Over the past few years, the phrase “poison machine” has come to refer to the allegedly organized campaigns through which political spin, fake news, smears against rivals and conspiracy theories are spread. The anonymous disseminators are entirely indifferent to the massive collateral damage that they are doing – to officials, including security officials, to Israelis’ faith in the public system and much more.

One recent example of this was provided by MK Tally Gotliv, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who amplified a fake report which claimed that the Shin Bet received intelligence information that the husband of Shikma Bressler – one of the leaders of the mass protests against the government’s judicial overhaul – spoke on the phone with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar four days before the October 7 attack. Beyond the obvious harm in revealing the identity of a Shin Bet agent, this piece of fake news forced the heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet to spend valuable time, in the middle of the war, addressing the issue and doing damage limitations. Gotliv, incidentally, was not moved by the wall-to-wall denials: the prime minister, she said in the Knesset plenum, had not said that the report was false.

Even though it has been written about and discussed countless times in the media, the existence of an organized “poison machine” has never been proven. How, then, do the spins, the conspiracies and the fake news make such inroads into the minds of hundreds of thousands of Israelis?

Shomrim analyzed three cases of false information being disseminated to hundreds of thousands of Israelis – perhaps even more. They are all different, but in all three cases the false information was first amplified by small and highly niche channels on social media platforms. In a significant number of cases, the breeding ground for the disinformation was channels that started out as dedicated to one specific conspiracy theory, such as opposition to the vaccinations, theories about toxic water in Israel, the deep state and so on. Since October 7, however, these channels have been focused on the war. From there, the disinformation reaches larger but still relatively marginal groups – from where they quickly spread to much larger social media groups with a right-leaning agenda. It is at this stage, in some of the cases we examined, that politicians were exposed to the fake news. Their amplification, as in the case of Gotliv, gives the disinformation a stamp of credibility and leads it to be spread among people who would never have believed a piece of fake news had they know that it originated, for example, from a dedicated anti vaxxer channel with no more than a few dozen followers.

Last week, Bressler sued Gotliv and six other internet activists for slander. In many cases, such lawsuits can drag on for years. Until the case is settled – and, in all likelihood, after it, too – many Israelis will remain convinced of the veracity of the allegations that they were exposed to on so many different platforms.

Edna Karnaval and the ‘Feminazi’ Agenda

The conspiracy surrounding Bressler’s husband began its long journey on a website called Edna Karnaval. The site, which has the tagline ‘News from the legal world’ in its logo, has been carrying dubious news reports on its pages for several years. It also provides advice on how to obtain a copy of “The Man’s Guide to Divorce in Israel” and it seeks financial donations to help “anyone on the frontlines of the battle to defend fathers’ rights.”

An examination of the computer code behind the site leads to someone calling themselves Jonny (Yehonatan) Kapach, an Israeli residing in California. Kapach himself published online a letter that he sent in 2020 to Israel's attorney general, in which he asked for his Israeli citizenship to be revoked. In the letter, he said that he had been subjected to persecution by the authorities, discrimination and “an extremist, lethal, murderous, imported and toxic agenda of radical feminism (henceforth: ‘feminazism’), which has taken control of the State of Israel.” He refers to himself as a “Prisoner in Zion,” adding that “given the criteria for annulling citizens, which include lack of loyalty to the state, I hereby declare that I despite the State of Israel and all its official bodies. Special disdain is reserved for all the High Court justices and all other judges, the bailiffs, the state attorney, police officers, social workers, employees of the State of Israel’s National Insurance Institute and its reprobate ministers.” In that letter (and another that he submitted to the state attorney and published on his website), Kapach describes himself as the “proud owner” or Edna Karnaval.

Shomrim has identified several social media accounts linked to Kapach, which provide a glimpse into his character, his biography and the ideology that motivates him. On his Facebook page, for example, Kapach claims that he served in the Israel Police from 2001 to 2013. He has also published some troubling images there, including an Israeli flag with a swastika instead of a Star of David. Another image suggests that Kapach and MK Gotliv know each other. In it, the Likud lawmaker can be seen sitting next to Kapach during a Knesset committee meeting dedicated to “men’s rights.” Kapach has also shared posts written by Gotliv – in some cases added his own commentary – “The one and only” – to the post.

