Israeli Intelligence Operations: The Blue Network
Thousands of Americans as clandestine Israeli agents to spy on and operate against their countrymen
“The Blue Network” is a name affectionately bequeathed by one former brigadier general Vaknin-Gil1. Gil served as an intelligence officer for the Israeli Air Force, Chief Censor of the state of Israel, and Director General of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy. An interesting note: the only Wikipedia page that has a page for her is the Spanish version of Wiki.
This network is a conceptual framework and operational coalition of pro-Israel actors, organizations, and influencers designed to counter the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) supporters and anti-Israel activists. It was part of a broader Israeli government-backed initiative to combat perceived threats through intelligence gathering, cyber operations, and propaganda efforts.
“…the network was a spiderweb of scores of well-funded organizations in the United States and around the world that work with and carry out actions on behalf of Israel. And as Gild Erdan noted, it was a network that wanted to keep their relationship with his intelligence organization very covert.2”
The Blue Network (“The Network”) was tasked with combatting anti-Israel sentiment within the United States. Their targets? Boycott movements and activist causes aimed at supporting Palestinians as well as individuals who bring attention to distasteful activities by the Israeli government and IDF. Because they were operating on American soil and against American citizens and politicians, secrecy was of the utmost. The need for secrecy behooved them converting America’s own people into individuals that would ‘fight’ on Israel’s behalf.
“[Ayelet Shaked] told the crowd of about thirteen hundred that Israel must seize the initiative and ‘move from defense to offense’ against American members and followers of BDS…. Americans they were planning to attack, and others like them, were involuntarily subsidizing Israel with nearly $4 billion a year in direct foreign assistance3.”
Israel has constructed an assembly line for propaganda production, dissemination, and indoctrination through their ‘war room’ created in the Blue Network. In this article the Jerusalem Post, while very cleverly and politically, openly states that they are training volunteers (many of which are college students) to produce content and coordinate efforts to spread pro-Israel propaganda. If you click on the link for the article (which I recommend) I want you to hone-in on the word ‘hasbara.’
When searching for the definition of hasbara the result gives you “enlightenment.” Keep in mind we are dealing with intelligence operations, they rely on the manipulation of perception through language. One could argue that ‘enlightenment’ is equal to propaganda that justifies one side’s biases, including desire for war. Similar to efforts deployed by the Nazi empire to justify ethnic cleansing of a rival or hated group of people.
The Hasbara War Room was created by Yarden Ben-Yosef, who proclaimed himself as an expert in cognitive influence operations. The War Room was funded by Sheldon Adelson and Adam Milstein, housed in the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya, and began operations by going to work against criticism of Israel for its war against Gaza back in 2014. (Why does this sound so familiar?) This war room, along with the Act.il platform, not only coordinated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, as well as intelligence agencies, but was also manned by current and former Israeli intel officers.
I want you to pay attention to more than just the structure of these operations. Focus on the execution. Really pay attention to the strategies deployed to manipulate Americans from voicing their opinions. A project of note is Cyber Shield. Which I will be covering later.
The Hasbara War Room coordinated and directed groups of volunteers to engage in online trolling behavior to attack their victims “like digital wolf packs4.” These attacks included insidious strategies of persistent doxing (which can be particularly dangerous when the address of an individual is made available online, opening them up to swatting attacks that have seen a rise in popularity over recent years) and campaigns of ad hominem and slander like those relying on calling individuals Nazis. In a sinister way, this approach is quite comical since the directing entity (the Israeli government and military complex) is the one that is pushing propaganda to support the ethnic cleansing of an entire people. I also want to add that the strategy of using baseless slander—calling individuals Nazis for simply not holding the same position as themselves—sounds awfully akin to strategies that have been used in the polarized political discourse here in the US as of late. Which is rapidly losing its effectiveness as the population has continued to become wholly desensitized to the fears of public opinion around the baseless claims.
“Located at 3514 International Drive NW in Washington, the Israeli embassy is the country’s epicenter of spying in the United States….FBI Counterintelligence determined that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cell phone surveillance devices that were discovered close to the White House and other sensitive locations within Washington. Known as international mobile subscriber identity-catchers, or IMSI-catchers, they are traditional tools of trade for spies because they mimic standard cell phone towers and thus fool cell phones into revealing data, including contents of calls and emails5.”
These activities have been described as an "online propaganda campaign" and "a virtual situation room of pro-Israel experts," with users guided on how to respond using provided talking points (scripts) and ready-made memes. This aligns with the description of the Blue Network as a tool turning thousands of Americans into a "robotic army of Israeli trolls," managed by a headquarters near Tel Aviv, working with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Strategic Affairs.
“According to Erdan’s deputy, director-general Sima Vaknin-Gil, a reserve brigadier general, Israel was waging its covert war so that the ‘narrative in the world won’t be that Israel equals apartheid6.’”
Operations such as Project Butterfly and Canary Mission and the Act.il platform were within the Blue Network to bully individuals into silence and submission, while also collecting intel for later use and the generation of dossiers.
Beyond American Universities
The Blue Network’s activities were not limited to spying on, and manipulating, students and campus staff like Canary Mission or Project Butterfly. A man by the name of Shamai Kedem Leibowitz was tasked with spying on the Israeli embassy. Leibowitz was reading emails, monitoring conversations, and reading NSA reports that were detailing secret operations to influence Congress. This influence included consistent pressure to back a potential Israeli nuclear strike on Iran7.
The Network’s operational capacity and reach did not stop there either. Former Congressman Tom Hayden (and ex-husband to Jane Fonda) described an interaction with one Michael Berman that gives us a peak into The Network’s reach into the world of Hollywood:
“Twenty-five years ago I stared into the eyes of Michael Berman, chief operative for his congressman-brother, Howard Berman… ‘I represent the Israeli defense forces,’ Michael said. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. Michael seemed to imagine himself the gatekeeper protecting Los Angeles’ Westside for Israel’s political interests… Since Jews represented one-third of the Democratic district’s primary voters, Berman held a balance of power.’8”
The Hollywood angle will be talked about later.
Further yet, one project that was part of the Blue Network—Cyber Shield—was produced to also spy on practicing and devout Christians, and even labor unionists. Cyber Shield had direct access to Israeli intelligence resources to carry out its missions.
Echoes
By creating a pro-Israel echo chamber on US campuses the network very effectively indoctrinates America’s next generations, which creates soldiers to push Israel’s objectives without these citizens’ knowing. In 5GW: War Without Consent I discuss the mechanisms that make every individual across the globe explicitly susceptible to the kinds of strategies deployed by Israel’s Blue Network.
By manipulating America’s youth on campuses and through social media, blackmailing and pressuring American politicians, and manipulating public discourse through organizations like the ADL, Israel effectively has turned America into a puppet-state.
Israel’s operations under the Blue Network include, but are not limited to:
Cyber Shield
White Knight
Wikistrat
Concert
Act.il
I will be writing more about Israel’s clandestine activities that have been so beautifully covered by the likes of James Bamford, Jack Poulson, and others into the future. These essays here are intended to be much more condensed information sourced from others’ work that need to be shared. I cannot recommend Bamford’s book or Poulson’s substack enough. Bamford’s book can be purchased off Amazon here. The density of information presented is beyond comparison, I cannot recommend his work enough.
Like, subscribe, and share these pieces out. Americans need to know what forces are bearing down upon them, their families, and their peers.
Bamford, James. (p. 207). Spyfail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence. Twelve, Hachette Book Group, 2023.
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