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- [00:01]
Host/Anchor
This week on the take, we're marking one year since a pair of devastating earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria with a new digital interactive. Listen and watch stories of survival, recovery and coping with the grief@al jazeera.com earthquakes again. That's al jazeera.com earthquakes
- [00:28]
Analyst/Commentator
fighting a losing battle and throwing good money after bad, Israel keeps boosting its propaganda budget. But judging from the polling numbers overseas, the return on that investment just isn't there. In journalism, there's libel and then there's blood libel. A New York Times report on Israeli soldiers using sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners has not been well received in Tel Aviv. And artificial intelligence. And the environmental cost, which is all too real, the price people are paying to make way for the data centers that power AI. For decades, Israel has relied on a familiar media playbook to sustain its reputation. Aggressive messaging spread through some sympathetic news coverage and a political narrative rarely challenged in the Western, especially American, mainstream. Now, with an uneasy standoff in Iran, Israel violating the ceasefire in Lebanon failing to adhere to it in Gaza, and settler violence intensifying in the occupied west bank, that messaging machinery is proving ineffective. And Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to change that. The first step? An appearance on CBS News 60 Minutes, where mostly unchallenged Netanyahu was out to stop the sharp decline in support among Americans for Israel. The second longer term strategy, an unprecedented expansion of Israel's Hasbara operation. Read its propaganda, the huge amount of money it's now pouring into influencers, digital and media campaigns aimed at reversing the country's collapsing public image abroad. But in an age in which genocide, war crimes and devastation are all livestreamed, Israel's PR spin is up against something it cannot control. What audiences can see with their own eyes, there is a reputational problem that no amount of money or messaging can compete with.
- [02:32]
Narrator/Reporter
If Benjamin Netanyahu was looking for a safe space on the American airwaves for his first interview there since the start of the Iran war, he could have done worse than CBS News. Its reputation has taken a pounding since its sale to pro Trump billionaire Larry Ellison and his decision to put a self described unhinged Zionist fanatic in charge.
- [02:56]
Interviewer
Mr. Prime Minister, good to see you.
- [02:57]
Narrator/Reporter
Netanyahu went on CBS's flagship program 60 Minutes to shore up support for Israel, which the polls say more and more Americans see as a moral and economic liability. He played the blame game and turned his interviewer's phone into a prop to make his point. This is yours, right?
- [03:16]
Israeli Official/Spokesperson
Netanyahu spoke about social media being the eighth front at first. Social media, you can manipulate, you can make people believe Israel is attacking civilians and so on.
- [03:26]
Narrator/Reporter
You can penetrate this machine and I can paint you as a monster. And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.
- [03:36]
Israeli Official/Spokesperson
Of course, completely lies. But it's a narrative we hear again and again from Israeli officials.
- [03:42]
Podcast Host/Critic
Their strategy seems to be social media posts are for young people and network TV is for the older generation. And that's why Netanyahu went on CBS News, because the older generation is now starting to turn on Israel as well. Whereas, like, the youth are already gone.
- [04:03]
Narrator/Reporter
We have seen the deterioration of the support for Israel in the United States.
- [04:09]
Expert/Academic
Pro Israeli opinion makers are very frustrated that there are other players in the field competing for the narrative. And so it's not just the idea of fake news spreading misinformation about Israel. The point is, we are not the only player anymore shaping opinion.
- [04:32]
Narrator/Reporter
In response, the Israeli government is injecting more money into its Hasbaraba. Hasbara is a Hebrew word, a shorthand term Israelis use for their government's propaganda efforts fought through public figures, online influencers, and bots.
- [04:48]
Analyst/Commentator
Fortunately, when the media is spreading one
- [04:50]
Expert/Academic
narrative, it's hard for the rest of
- [04:51]
Host/Anchor
the world to understand that for late
- [04:54]
Narrator/Reporter
2024 and 2025, Israel's annual Hezbollah budget was roughly $150 million. That was jacked up this year to almost three quarters of a billion. That investment does not seem to have paid off. More than 60% of Americans, again, according to the polling, now have an unfavorable view of Israel. A recent study by an Israeli security institute warned of diplomatic isolation and a creeping boycott. And much of the money the government throws at Hasbara goes to waste when Israeli soldiers, be they in Gaza or now Lebanon, proudly post videos, many of which show them committing war crimes.
- [05:44]
Expert/Academic
The problem has appeared in the last three years when the Israeli government and its military arm started using social media in an attempt to change public opinion. But what they've been sharing and disseminating included evidence of Israeli war crimes. Israeli Hasbara cannot do what it wants to do because people see the actual realities of what the Israelis are conducting, and so it is actually shooting itself in the foot.
