About this episode

The episode discusses the impact of Iranian online campaigns and internal political dynamics in Israel ahead of the elections.

With Israeli elections set for October 27, Iran is increasingly pairing its military actions with aggressive online campaigns designed to sow chaos and conflict – alongside ongoing efforts to recruit Israelis as spies, Haaretz cyber and disinformation correspondent Omer Benjakob warned on the Haaretz Election Podcast, in a roundtable with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer and correspondent Linda Dayan .  “We’ve let the digital arena fester,” Benjakob said, in a stinging critique of the way in which Israel’s vaunted security services have dropped the ball in online foreign influence that has now been “supercharged” by AI. One of the reasons the phenomenon has been difficult to combat is because “nine times out of 10, you can’t differentiate between a pro‑Iranian campaign and a pro‑Netanyahu campaign,” he added, noting that Israel’s prime minister and his far-right ruling coalition and the country’s enemies, he noted, have a stake in maximizing extremism and division in the months leading up to Election Day.  In their review of the week’s political headlines, the Election Podcast panel also…

People in this episode

Host: Allison Kaplan Sommer

Guests: Omer Benjakob, Linda Dayan

Topics covered

• Israeli elections
• disinformation
• online chaos
• Iran's influence
• political analysis
• AI in warfare
• extremism

Keywords

• Iran
• Israel
• disinformation
• elections
• politics
• AI
• extremism
• Rahm Emanuel
• Ro Khanna
• Gadi Eisenkot

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Iran, Israel, Likud, IDF

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