal campaign management, Parscale has built businesses around political technology, artificial intelligence, data analysis and automated communications. An Associated Press examination of his companies described Campaign Nucleus as a platform capable of generating political emails, tracking public sentiment, identifying persuadable voters and helping conservative personalities amplify content. Parscale’s companies received more than $2.2 million from Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee and related committees beginning in 2023.

Clock Tower X brought those political capabilities into the foreign influence business. Its federal registration statement identified Parscale as the company’s sole managing member and owner. Its services included creative strategy, media planning, digital marketing, advertising technology and communications consulting.

Parscale was also moving deeper into conservative media. In January 2025, Salem Media Group appointed him chief strategy officer, praising his political relationships and technical experience. Salem owns conservative radio stations, websites and podcast properties with an audience that includes evangelical Christians, Republican activists and older Trump voters.

That appointment mattered because the Israeli contract specifically contemplated distributing narratives through Salem Media Network properties and other aligned channels. The operation therefore had access to both sides of modern political communication: the technical systems used to identify and influence audiences, and the media institutions through which those audiences receive information from personalities they already trust.

The Program Expanded Rapidly

Clock Tower’s initial four month agreement was only the beginning. A June 2026 amendment filed with the Justice Department contained a schedule listing $4.5 million in digital advertising for each month from April through October. The seven monthly entries totaled $31.5 million. The filing presents those numbers as scheduled contractual fees, not proof that every dollar had already been paid.

A six month supplemental disclosure provided the clearest picture of the money already moving through the system. Clock Tower reported receiving $15 million from Havas Media Germany and spending approximately $13.1 million during the period ending March 31, 2026.

More than $6 million went to SparkFire Technologies for direct engagement. Nearly $5 million went to Portman Road Strategies for media placement, consulting and polling. Salem Media Representatives received more than $500,000 for advertising. Other recipients included EyesOver for analytics, Three Tech for content production, Stratus Intelligence for polling and several firms involved in search optimization, consulting and technical work.

Portman Road Strategies is associated with Republican strategist Mike Shields, and Responsible Statecraft’s review of the disclosures found extensive personnel overlap between the Clock Tower operation and Convergence Media, a Republican consulting firm led by Shields. The registered Clock Tower team also included Ashley Evdokimo, a Salem Media executive who had worked with Parscale’s Campaign Nucleus.

There is no evidence in these disclosures that the companies committed a crime merely by accepting the work. FARA exists in large part to make such relationships visible. The filings do show, however, that Israeli messaging was moving through an infrastructure populated by veterans of Republican campaigns and conservative media rather than through a clearly separated diplomatic information office.

That arrangement gave the foreign principal an important political advantage. Messages could be developed by people who understood the language, anxieties and internal divisions of the American right. They knew which arguments appealed to evangelical Christians, national security conservatives, Trump loyalists, younger populists and voters suspicious of another Middle Eastern war. The campaign could therefore present Israeli interests through the vocabulary of domestic American politics.

A Separate Influencer Campaign

Another Israeli contract reveals a more direct system for paying online personalities. Bridges Partners, working through Havas for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, registered a campaign called the Esther Project. It should not be confused with Parscale’s Clock Tower agreement.

The Esther Project filing established monthly budgets beginning at $60,000 in June 2025, rising to $250,000 in September and totaling $900,000 through November. The budget covered influencers, production and campaign administration. The plan began with five or six personalities and added several more during later stages, with a target of approximately 25 to 30 posts each month.

Some reports estimated that the campaign spent roughly $7,000 per post by dividing portions of the budget by the projected content volume. The contract itself does not establish a universal payment of $7,000 for every post. Production expenses, management fees and other costs were included in the same budget, making a simple division potentially misleading.

The filing also did not publicly identify every influencer who participated. That absence prompted Public Citizen to ask the Justice Department to examine whether American influencers working on the campaign should have registered or provided clearer disclosures. The complaint was an allegation submitted for government review, not a Justice Department determination that the influencers violated federal law.