- [06:30]
Podcast Host/Critic
And frankly, I'm thrilled about it because it's more money that they're flushing down the toilet because clearly their social media strategy is not working. No one buys it. So it's great for me because I get to keep doing this podcast debunking Israeli propaganda scandists. Welcome to Bad Hasbara, the world's most moral podcast.
- [06:55]
Israeli American Journalist (Emily Schrader)
Israel has been at war.
- [06:56]
Narrator/Reporter
Emily Schrader is an Israeli American journalist working for an online Israeli channel, Il tv.
- [07:03]
Israeli American Journalist (Emily Schrader)
The involvement of the Israeli government in the social media front is vastly overestimated. I myself have never received any money whatsoever from the Israeli government. I don't know anyone who's accepted money from from the Israeli government. The way that it's framed as if it's some sort of grand conspiracy is just simply not the reality on the ground. In fact, I wish that the Israeli government would take this issue more seriously and come up with a strategic plan. But we don't see that
- [07:33]
Narrator/Reporter
some key mainstream media outlets are now inching towards acknowledging the truth about Israel and its actions. Case in point, the New York Times. The Times has a long track record of defending or ignoring some clear cut Israeli war crimes. We asked the paper about that and received no reply. But this past week the Times published a piece by an op ed writer, Nicholas Kristof, that documented 14 cases of sexual assault against Palestinians in the west bank by Israeli soldiers and settlers. The examples included systematic cases of rape in prisons, sometimes through the use of dogs and and the sexual abuse of Palestinian children. Israel's Foreign Ministry then attacked the Times, calling the story one of the worst cases of blood libel to appear in the modern press. Then it announced the Israeli government would sue the paper over that op ed. Whether it makes good on that threat or not remains to be seen. But between the government's reaction and the hostility that Israelis are directing at the Times on social media, the relationship between Israel and America's newspaper of record appears to be at an all time low.
- [08:46]
Podcast Host/Critic
I love when Zionist Twitter goes crazy. People forget that there was a time in which it was pretty normal to have an article in the New York Times that was, you know, moderately critical of Israel. Things have just gotten so censorious lately and it would be good to get back to pre October 7th times. But you know, truly it is still not a free media and I wouldn't hold my breath for, you know, whether or not the New York Times is going to do a pro Palestine heel
- [09:20]
Israeli American Journalist (Emily Schrader)
turn when it comes to the New York Times article by Nicholas Kristof. Specifically, I think there are major sourcing issues that come with this report. The fact that Nicholas Kristof wrote this article as an opinion piece instead of writing this as a thorough news investigation, which the New York Times has the ability to do, is very problematic. And I really believe that the issue of sexual assault generally, no matter who is the perpetrator or who is the victim, is something that should be above that. And so I'm disappointed as a journalist that I believe Kristof didn't do his job.
- [09:53]
Narrator/Reporter
Like the Times, the UK's publicly owned broadcaster, the BBC, has been severely criticized throughout the Gaza genocide for repeatedly failing to hold Israel to account.
- [10:04]
Expert/Academic
Dr. Smith, you'll understand that I will have to say Israel will refute the use of that word, genocide that came
- [10:10]
Narrator/Reporter
back to bite the network this past week when a documentary that it commissioned but then refused to broadcast, Gaza Doctors Under Attack, won a major award, a Bafta, as the best British documentary of 2025. In accepting that award, the program's executive producer called out the BBC.
- [10:34]
Interviewer
Just a question to the BBC. Given that you dropped our film, will you drop us from the BAFTA screening later tonight?
- [10:40]
Narrator/Reporter
Despite all the help from the Western mainstream media, international support for Israel keeps on tanking. Opposition to it keeps growing. And the best the Israeli authorities can come up with is to keep pumping more money into their forever war of propaganda.
- [10:59]
Israeli Official/Spokesperson
They understand they're losing in this battle. And it doesn't matter how much money you invest in the end of the day, when a person in the us, in Europe, sees alive from Gaza, sees bloggers or influencers his age from Gaza talking about the horrific reality they go through, the killing, the hunger, the living conditions, the people they lost, you cannot compete with it. And they were kind of fighting a lost battle.
- [11:22]
Expert/Academic
Every generation has its historical moment that expresses a particular shift. We know about the Vietnam generation radicalized by the Vietnam War and Eastern Europe, the fall of the Soviet Union. We know now that the genocide in Gaza is the war of this generation. Stop that genotype. They know that they want to be on the right side of history. And I think it's part of what explains shifts among the New York Times and other shifts that we will see very soon.
