Israel’s Ministry of Subversion

On 30 July 2025, Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, posted a highly provocative image on X: a photograph of a child bride alongside the caption, “Starmer’s Britain lowers voting age to 16 to pander to Muslim voters. What’s next, adopting Islamist child marriages at 12?” While superficially framed as commentary on a domestic British political decision, the post reveals a deeper and more strategic intention. It was not merely a gratuitous insult aimed at British Muslims or a performative critique of the Labour government; rather, it reflects a concerted Israeli effort to exploit and inflame socio-political fault lines in the UK, with the broader goal of shaping the information environment in ways that are favourable to Israel’s geopolitical agenda.

This practice fits squarely within the framework I introduce in my 2023 book Subversion, i.e. the weaponisation of narratives intended to incline target audiences, civil society and policymakers alike, to voluntarily adopt a preordained decision or adapt their attitudes and behaviour to suit the information warrior. Unlike coercion, which depends on threats or overt pressure, subversion seeks to shape perception and cognition in such a way that the target’s own volition becomes a tool of the subverter’s strategy. In the case of Chikli and the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, this strategy has increasingly resembled the disinformation campaigns employed by actors such as the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the Russian Internet Research Agency. It is a sophisticated form of information warfare, pursued not through overt censorship or propaganda, but through the subtle manipulation of narratives, the strategic cultivation of ideological alliances, and the careful exploitation of civil society’s vulnerabilities.

Indeed, recent developments in Europe underscore the transnational nature of this threat. In a landmark move, the Dutch National Coordinator for Security and Counter-terrorism (NCTV) designated Israel as a foreign threat to national security due to its disinformation campaigns. According to the NCTV report, the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs disseminated materials directly to journalists and politicians in the Netherlands, bypassing formal diplomatic channels and including sensitive personal data about Dutch citizens. This breach not only endangered those named but also demonstrated a flagrant disregard for European legal and diplomatic norms. It serves as further evidence that Israel’s information strategy is not confined to narrative management at home but extends well into the public spheres of its so-called allies, where it seeks to shape policy discourses, public opinion, and ultimately, the international response to its military campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank.

At the heart of this strategy lies a deliberate conflation between Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, and threats to Western civilisation. By stoking fears of Islam, Israeli officials like Chikli have found willing partners among Europe’s far-right political movements, whose hostility to migration and multiculturalism mirrors Israel’s own suspicion of Muslim solidarity with Palestinians. The result is a shared ideological ecosystem wherein Israeli narratives are amplified and legitimised by actors in Europe who have long championed xenophobic and exclusionary policies. Chikli’s documented meetings with figures such as Marine Le Pen, Santiago Abascal, and Jordan Bardella are not aberrations, but part of a coherent diplomatic project in which Israel engages openly with the European far right, despite the fact that many of these figures have ties to parties with histories of antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and authoritarianism.

By elevating such alliances, the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs is engaging in a dangerous instrumentalisation of antisemitism discourse. Under the guise of combating antisemitism, it legitimises actors whose core political projects include the undermining of democratic pluralism and the vilification of minority communities, especially Muslims. In so doing, like Russia Israel is not merely aligning itself with illiberal forces abroad; it is actively encouraging the polarisation of European societies, in the belief that an Islamophobic and divided Europe will be less able and less willing to offer coherent opposition to its policies towards the Palestinians. This is particularly relevant at a time when human rights organisations and even Israeli NGOs have accused the Israeli government of genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare.

It is in this context that Chikli’s tweet must be interpreted not as a careless provocation, but as an integral element of a larger strategy of subversion. By inserting a toxic and inflammatory narrative into British political discourse, Chikli sought not only to delegitimise Labour’s decision to lower the voting age but also to frame Muslim participation in democracy as a civilisational threat. This rhetorical sleight of hand, whereby democratic inclusion becomes synonymous with extremism, serves to reinforce a broader narrative architecture in which Israel positions itself as the last bastion of Western modernity against the “twin spectres” of Islamic mobilization and leftist relativism. The reward for such efforts is the growing visibility of Israeli flags at far-right rallies across Europe, not as symbols of solidarity with the Jewish people, but as emblems of exclusionary nationalism and cultural supremacy.

The strategic logic behind such efforts is clear. By shaping the information landscape of allied democracies, Israel seeks to inoculate itself against international accountability and to erode the coalitions of civil society that might otherwise mobilise against its conduct. This is not merely about gaining favourable votes at the United Nations or avoiding indictments at the International Criminal Court; it is about pre-emptively fracturing the moral and political consensus that underpins the liberal rules-based international order. Like Putin’s regime in Moscow, Israel’s orchestration and curation of far-Right information networks in Europe is an attempt of subverting socio-political cohesion overseas.

If Europe wishes to uphold its democratic integrity and resist foreign subversion, it must begin to treat Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs with the same degree of scrutiny it reserves for other state actors engaged in information warfare. This means recognising that disinformation is not limited to authoritarian regimes or adversarial powers but may also emanate from nominal allies when their geopolitical interests diverge from democratic norms. Transparency measures, independent investigative journalism, and cross-party commitments to information integrity must be strengthened, while national governments should develop legal mechanisms to hold foreign state actors accountable when they engage in disinformation campaigns that endanger their citizens or undermine democratic cohesion.

Furthermore, European Jewish communities must not be placed in the impossible position of defending Israeli policy as a condition of their safety. The co-option of antisemitism discourse to justify Islamophobia or to validate alliances with far-right extremists erodes the credibility of both causes and diminishes the moral authority of those who genuinely seek to combat hatred. The interests of diaspora Jews, particularly in pluralistic and multicultural societies, are best served by coalitions rooted in democratic values, not by Faustian bargains with ideologues whose support for Israel is contingent upon the suppression of other minorities.

Ultimately, Chikli’s actions and the strategic posture of his ministry reflect a broader transformation in Israeli statecraft, whereby soft power is no longer pursued through cultural diplomacy or shared liberal values, but through the orchestration of ideological coalitions that serve narrow ethno-nationalist goals. This shift carries profound implications not only for the Jewish diaspora, but also for the global struggle against authoritarian populism and disinformation. To counter it, European states must reaffirm their commitment to democratic resilience, international law, and the principle that the manipulation of public discourse by foreign governments—whether through propaganda, disinformation, or narrative warfare—will be met with robust and principled resistance