The distinction between the two programs is essential. The Esther Project openly budgeted for influencers. Clock Tower has said that money from its Israeli contract was not used to pay influencers, even though its broader network involved personalities, media channels and companies capable of distributing pro Israel content. The public record therefore establishes paid foreign advocacy, but it does not justify assigning every supportive post to a secret Israeli payment.

Eyal Yakoby and the Limits of the Evidence

Eyal Yakoby became prominent as a young pro Israel commentator during the campus protests that followed the October 7 attacks and the Gaza war. He appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2024, where he testified about antisemitism at American universities. His public profile placed him at the intersection of campus politics, conservative media and pro Israel online advocacy.

A July 2026 TIME investigation into the Parscale network reported that Influenceable, a company connected to the broader digital operation, had worked with Yakoby as a paid influencer. The company stated that Yakoby had never been paid with Israeli government funds and had not worked on behalf of the Israeli government. TIME corrected an earlier version of its article that had inaccurately described what Yakoby personally confirmed.

Those distinctions must be preserved. No public FARA filing reviewed for this article identifies Yakoby as a recipient of Clock Tower’s Israeli contract money. His participation in Israel related campaigns and his paid relationship with an American influencer company do not independently prove that his political statements were purchased by a foreign government. Nor does the public record establish that he was required to register as a foreign agent.

The case nevertheless illustrates why foreign influence programs create persistent questions about transparency. Political personalities routinely earn money through consulting, advertising, nonprofit work, subscriptions and campaign partnerships. Unless individual posts carry clear disclosures, audiences may have no practical way to distinguish personal advocacy from material produced within a paid communications campaign.

From Fact Checking to Narrative Engineering

Clock Tower described its work as creating websites, social media pages, blogs and content that challenged misinformation about Israel. Some of the material addressed genuinely false or misleading claims. Other pieces attempted to overturn disputed historical and humanitarian conclusions by presenting one side of an unresolved argument as settled fact.

One example appears in an informational material filing submitted under FARA. A Clock Tower distributed article published through PaxPoint declared that updated Gaza data proved Israel had been unfairly accused of causing a famine that never occurred. The document included the legally required notice that Clock Tower was distributing the material on behalf of the State of Israel.

That claim went beyond the available record. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the international system used by United Nations agencies and humanitarian organizations, had formally classified famine conditions in Gaza Governorate in August 2025. Later analysis found that those conditions had been offset following increased aid and a ceasefire, but the later improvement did not erase the earlier classification.

The disagreement demonstrates how a foreign communications campaign can blur the boundary between correcting falsehoods and rewriting the public record. Clock Tower was not operating as an independent newsroom weighing evidence without a client interest. It was paid by an intermediary acting for the Israeli government, and its purpose was to improve the information environment surrounding Israel.

That does not make every article produced by the network false. Governments, advocacy organizations and media companies can publish accurate information while pursuing an obvious political objective. The relevant question is whether readers understand who selected the facts, who financed the publication and what result the campaign was designed to achieve.

The use of neutral sounding websites compounds the problem. Names such as PaxPoint, FactSignal, Culturavia, Cognitura and Innovascope do not immediately tell a reader that the material originated within an Israeli government funded communications program. The FARA notices provide legal disclosure, but such notices may appear at the bottom of a page or within federal records that the average social media user will never examine.

Why Charlie Kirk Mattered

Charlie Kirk occupied a strategic position few other American activists could match. Through Turning Point USA, he helped build a national network of campus conservatives, evangelical activists, social media personalities and young Republican organizers. The group’s college operation claims nearly 800 chapters, giving it an institutional presence far beyond Kirk’s personal podcast and social media accounts.

Turning Point also became an important part of Trump’s electoral infrastructure. During the 2024 campaign, the Associated Press described its attempt to mobilize churchgoing conservatives and infrequent Trump voters in battleground states. Its conferences brought together Republican officials, Christian leaders, online personalities and young voters who increasingly received political news through podcasts and short videos rather than traditional newspapers or television broadcasts.

