Israel election faces foreign interference risk, experts warn

Israeli experts and a watchdog group are warning that the country is not ready to counter foreign influence campaigns before the October 27 election, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a tight re-election contest.

FakeReporter, an Israeli non-governmental group that tracks fictitious social media accounts, said an account using the name "Daniel Omer" appeared linked to an Iranian influence operation after it posted an image suggesting Netanyahu and his wife Sara could meet the same fate as Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, who were executed in 1989.

The post was widely circulated by Netanyahu supporters as evidence of incitement against the prime minister. FakeReporter said the incident showed how foreign networks can amplify Israel's internal divisions, including disputes over ultra-Orthodox conscription and the investigation into Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack.

Roy Shushan of FakeReporter said interference networks can radicalise people and amplify reactions. The group said Iranian networks are behind most of the campaigns it has identified in Israel, with some also coming from Russia.

Israel's State Comptroller said in a June report that the country was "completely unprepared" for foreign influence operations and lacked both a national policy and a specialised authority to counter them.

David Siman Tov, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said generative artificial intelligence and large language models allow hostile actors to produce targeted Hebrew-language content quickly and cheaply. He warned that disinformation could be used on election day to spread false voting instructions, discourage voters or cast doubt on the results.