Web Exclusives
By Steve France
CHRISTIANS, ESPECIALLY EVANGELICALS, BEWARE! Israel, the world leader in weaponizing cell phones against their users, is eyeing your phones. Thankfully, not to kill you but merely to flood your screens with stealth propaganda ads designed to correct your “perceptions” about Israel and Palestine. Done covertly, without permission from you or your pastor, access will be gained through digital “geofencing” of Christian churches during worship services on Sundays and of Christian schools during the week. Geofencing uses GPS, Wi-Fi or cellular data to trigger your phone as you enter your church. Your phone can then be tracked and targeted ads can follow wherever you go.
The aim is to counter the amply documented decline in support for Israel among evangelical Christians, especially media-savvy younger ones, since the Zionist state launched its genocidal offensive on Gaza in October 2023. The new Israeli project was detailed in a lengthy Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) statement filed in late September by a San Diego-based Israeli front group, Show Faith By Works. The filing disclosed that the campaign would “use biblical arguments to highlight the importance of Israel...to Christians” in a handful of states. Israel has budgeted $4 million for the project, with hopes of expanding it nationally.
The Christians targeted to receive the stealth messages no doubt already have a strong religious attachment to biblical Israel and presumably will have long associated the modern state of Israel with the ancient people of Israel. But many are appalled by Israel’s war. So the masterminds of the hasbara project likely are counting more on their ability to demonize the Palestinians with blatant falsehoods. Examples shared in the foreign agent filing include that “Hamas and the Palestinians have killed many of the American Christian aid workers distributing food in the region” and that Palestinians are all “radical Islamist terrorists that still threaten the U.S. today,” whose goals “are not land-focused but genocidal.”
It appears that initial criticism of the Israeli project has already spooked Chad Schnitger, the evangelical Republican consultant who leads Show Faith By Works. Interviewed for a Nov. 26 article in Christianity Today that took a pro-Israel stance, Schnitger noted “public backlash from secular and church groups” and announced that he was “scrapping the proposed geofencing campaign.” And yet, in a bit of sleight of hand, he later clarified that he merely planned to revise the registration filing to outline a “finalized proposal for digital ads, church visits, conversations with young Christians on college campuses, educational materials for pastors and a ‘mobile museum.’”
The filing has indeed generated immediate pushback from a range of Christian groups, who joined to produce a robust website, <www.TargetedChurches.com>, to expose in further detail the imminent propaganda offensive. The website helps visitors find out whether a particular church or school is on the list, although any church or school could potentially be targeted. The website also offers ways to try to see if your device has been captured, how to protect your phone and how to combat the initiative more broadly.
The FARA filing boasts that it will be “the largest geofencing campaign in U.S. history.” It may also be the first time churchgoers as a group have been targeted. Geofencing for commercial purposes is common, says Hannah Amundson of Christians for a Free Palestine, one of the groups involved in creating the TargetedChurches website. A typical use of geofencing, she says, might be to get to gymgoers with ads for, say, protein supplements. “But we’ve never heard of churchgoers being targeted for messages relating to their faith,” not that such targets will necessarily be aware that the messages are related to their churchgoing.
“You can’t say no [to being geofenced]. In my opinion, this is a huge privacy violation and meddling with people’s faith,” Amundson told the Washington Report. That makes her wonder how effective the geofencing will be. “The targeting could push people away from Israel. That’s a compelling reason for anti-Zionist Christians to alert fellow Christians and church groups to what’s going on.”
Rev. Don Wagner, a retired professor in Chicago, abandoned his family’s Christian Zionist beliefs in 1974 to devote himself to activism on behalf of Palestinian rights. He says he’s painfully aware that “Israel has always been able to come back and recover public support after taking a hit. I saw that during the Lebanon war and Sabra-Shatila massacre in 1982 and during the First Intifada. But this time, after more than two years of genocide, its loss of support is much heavier. The lies have been exposed at the grassroots.” Wagner, who is affiliated with the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism, said he recently attended a conference where over 500 mostly young evangelicals “listened intently to Palestinian evangelicals.”
Philip Farah, a member of the U.S.-based Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace, called the campaign “obnoxious”—so much so that “it could be an opening for our side.”
Evangelical Alex Awad, former dean of students at Bethlehem Bible College, agrees. “It’s too late now for Israel or Christian Zionist leaders to undo the damage, to make young Christians who have seen the genocide, which continues, believe that Israel is innocent and that thousands of Palestinian civilians—mothers, children and the elderly–deserve to die.”
It seems that now the Israel lobby may also need to beware.
Steve France is a journalist and lawyer (now retired) living in the DC area. An activist for Palestinian rights, he is affiliated with the Episcopal Peace Fellowship Palestine Justice Network and other Christian Palestinian-solidarity groups.
