Thread by @EekadFacts

#OpenProbe🧵| While seeking empathy in Western capitals, Israel employs a markedly different approach in its messaging across the Arab world. An investigation by Eekad uncovers that this stark contrast is no coincidence. Instead, it exposes a deliberate media strategy orchestrated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), which leverages a network of coordinated fake accounts and bot farms to influence public opinion and garner favorable international support.

🔻Eekad monitored online discussions surrounding the Israel-Iran conflict and noticed a clear dominance of the Israeli narrative on X (formerly Twitter) globally. This dominance was driven by dozens of official accounts linked to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and further amplified by a coordinated network of main accounts and bot farms.

🔻Our analysis revealed audience-specific messaging—portraying Israel as a victim to Western users to elicit sympathy, while adopting a tone of power and control when addressing Arab audiences, which reinforces Israel’s image as a dominant force in the region.

📌Despite using different tones for Western and Arab audiences, Eekad found that these narratives are disseminated through a unified communication framework consisting of three interlinked layers:

🔻Official Accounts:

➡️Managed by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and operating in multiple languages, these accounts formed the backbone of the campaign, delivering tailored messaging to both Western and Arab audiences. Around 40 such accounts were identified.

🔻Genuine and Fake Profiles:

➡️This network includes a mix of genuine personal accounts and centrally managed fake profiles that echoed and reinforced the MFA’s narrative.

🔻Engagement-Amplifying Accounts and Bot Farms:

➡️These accounts amplified and circulated Israeli narratives on a larger scale. But how do these profiles actually function together to sustain such a wide-reaching media campaign?

🔻To answer this question, Eekad’s team began by analyzing content shared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its official accounts targeting Western audiences.

📌Between the start of the strikes on Iran and June 18, data revealed:

➡️751,646 interactions across official MFA accounts.

➡️383,582 accounts engaged with the content.

📌A breakdown of engagement by country revealed the following pattern:

➡️United States: 30%

➡️Brazil: 15%

➡️India: 8%

➡️Argentina: 5%

🔻India’s significant share suggests the involvement of bot networks—a tactic Eekad has documented in prior investigations. Similar activity was also noted in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, where engagement appeared artificially inflated.

🔻Eekad also examined the keywords frequently used by official Israeli accounts targeting Western audiences and found that they relied heavily on emotionally charged language.

🔻The messaging portrayed Iran as a direct threat to civilians, with claims that its missiles could strike not only Tel Aviv but also reach the heart of Europe. Key terms used included: “civilians,” “targeted,” “families,” and “Europe.”

🔻To understand the narrative approach as a whole, Eekad examined a sample of posts and visual materials published by official MFA accounts.

🔻The content demonstrated a deliberate application of psychological framing techniques, employing visual elements to cultivate Western empathy and legitimize Israeli military actions within international public discourse.

🔻This included posts featuring map-based imagery designed to appeal to Western and Asian viewers, framing Israeli strikes as acts of “legitimate self-defense” while presenting Iran as a violator of international law.

🔻Israel also promoted other uniform narratives—consistent in structure and messaging—based on calculated strategies designed to shape international media discourse surrounding its conflict with Iran. Among these were narratives that contrasted Israel’s stated precision in targeting military figures and leaders with accusations that Iran deliberately targeted civilians.

🔻Such messaging was built around a simplified moral binary, portraying Israel as “moral and precise” and Iran as “reckless and brutal.”

🔻Through this framing, the campaign aimed to generate international sympathy and reinforce the image of Israel as a defender of civilians, while presenting Iran as the aggressor.

🔻These narratives, along with other content promoted by Israel’s official accounts, were widely circulated as part of a coordinated media campaign.

🔻Despite their repetitive nature, they reveal a stark contradiction and a clear double standard between Israel’s narrative around its conflict with Iran and its actions on the ground in Gaza, where hospitals, schools, and civilians have been systematically targeted.

🔻This contradiction highlights the psychological manipulation at the heart of Israel’s messaging, designed to reshape international perception and frame military aggression as “necessary for security.”

📌Beyond comparisons with Iran, Israel’s media campaign also sought to instill fear among European audiences through the following tactics:

➡️Posting videos suggesting Iranian missiles could strike Paris and Berlin.

➡️Publishing multilingual posts warning that every European citizen is at risk.

➡️Repeatedly using the phrase “Israel is doing what must be done” to present Tel Aviv as the West’s shield against Iranian aggression.

🔻These messages formed part of a broader information strategy. Eekad’s analysis shows that Israel’s official accounts relied on carefully crafted visuals and psychological framing to appeal to Western audiences and justify the use of force.

🔻These narratives depicted Israeli strikes as acts of “legitimate self-defense,” promoted a simplified moral divide between a “moral Israel” and a “brutal Iran,” and consistently portrayed Israel as Europe’s line of defense—all within a recurring and coordinated media campaign.

🔻Eekad then turned its focus to the second and third parts of Israel’s campaign—informal networks designed to amplify and reinforce the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' messaging.

❓So, what role did these centrally coordinated accounts and bot networks play in advancing the Israeli narrative?

