How much is your support for Israel worth? Try $1 billion.

Israel is spending wads of cash on public diplomacy in a desperate attempt to reverse waning American support for the country after it stands accused of genocide in Gaza and pushing the U.S. into the Iran war.

Since Oct. 7, Israel has spent over a billion dollars on global “hasbara” — television appearances, social media campaigns, chat-bot training, and other efforts to influence how people think about Israel. And this “public diplomacy” budget more than quadrupled in the last year alone.

To understand these efforts to win back American hearts and minds, we welcomed Quincy Institute Research Fellow Nick Cleveland-Stout to the latest episode of Always at War. Nick’s latest research is the most-definitive accounting yet of Israel's new approach to winning over American’s hearts and minds.

Nick’s findings surface a surprising development in Israel’s influence efforts: while the country used to rely almost exclusively on wealthy, sympathetic advocates tilting the policy process toward Israel’s interest via American lobbying groups like AIPAC, Israel has recently been forced to hire U.S. contractors and firms that have to register as foreign agents under FARA.

While the transition signals Israel's increasing desperation, it also allows us to see who Israel is hiring and for what. Take for example, Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale, who is currently the proud holder of three of Israel’s largest contracts. His main gig: running a mass texting campaign on behalf of Israel while posing as mysterious “peace” groups like “Allies for Peace.” Or, to take another example, the public diplomacy group Targeted Communications Global, which has spent nearly $10 million to run ads on places like X, the Daily Caller, and Breitbart. It turns out, Israel is more worried about maintaining their right-leaning supporters.

But perhaps the most shocking revelation is just how much time and money Tel Aviv is spending on “training” our chat bots — think Claude, ChatGPT, or Grok. The Israeli government is actually paying for “LLM poisoning” — developing pro-Israel websites that feed information to these chatbots whenever they’re asked about Israel. The apparent goal is that, when you ask about a straightforward incident — like Hind Rajab’s murder by the IDF — the chatbot will feed you a “he-said, she-said” story that features Israel’s justifications for shooting a five-year old, not a straight, factual accounting of events

But the question remains, will the tens of millions Israel is spending on public diplomacy actually work? Will a sophisticated and expensive influence campaign really change Americans’ minds about Washington’s perpetual blank checks for Israel?

Tune in and find out.