Netanyahu’s “New Weapon”: How Israel is Militarising Social Media

Benjamin Netanyahu has described social media as Israel’s newest “weapon.” Speaking to pro-Israel American influencers in New York, he hailed the takeover of TikTok’s US operations by companies sympathetic to Israel as “the most important purchase going on right now.”

The remark exposes how Israel increasingly treats the digital sphere as a battlefield. If social media is a weapon, then information becomes ammunition, influencers soldiers, and users targets—reducing dialogue to propaganda and psychological warfare.

Platform Capture and Political Influence

Netanyahu’s enthusiasm for the TikTok deal raises further concerns over how algorithms and moderation might be skewed to privilege Israel’s narrative while silencing dissent. With Israel accused by the International Court of Justice of plausible genocide, the risk of biased content governance is grave: whose voices will be amplified, and whose erased?

Silencing Gaza’s Story

This development also comes against the backdrop of Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza, which has left thousands dead and created a humanitarian catastrophe. For Palestinians, social media has been one of the few channels left to document and communicate their reality directly to the world.

Framing social media as a “weapon” risks the further suppression of Palestinian voices online, whether through content takedowns, shadow-banning, or algorithmic throttling. In effect, the very platforms that Palestinians use to testify about their suffering could be turned against them, ensuring their visibility diminishes just as their need for solidarity grows.

From Hasbara to Digital Weaponry

Netanyahu’s comments did not emerge in a vacuum. They are part of a decades-long project of hasbara—Israel’s state-sponsored effort to shape how the world perceives its policies and actions.

From the 1980s onwards, hasbara campaigns have sought to rebrand Israel as a democracy under siege, emphasising security threats while downplaying its occupation of Palestinian land. Successive governments poured resources into training diplomats, producing media kits, and cultivating sympathetic journalists abroad.

With the rise of the internet and later social media, hasbara went digital. Israel established official Twitter accounts in multiple languages, launched YouTube channels highlighting its military operations, and even encouraged citizens to act as “digital soldiers” by sharing pro-Israel talking points online. Universities and NGOs received funding to run “Israel advocacy” programmes designed to counter Palestinian narratives on campus and in media spaces.

Netanyahu’s framing of social media as a “weapon” is thus not a departure but the next logical step in a long tradition of narrative warfare. The difference today is scale and immediacy: a single viral video from Gaza can reach millions in hours, threatening to puncture the carefully crafted image hasbara has sustained for decades. From training “digital soldiers” to funding advocacy networks, Israel has long sought to dominate narratives. Now, the aim is not just shaping messages but controlling the platforms themselves.

©TNPP