- [12:06]
Analyst/Commentator
Going back to that New York Times piece on sexual violence against Palestinians, Israeli officials have characterized it as a malignant lie that coming from a country where
- [12:17]
Narrator/Reporter
on the airwaves the abuse of Palestinian
- [12:19]
Analyst/Commentator
prisoners is often cause for celebration. Nick Muirhead is here with more blood
- [12:25]
Interviewer
libel is how Israeli officials have described Nicholas Kristof's reporting in the New York Times. But you don't have to look hard to find the claims in that report being openly discussed in the Israeli media. Among the horrific accounts in Christophe's piece of a Gazan journalist who said that he was sexually abused by a dog, hard to fathom, but then you see interviews like this one with an Israeli soldier and his dog and what it did to alleged Hamas fighters. Inside the Stay Tayman military prison, The same prison where video emerged of a Palestinian captive being led away and allegedly raped by Israeli guards. They denied the allegation, but the captive was later hospitalised with internal injuries. Despite the video evidence, the Israeli military acquitted the guards involved and approved them for duty. When the charges were dropped, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called them heroic fighters and said the blood libel had come to an end. During the trial, most of the guards concealed their identities except one, Myr Ben Shetrid, who has been treated as some kind of celebrity on the Israeli airwaves. Despite the mounting evidence, the Israeli prison service still denies the sexual abuse of Palestinians, but there have been calls by Israeli journalists to legalize it. And one last point on Christophe's peace he acknowledged that some would suspect that the accounts were fabricated to defame Israel. He called that far fetched. Why? Because according to Christoph, he found the Palestinians interviewed in the peace, not the other way around. So it's either a case of a two time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist reporting for a historically pro Israel news outlet engaging in an act of blood libel. Oh, it's true.
- [14:29]
Analyst/Commentator
Thanks, Nick. The explosion of generative AI has ushered in a new era of technological innovation, and with it a massive expansion of infrastructure. The facility storing the equipment that powers it. Data centers. At the forefront of this boom is Aragon, an underpopulated region in Spain where the government has encouraged the expansion of data farms for companies like Amazon, Microsoft and others. Those giant structures are seamless, sucking up natural resources while profiting off of communities and taking advantage of some bureaucratic legal loopholes. But the local government wants to tell a different story, one of progress, investment, and a region on the cusp of a digital transformation. Much of the local media is happy to go along with that version of the story. But who really profits from this supposed progress and at what cost? The Listening Post's Elettra Scrivo now from Aragon on the sprawling new data centers there and the gap between narrative and reality.
- [15:30]
Investigative Journalist (Elettra Scrivo)
In Aragon, northeastern Spain, roads can stretch for miles with no sign of a single human being. One of the country's largest regions, it is sparsely populated. Vast swathes of deserted land have made it a major hub for renewable energy. Wind turbines are common here. Aragon has also turned into an attractive destination for a new kind of modern infrastructure that is reshaping the landscape. Data farms. They are colossal in scale, and while the government has welcomed the companies behind them, little is known about how they operate.
- [16:12]
Local Official/Analyst
Local and regional authorities are actively facilitating the arrival of these companies. There is a strong desire to attract these companies and turn this into a political win.
- [16:25]
Local Activist/Environmental Critic
The public administration rolls out the red carpet for those technology companies. They shamelessly say so themselves, making everything easier for them. They help with administrative procedures, tax avoidance and many other advantages. Meanwhile, the data farms operate with complete secrecy. They are like fortresses. We know almost nothing about them. It's astonishing that after four years of data center expansion in Aragon, there hasn't been a broad public debate.
- [16:57]
Host/Anchor
Data centers are at the foundation of the future, the foundation of AI and an industry that will undoubtedly shape the future of technology. Aragon views the development of this industry as an opportunity. It positions us at the forefront of a new sector that without a doubt will transform our region economically and socially.
- [17:20]
Investigative Journalist (Elettra Scrivo)
In its quest to turn Aragon into a data hub, the government has fast tracked the regulatory approvals process for tech companies using a legal mechanism known as piga, or project of general interest. One major beneficiary, Amazon, it plans to have 60 operational data centers by 2036. The equipment stored in these facilities relies on heat emitting chips that require an immense amount of energy and water to function. I went to one of Amazon's data centers with Alonso Llorente, a journalist investigating their impact on the environment. In Aragon, which has a population of 1.35 million,
- [18:05]
Local Activist/Environmental Critic
it's estimated that when Amazon and Microsoft's centers are fully operational, they will consume twice as much electricity as Aragon currently consumes. The water issue is even bigger because there's no transparency about the real numbers. During all these years, all the political parties have been part of the Aragonese government. We've even had recent elections and there hasn't been any debate about data centers. There's been debates about renewables. The local media here is very dependent on technology companies. One family, the Yarza family, control the largest and most widely circulated newspaper, Eraldo de Aragon, and the largest information and communication technology company, Iberus. It's not a criticism of journalists per se, but my colleagues are clearly well informed and aware of the problems seen in other countries with data farms.