The fake news about Bressler’s husband first appeared on the Edna Karnaval website on January 24. It contained a hodgepodge of ludicrous accusations and baseless allegations against her, her husband and other relatives. The article was shared on the website’s Telegram channel, from where it quickly spread on the same messaging service to other Israeli channels that have been known to share conspiracy theories. By 8:18 A.M. that day, it had reached a small Telegram group with fewer than 200 members. Other Telegram channels, with audiences of several thousand subscribers, soon picked up the article. One group, which calls itself “Raising the frequency,” shared the entirely baseless article with its 4,700 subscribers – alongside articles about the war in Gaza and what one of the posts referred to as “the coronavirus pandemic hoax.” Incidentally, a few days after the article was published, the same channel invited its subscribers to a discussion with representatives from Edna Karnaval, which it described as “the site which publishes scoops that are permitted and those that are banned from publication and which blows our minds with truths that is hard to accept but which we must […]”

Almost concurrently, people started sharing the fake news on other platforms, including right-wing Facebook groups, including one pro-Likud group with around 9,000 members and another supporting the right-leaning Channel 14 television station (around 45,000 members).

The next person to spread the fake news was an elected member of the Israeli parliament. Several hours after the item spread across various Telegram channels, Gotliv shared the story via her account on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, where she has 60,000 followers. Some of them clearly saw the fact that a sitting member of the Knesset shared the article as verification of its authenticity. They thanked her for bringing the information to their attention and went on to share it on other social media platforms – including the Israeli Q-Anon account. In the United States, Q-Anon claims that former President Donald Trump was targeted by “deep state” actors because of the campaign that he waged against a network of Satan-worshiping pedophiles.

Gotliv’s post on X continued to spread on other Telegram channels, including one what claims that water in Israel “has been poisoned by the industrial waste from fluorosilicic acid fertilizer factories (2,750 followers) and another which promises that 2024 will be “the year in which a new and different light frequency arrives on the planet (6,400 followers). The report was even translated in to German and appeared on the LiveJournal blogsite.

Those exposed to the disinformation did not remain unmoved and a wave of fury toward Bressler swept the internet. In addition to posting horrific comments about Bressler, some users posted her private telephone number and urged others to call her up and ask her about her husband’s alleged treason.

According to the Fake Reporters website, a public-participation research initiative which combats malicious online activity, this particular piece of fake news was widely disseminated. Several posts about the story on X and Facebook garnered hundreds of thousands of views and hundreds of likes. A cautious estimate puts the number of Israelis exposed to the article at several hundred thousand.

Last week, Bressler sued Gotliv and six other internet activists for slander. In many cases, such lawsuits can drag on for years. Until the case is settled – and, in all likelihood, after it, too – many Israelis will remain convinced of the veracity of the allegations that they were exposed to on so many different platforms.

Shomrim asked Jonny Kapach for his comments on the article. He sent a long letter in response, which included a lengthy description of his recent divorce, allegations and insults against several Israeli public figures and institutions and a suggestion that the recent deaths of two Edna Karnaval employees were not accidental. Shomrim decided not to publish his response in full.

According to the conspiracy in this case, Hamas’ October 7 massacre was part of “a secret plan by the top IDF brass, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet to topple Netanyahu.” Doron Attias, an advisor to MK Nissim Vaturi, shared the conspiracy theory in a private WhatsApp group that also includes several leading figures from Likud.

‘The Shin Bet Tried to Topple Bibi’

The fake news about Shikma Bressler and her husband is by no means a rare or extraordinary case. Another example, which recently hit the headlines due to the severity of the allegations, came to light some three weeks after the outbreak of the war and was first reported by Channel 13 journalist Bar Shem-Or. According to the conspiracy in this case, Hamas’ October 7 massacre was part of “a secret plan by the top IDF brass, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet to topple Netanyahu.”