📌One of the most notable patterns observed across these accounts and bot networks was their consistent recycling of narratives originally promoted by Israel’s official channels. Examples include:

➡️Maps framing Israeli strikes as highly accurate while portraying Iranian strikes as indiscriminate.

➡️Images of Israeli victims accompanied by emotional appeals to justify Israeli violence and present it as defensive, despite its ongoing attacks on Palestinian civilians.

➡️Red-colored maps highlighting Iran’s missile range to amplify the perceived threat to Europe.

🔻These engagement-amplifying accounts played a direct role in extending the reach of Israel’s official content, framing Tel Aviv’s actions as a response to “brutal Iranian aggression targeting civilians,” while omitting the fact that more than 15,000 children have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza.

🔻The consistency and repetition of narratives across official accounts, primary accounts, and bot farms confirm that they operate as part of an integrated media strategy, guided by a unified plan.

❓But if this is the mechanism behind Israeli media tactics aimed at Western audiences, does the approach change when targeting Arab audiences?

🔻Our investigation revealed that the Israeli discourse aimed at Arab audiences was primarily one of intimidation, presenting Israel as an invincible military force.

📌This approach stood in stark contrast to the emotionally charged messaging directed at Western audiences. Despite the difference in tone, both discourses followed the exact underlying mechanism:

➡️Official accounts disseminated intimidating messages and shaped the narrative.

➡️Genuine and fake primary accounts recirculated these messages, amplifying their reach and engagement.

➡️Bot farms operated covertly to increase interactions and further disseminate these messages.

🔻Eekad’s team conducted a detailed analysis of the narratives promoted by official Israeli Arabic-speaking accounts, including profiles such as "Israel Arabic," "Israel in the Gulf," and Avichay Adraee, among others.

🔻Our findings indicate that the discourse from these accounts differed significantly in both form and content from the messaging aimed at Western and international audiences.

🔻Official Accounts focused on showcasing Israel’s military prowess, emphasizing its ability to conduct precise strikes and destroy high-value targets deep within Iran.

📌Behind the official discourse, primary accounts and bot farms adopted a more confrontational tone, amplifying the narrative with aggressive messaging. Their strategy included:

➡️Portraying Israel as an invincible military force capable of fundamentally altering the regional landscape.

➡️Targeting Gulf states that voiced reservations or objections to Israeli actions, with claims that they would inevitably face the “costs of war.”

🔻Additionally, these accounts and bot farms adopted threatening language against Algeria, labeling it as the "next enemy" and drawing connections to Iran.

🔻These findings underscore a unified Israeli discourse that aims to demonize countries adopting independent stances or opposing Israeli hegemony in the region.

🔻This strategy aligns with an unofficial Israeli approach designed to distract and control Arab debates by fueling nationalist and racist discussions.

🔻It is evident that the Israeli discourse targeting Arab audiences was rooted in intimidation, emphasizing displays of military power, while the messaging aimed at Western audiences sought to evoke sympathy and support.

🔻Despite these contrasting approaches, both strategies rely on the same mechanism for message delivery, showcasing Israel’s ability to craft diverse narratives and distribute them effectively across different audiences.

🔻To better understand the extent of coordination between these groups, Eekad’s team conducted a network analysis by extracting engagement data from official accounts affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as English-speaking and Arabic-speaking support accounts, between June 11 and 18.

🔻This analysis revealed a vast network of interactions, comprising more than 55,127 accounts and 112,532 interactions.

🔻An examination of the network showed a clear connection between the three groups, particularly in their joint amplification of and interaction with posts from accounts affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

🔻These insights shed light on Israel’s media tactics. Despite the diversity of accounts—spanning different languages, audiences, and even messages—they do not operate in isolation, as might appear to the average user.

🔻Instead, they function as part of a unified system, guided by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and supported by multilingual bot farms that tailor rhetoric to specific target audiences.

🔻This dual messaging strategy, with its distinct approaches to Western and Arab audiences, was not confined to X (formerly Twitter) alone. It extended to multiple social media platforms, including Reddit, blogs, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

🔻These discoveries expose a systematic and well-planned effort to control the narrative and manipulate public opinion, orchestrated and supported by the Israeli government.

📌Key Takeaways from Eekad’s Investigation:

➡️Israel’s media tactic, as exemplified by its approach to the ongoing conflict with Iran, is primarily orchestrated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, bolstered by primary accounts and bot farms to amplify engagement and reach.

➡️These three groups operate in unison to shape public opinion and manipulate discourse across both Arab and Western audiences.

➡️Israel is depicted as a vulnerable victim, employing emotionally charged rhetoric and appeals to public sentiment to justify military actions and rally Europe against its adversaries.

➡️When targeting Arab audiences, the messaging shifts to intimidation, emphasizing Israel’s military dominance and issuing threats to countries such as the Gulf states and Algeria.

➡️Furthermore, our network analysis uncovered strong interconnections between accounts operating in different languages.

🔻This investigation exposes Israel’s media strategy, which employs a two-way approach, carefully tailored to align with each audience’s distinct awareness and concerns.