- [19:17]
Investigative Journalist (Elettra Scrivo)
The lack of media scrutiny has made it easier for the government to promote a narrative unchallenged that equates digitalization or with progress. The president of Aragon, Jorge Ascon, who's made technological innovation a hallmark of his administration, has branded the region the quote, new Virginia, a reference to the American state with the highest number of data farms in the world. To push that message home, Ascorn went on a PR trip to Virginia to visit some of the most prominent players in the global data space.
- [19:58]
Local Activist/Environmental Critic
We have this constant clickbait here in Aragon that the data centers are going to put us on the world map. Now they're talking about the European Virginia. The government's narrative is that that is going to be the future of Aragon. There's going to be a lot of growth. They're flooding the zone with constant media coverage of millions in Indonesia. Investments like it's a mantra. President also puts out two minute videos like an influencer with very positive and emotional messages. While Ascorn visited Virginia, the environmental impact assessment for Amazon's expansion was greenlit, followed by a cascade of Piga approvals. So when he returned, he could say, I've seen it with my own eyes.
- [21:15]
Host/Anchor
The trip was essentially exploratory. The goal was to learn, explore, speak with local residents and get to know the industry that grew around data centers. It allowed us to verify much of the information we read and sometimes see questioned. The conclusion was unanimous. Positive espositiva.
- [21:34]
Investigative Journalist (Elettra Scrivo)
That unanimously positive outlook is echoed in local media, which forefronts a corporate message that highlights the upsides of data farms. While minimizing the negative impacts.
- [22:08]
Local Activist/Environmental Critic
If you don't question what's being presented, what you're really doing is constantly reinforcing the narrative, validating the idea that huge investments are coming, that this will transform everything. Almost every week there's news in Aragon claiming that artificial intelligence will solve something. At the same time, there's this validation of the broader AI discourse, technological solutionism and the amplification of stories that greenwash or launder the reputations of large tech companies.
- [22:43]
Local Official/Analyst
I question whether the government really knows all the details about the need for resources, water, energy and land. These large tech companies have more power than some countries in the world. I've spoken with local authorities, mayors and heads of government in those municipalities. They've been asked to sign confidentiality agreements. Their hands are tied when it comes to sharing information, sensitive or not.
- [23:10]
Investigative Journalist (Elettra Scrivo)
I asked Marvaquero about the secrecy and opacity surrounding Big Tech.
- [23:17]
Host/Anchor
For projects to be classified as regionally relevant, we have to thoroughly examine the various reports prepared by the relevant departments. The process is very rigorous in regards to environmental impact to ensure that the new infrastructure doesn't pose a risk to water resources.
- [23:38]
Investigative Journalist (Elettra Scrivo)
However, a recent inquiry led by Investigate Europe revealed that Microsoft and a major tech lobbying firm have secured an EU law that keeps key environmental information related to data centers hidden from the public. And this modus operandi, where Big Data relies on pliant governments to cut red tape, avoiding public scrutiny by pushing media friendly narratives about technological progress is being replicated far beyond Aragon around the world, the explosion of colossal resource hungry data centers will have implications for us all.
- [24:18]
Local Official/Analyst
It's important to understand that since the explosion of generative AI, these tech companies require enormous amounts of often scarce natural resources to function. They're becoming more like extractive companies, behaving in ways previously associated with sectors that have far worse public images, such as the tobacco and fossil fuel industries. And if you go out on the ground and talk to the people who live near these large complexes, they barely have a say when it comes to deciding if and how the data centers should be built.
- [24:51]
Analyst/Commentator
And finally, the Eurovision Song Contest and the effect that Israel's participation has had on this year's competition. Eurovision got its start 70 years ago in 1956. It attracts singers from dozens of countries who perform and compete for votes from viewers. And it can get political. Russian musicians have been banned over their country's invasion of Ukraine, but Israel's have not, despite everything it's done. Amnesty International says that by allowing Israel to compete, the European Broadcasting Union is betraying humanity. And public broadcasters in Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland and Slovenia have all boycotted this year's event in Vienna, where the Israeli contestants performance was met with disruption inside the arena. An investigation by the New York Times found that since 2018 the Israeli government has funded campaigns to boost votes for Israeli contestants and is still doing that through Benjamin Netanyahu's overseas propaganda office. And that Israeli contestant, he knew what he was in for. He said that in preparing for his performance he had practiced singing to a booing crowd.
- [26:19]
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