The path that this conspiracy took, from niche groups on social media platforms to key figures in the Knesset, is similar to the case of Bressler. The alleged “secret plan” by Israel’s security services to oust the prime minister first started to spread on the evening of October 24 among a number of small WhatsApp groups, reaching a few thousand people. It quickly spread, however, to Telegram and Facebook accounts – at least some of which appear to be fake. In the following hours, the conspiracy was shared on more popular accounts on X, where it was exposed to tens of thousands of people and from where it reached much larger groups on other platforms. It was reposted to a Facebook group called “(The Official Group) Friends who love Benjamin Netanyahu,” which has almost 90,000 members. The same group has frequently published smears against opposition politicians, news reports of dubious veracity (including, for example, an image created using artificial intelligence of demonstrators blocking aid trucks in the Gaza border) and so on. The impact was almost immediate: the false report was amplified through dozens of additional accounts and quickly spread to other platforms. It is believed that it reached hundreds of thousands of people.

From this point, the road to the Knesset was a relatively short one. Doron Attias, an advisor to MK Nissim Vaturi, shared the conspiracy theory in a private WhatsApp group that also includes several leading figures from Likud, including then Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, MK Keti Shitrit and Haim Bibas, who serves as mayor of Modi’in and chair of the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel. Unlike Gotliv, none of them went on to further amplify the fake news (Vaturi even distanced himself from it, saying that “There is no room for delusional conspiracies”), but it was spread widely, nonetheless.

The abovementioned “Raising the frequency” channel on Telegram and another channel went even further, claiming the son of “an Israeli general,” working through Golan, had been freed from Hamas captivity. The posts even managed to drag the daughter of Miri Regev into the story, alleging that she had also been freed from captivity.

Did Yair Golan Rescue Miri Regev’s Daughter from Captivity?

The case of former Meretz lawmaker and deputy IDF chief of staff, Maj.-Gen. (Res.) Yair Golan. On October 7, Golan – on his own initiative – drove from his home in central Israel to the site of the massacre at the Nova dance party on Kibbutz Re’im, rescuing several people who were trapped there. His actions were widely reported, making the former head of the IDF’s Northern Command – according to opinion polls, at least – the leading candidate to head up a new left-wing party.

A few days after the war broke out, Golan became the subject of fake news and conspiracies. One Telegram group, for example, claimed that Golan’s speedy actions on that day are proof that he knew in advance what was going to happen. The post which made that claim quickly reached the above mentioned “Friends who love Benjamin Netanyahu” Facebook group, with its 90,000 members – hundreds of whom “liked” it.

This was not the only fake news item in which Golan was the star. A Telegram group called “The Betrayal” – which claims to expose how the “heads of the political and military establishment have betrayed the Jewish citizens of Israel” – explained to its 900 or so followers that Golan contacted Hamas directly and negotiated the rescue of the son of Haaretz columnist Nir Gontarz. The same report, of course, did not forget to mention that Golan was a vocal opponent of the Netanyahu government’s planned judicial overhaul. The abovementioned “Raising the frequency” channel on Telegram and another channel went even further, claiming the son of “an Israeli general,” working through Golan, had been freed from Hamas captivity. The posts even managed to drag the daughter of Miri Regev into the story, alleging that she had also been freed from captivity. The report does not specify whether Regev, who serves as Israel’s transportation minister, needed Golan to function as mediator or whether she managed alone.

That was not the end of the conspiracy theories starring Golan, however. A few days ago, a popular account on X, which has more than 20,000 followers and which is often reposted by Yair Netanyahu, claimed in a long thread that “an undercover agent” penetrated “the IDF’s most sensitive areas” on the day of the Hamas attack – and also dragged Golan’s name into the mix. This thread reached a total of 20,000 users and was even shared by former Knesset members and the founder of the Otzma Yehudit party, Michael Ben-Ari, who has 41,700 followers. It is important to point out that these conspiracies continue to echo. Every time Golan makes a public statement, they are raised – either explicitly or implicitly.

Achiya Schatz, the CEO of Fake Reporter, says that conspiracy theories like the ones covered in this article are representative of a very worrying trend. “Identifying domestic enemies instead of dealing with real problems and dangers that Israel is facing distorts not only the public perception of reality, but also that of the decision-makers who are supposed to make those decisions based on reliable information,” he told Shomrim.

The “poison machine” is especially harmful during wartime, says Prof. Karin Nachon from Reichman University. “During a war, it is a lot easier to spread disinformation and fake news, because the various institutions that usually help citizens differentiate between truth and lies are not functioning as normal. During war, the gatekeepers who are usually considered credible are not available to stop and discredit conspiracy theories. As a result, these conspiracies have a tendency and an ability to be far more influential than they normally would.”