BBC News
By Tom Bateman
BBC Middle East Correspondent
February 2, 2022
A suspected Iranian disinformation unit ran an elaborate network on Facebook targeting nationalist and ultra-religious Jews in Israel in an attempt to stoke division and inflame tensions with Palestinians, according to research shared exclusively with the BBC.
The alleged foreign interference campaign ran across multiple social media platforms posing as an ultra-Orthodox Jewish news group supportive of extreme right-wing groups.
Its goal was to help fuel “religious war” by amplifying “fear, hatred and chaos”, according to the Israeli disinformation watchdog FakeReporter, which uncovered the group’s suspected Iranian origin.