TV News LIES

An unprecedented investment in social media propaganda by Israel is failing to shift the cratering support for the country in the western world amid its ongoing genocide in Gaza, particularly among the younger generation, analysts have told Middle East Eye. 

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in March found that a majority, 60 percent of the American public, including 57 percent of Republican voters under the age of 50 and 84 percent of Democrats under 50, view Israel unfavourably.

Much of this is down to an increasing number of younger people using social media rather than mainstream outlets, which are overwhelmingly pro-Israel, for their news. 

To counter this shift, Israeli lawmakers approved a record budget of $730m for public diplomacy - known by its Hebrew name Hasbara - in March, amounting to almost five times its previous annual budget, which was already 20 times pre-2023 levels.

In September 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with several American influencers in New York to enlist them to amplify pro-Israel messaging in the US.

During the meeting, Netanyahu stressed the importance of their role, saying: "We have to fight with weapons that apply to the battlefields in which we’re engaged in and the most important ones are on social media."

He added that the deal, which saw American billionaire Larry Ellison, alongside several other pro-Israel businessmen, acquire TikTok's US operations, was "the most important purchase going on right now".

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A Secret Service agent assigned to JD Vance’s protective detail is “the subject of an administrative investigation, and potential criminal inquiry, involving allegations of compromising operational and information security”, according to the Secret Service chief of communications.

The agent came under suspicion after allegedly providing information that appeared in an MS Now report about the vice-president’s planned Marine Corps helicopter trip with his son to a golf lesson, a source told CNN.

The report also claimed there was a “building morale problem” among the agents assigned to protect Vance and his family. The trip was ultimately called off due to severe thunderstorms.

The source said the publication of those travel plans triggered unease among the Secret Service, the FBI and White House officials, who “fumed over operational details being described in the press”. A second source told CNN that investigators identified the individual they believe was responsible for leaking the information.

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The Trump family is making headlines again after money management companies tied to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have raked in about $6.3 billion from investments in defense-sector startups that receive hefty government contracts.

According to The Washington Post (1), portfolio funds linked to the Trumps have "invested in more than a dozen defense tech companies and other firms seeking businesses from the Pentagon and federal agencies."

The investment companies cited in The Post's analysis include Plainville, N.Y.-based 1789 Capital, an investment firm that says it's "Funding the Next Chapter of America's Exceptionalism" on its website's home page (2). The firm's leadership team includes Donald Trump, Jr., who's billed as a partner on the 1789 website.

Another firm, American Ventures branch, a branch of Dominari Holdings, holds approximately $1 billion in private assets, with Eric Trump reportedly heavily involved in the company.

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When Elon Musk and his youthful Department of Government Efficiency warriors boasted of taking a “chainsaw” to the U.S. Agency for International Development, they did more than destroy a government agency. They violated the law by summarily firing USAID’s public servants while placing millions of people around the world in mortal danger.

The thousands of public servants, fired without due process, care deeply about the agency’s mission. They did not deserve to be fired, nor did they deserve the efforts by the president himself to pile on by besmirching their reputation.

These actions have ramifications far beyond the impact on the individuals involved. They place every government employee at risk. Career professionals in the State Department and the intelligence community have also been summarily relieved of duty.

If the courts fail to intervene, our nation will be sent hurtling back in history to the era of the corrupt spoils system. That era ended when the Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 created a system based on merit. The law was updated in 1978 and it explicitly states that a public servant can only be removed if there is evidence of misconduct or poor performance — and only then after providing an opportunity for due process.

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A federal appeals panel has reversed a lower court decision ordering the release of pro-Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi, opening the door to the re-arrest of a student protest organizer whom the Trump administration has spent more than a year trying to deport.

Tuesday’s ruling from the second US circuit court of appeals in New York City overturns a previous decision by a federal judge in Vermont, which likened the government’s efforts to expel him and other activists to McCarthyist repression.

In their unanimous decision, the panel found that the judge had overstepped his authority by intervening in Mahdawi’s case before it had moved fully through the immigration court system.

The ruling mirrors a separate appellate panel’s decision earlier this year against Mahmoud Khalil, a former classmate of Mahdawi’s at Columbia University.

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A federal prosecutor in Seattle who was sacked by President Trump last week after barely an hour on the job is challenging his removal in court, setting the stage for an unprecedented legal battle that could determine who has the power to fire court-appointed U.S. attorneys.

As the top prosecutor for the Western District of Washington last Wednesday, after he was unanimously appointed by federal judges to fill a vacancy in the U.S. attorney’s office.

News of his dismissal came in an email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office less than an hour after he was sworn in, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The complaint, which names Trump and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, argues Rogoff’s firing was unlawful because the president does not have the authority to “nullify the district’s court’s appointment power” granted by the Appointments Clause.

It also argues that the Trump administration has violated a federal statute governing how vacancies are filled and asks a federal judge to reinstate him as the “validly appointed” pick until a successor is chosen through the presidential nomination and Senate confirmation process.

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