Kirk’s audience was especially valuable to Israel because it stood at the fault line of a generational shift. Older Republicans remained strongly supportive of Israel, shaped by Cold War alliances, evangelical theology and decades of Republican foreign policy. Younger conservatives were more skeptical of overseas commitments, more hostile to establishment institutions and more likely to view the Iraq war as a warning against intelligence claims used to justify military action.

By April 2026, Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of Republicans younger than 50 held an unfavorable view of Israel. Older Republicans remained considerably more supportive, while white evangelical Protestants continued to express some of the strongest favorable views.

Kirk could communicate with both constituencies. He spoke the language of Christian Zionism and defended Israel as a strategic ally, but he also understood the suspicions of younger MAGA voters who resented foreign aid, feared another regional war and distrusted intelligence agencies. When he warned Netanyahu about a collapse in support, he was describing fractures within his own audience.

What Kirk Actually Told Netanyahu

On May 2, 2025, Kirk sent Netanyahu a detailed private memorandum warning that Israel faced what he called a “five alarm fire” in American public opinion. The letter obtained through Scribd was not a general expression of support. It was a communications strategy written by a political organizer explaining how a foreign government could recover influence among Americans, particularly conservatives.

Kirk argued that Israel was losing the information war because its responses were slow, fragmented and poorly adapted to modern platforms. He recommended a rapid response media team modeled on the Trump White House operation known as “Rapid Response 47.” Such a team would monitor emerging controversies, produce immediate rebuttals and distribute evidence before hostile interpretations dominated social media.

He also proposed an “Israel Truth Network,” a central website and collection of social channels that journalists, influencers and ordinary users could consult for government approved arguments, statistics, videos and source material. A dedicated fact checking team based in Israel would respond in real time to disputed claims.

Contrary to some descriptions, Kirk did not literally call the proposal an “Israel War Room” modeled on a “Trump War Room.” His language was more specific. He wanted a rapid response organization, a central information network and a communications department functioning like a political campaign headquarters.

Kirk recommended short videos featuring Israelis speaking directly to American audiences. He believed Israel should produce the original content while sympathetic American influencers served as amplifiers. He called for continuous English language engagement through podcasts and social media rather than occasional appearances by officials trained for diplomatic press conferences.

The letter also urged Israel to send released hostages and survivors on speaking tours throughout the United States. Kirk believed personal testimony could reach audiences that had become resistant to government statements and conventional advocacy. On Iran, he advised Israeli leaders to confront the fear among young conservatives that military escalation would become another Iraq or Afghanistan.

His most consequential recommendation was organizational. Israel, he wrote, needed to treat itself like a political candidate seeking support from American voters. Its existing public diplomacy apparatus should become a campaign headquarters staffed by younger communicators who understood social platforms, political narratives and the speed at which online opinion develops.

Kirk continued to describe himself as a committed supporter of Israel. His warning was valuable precisely because it came from inside the pro Israel conservative coalition rather than from its critics. As the Jewish Telegraphic Agency later confirmed, the letter was written four months before Kirk was assassinated in September 2025.

Israel Put Much of the Blueprint Into Practice

The similarities between Kirk’s recommendations and Israel’s subsequent communications reforms are substantial. By December 2025, the Jerusalem Post documented the creation of a government rapid response team designed to monitor online narratives and coordinate immediate rebuttals across ministries. The model was explicitly compared with American political campaigns.

Israel also launched a central facts platform containing historical, legal and policy material for different American audiences. Communications planners divided the public into groups that included students, evangelical Christians, Latino Americans, Black Americans, liberals and Jewish communities. The segmentation closely resembled electoral targeting, where the same candidate presents different supporting arguments to different constituencies.

The government increased its production of short digital videos, first person testimony and multilingual material. Content creators received access to editing, production and translation assistance. Delegations of released hostages and wounded Israelis traveled to the United States, matching another specific recommendation in Kirk’s letter.

