A leaked American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) audio recording reveals how the pro-Israel lobby is diverging from Washington politics to combating narratives that confront and scrutinizes online Israel’s war on Gaza, in its last hurrah to reshape global public opinion.
Obtained by media outlets, the recording features the lobby president Betsy Berns Korn revealing how AIPAC built ties with powerful allies in the Trump administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and the President’s former National Security adviser Mike Waltz, all of whom had ties to Congress.
Describing how members found and financed candidates, the members’ president Michael Tuchin said of Ratcliffe’s early entrance, “So I said to myself, this guy looks like he can win, and we need to talk to him.”
The money would follow, he said, as well as regular phone contact with local members’ leaders. This system allowed that “if something happens and we need someone to talk to, the relationship is good.”
The AI in Israel Gaza war battlefield tactics may be familiar, but the Israel’s political lobbying landscape no longer is.
While Capitol Hill maintains its decades-old reflex of pro-Israel legislation – again, AIPAC lobbying – this very same lobbying machine has long been the untouchable master builder of US-Middle East policy. AIPAC now faces a new form of resistance, even in the Republican ranks, with key contestants being Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, as well as some America first-aligned republicans, such as Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar.
A recent bill to extend anti-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) sanctions beyond American citizens to international organizations collapsed under bipartisan pressure, with dissenting Republicans calling it ‘overreach.’
Israel Deploys New Military AI In Gaza War
While political pressure remains a source of concern, the recording reveals an even deeper fear: the growing Israel use of AI in Gaza in determining public opinion. Lobby officials complained that AI programs fueled by public information most significantly the internet wave of sympathy for Palestinians could be utilized to counter pro-Israel propaganda.
AI sites, if unregulated, could begin presenting users with more in-depth or critical perspectives regarding Israel’s actions, especially in the Gaza Israeli war. This, the recording suggested, Israel’s war on Gaza could fundamentally alter how younger generations see the conflict.
The anxiety is not unproven due to Israel AI weapons. Social media has contributed significantly to spreading the misery of the Israel AI drone swarm on Gazans, supplanting mainstream media narratives. And with LLMs having been trained on what people upload and share, AI could well become a useful de-certifier of government messages.
AI Bearing Witness to the Israel Gaza War
The recording refers to growing efforts to influence AI content from within. At Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, reports show many AI specialists have some affiliation with the Israel AI strategy in Gaza by the Israeli military, including the US head of Meta’s Artificial Intelligence Division. Their presence gives rise to questions regarding the shaping of content moderation and training of AI behind the scenes.
For AIPAC, Israel’s war on Gaza and the public’s narrative – on the ground and online – is no longer fought just in congressional hearings or op-eds, it’s waged inside the black boxes of AI models curating what we see, to shift the public’s opinion with invisible precision.
As it stands, AIPAC is clearly struggling to control the discourse of Israel’s savage war on Gaza. But with its endless efforts to silence people, and shape shift the narrative around the war, AIPAC’s struggle is the first brawl in a coming digital era where political powers belong to those who control the training data.
AIPAC’s warning regarding Israel’s war on Gaza is a harbinger of things to come: the fight ahead may not be in Congress, but over the algorithms that decide what people read and believe.
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