Officials also moved toward a more unified English language communications structure, with centralized messages and a limited number of authorized public voices. Taken together, the rapid response team, facts network, survivor tours, short videos and political audience segmentation represented the practical core of Kirk’s proposal.

The public evidence does not prove that Netanyahu adopted these measures solely because Kirk recommended them. Israel had conducted international advocacy for decades and was already facing intense pressure to modernize its communications. The letter does establish that a prominent American conservative presented Netanyahu with a detailed blueprint shortly before the government adopted remarkably similar structures.

One part of Kirk’s advice was implemented less faithfully. He wanted Israel itself to lead the message and use American supporters mainly as amplifiers. The Clock Tower and Havas contracts show Israel continuing to rely heavily on foreign consultants, Republican strategists, media companies and outside production firms. Instead of replacing outsourced public relations with a confident internal operation, Israel built an internal system while simultaneously spending tens of millions of dollars on external American influence infrastructure.

What FARA Reveals

The Justice Department describes FARA as a disclosure statute requiring certain people and organizations acting for foreign principals to reveal their relationships, activities, receipts and spending. The law was enacted in 1938 amid concern about foreign propaganda inside the United States. Registration does not by itself mean that an individual or company committed espionage, bribery or another crime.

The Clock Tower filings demonstrate why the law remains relevant in the social media era. Israel is a formal American ally, but it remains a foreign state with its own military, political and diplomatic interests. Americans evaluating arguments about foreign aid, Gaza, Iran or military intervention have a legitimate interest in knowing when those arguments are being developed or promoted through a foreign government contract.

FARA provides a partial view rather than a complete map. It identifies the principal contractors and reports major spending, but the public may still struggle to determine which individual posts, podcasts, videos or websites were connected to the program. Money can pass through media buyers, consulting companies, production firms and influencer agencies before a message reaches the audience.

The modern influence campaign also operates through social trust. A government statement is immediately recognized as advocacy. A video delivered by a familiar conservative commentator may appear to be an independent judgment arising naturally from the American right. The opinion may be sincere, paid or both. Without precise disclosure, the viewer cannot know which relationship applies.

The Struggle for the MAGA Generation

Israel’s investment reflects a political reality that its leaders can no longer avoid. Automatic Republican support cannot be assumed to survive indefinitely. The conservative coalition contains evangelical Christians who see support for Israel as a religious and strategic obligation, but it also contains younger nationalists who question foreign aid, reject interventionism and believe previous Republican leaders sacrificed American interests in the Middle East.

Parscale’s value was his understanding of this second group. His network did not approach young conservatives as a diplomatic audience. It approached them as voters to be researched, segmented, persuaded and mobilized. Israel’s image became the equivalent of a political candidate’s reputation, and criticism of Israeli policy became a problem of message discipline, rapid response and opposition research.

Kirk reached the same conclusion from inside the movement. He did not tell Netanyahu that better policy alone would restore support. He advised him to build a campaign capable of competing for attention every hour of the day. Israel largely followed that advice, while adding a sprawling collection of contractors whose work reached into conservative media, social platforms, search results and artificial intelligence.

The result is a foreign influence operation that is both legally disclosed and practically difficult for ordinary Americans to see. Its existence does not prove that every pro Israel personality is paid, that every favorable argument is manufactured or that supporters lack sincere convictions. It does prove that the Israeli government has invested heavily in shaping the internal debate of the American right, especially among the younger voters who may define the Republican Party after Trump.

The central issue is therefore larger than Parscale, Yakoby or any particular influencer. A foreign government recognized that American allegiance is now formed through algorithmic feeds, trusted personalities and machine generated answers. It hired professionals from the Trump political world to compete inside that system.

The filings reveal who paid the first contractors and how the initial money moved. They cannot show every American whose opinion was affected, every message that reached an audience without meaningful context or every future answer generated from material the campaign placed online. That uncertainty is precisely what makes the operation consequential. Israel was not merely defending itself in the public square. It was building machinery intended to shape the public square itself.