How Israel uses Google Ads in its information offensive against Iran

The Israeli government is a big fan of Google ads. It has used them for marketing campaigns that range from discrediting the UN refugee agency to promoting the Israeli candidate in the Eurovision singing competition.

Now, Israel is targeting European audiences with an intense ad campaign about its military operation against Iran. Some of the ads make debatable claims and were mislabeled by Google. One ad features the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), implicitly enlisting him in Israel’s case for bombing Iran.

The Israeli Government Advertising Agency’s campaign consists of twelve videos that portray the attacks on Iran as necessary for the safety of Israel and the West. Many of the ads state that Israel “did what had to be done” by bombarding Iran. They also make disputed claims, according to experts consulted by Indicator. 

First, the ads claim Iran has invested “billions” to build missiles that can travel as far as 4,000 kilometers, putting most of Europe “within the regime’s striking distance.” For now, Iran’s ability to reach past 2,000 kilometers is a matter of speculation, according to both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Congressional Research Service.

Other ads state that Israel is only hitting military and terrorist targets, while Iran has struck civilians and families. Amnesty International and the UN have said that each side has inflicted civilian casualties. For example, Iranian missiles hit “in or around” a hospital, and The New York Times reported that Israeli bombs have killed children.

In the most viewed ad in our sample, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that “Iran has produced enough highly enriched uranium for nine atom bombs.” This is the crux of Israel’s campaign against Iran and a complex statement to assess. The US intelligence community is divided on the matter and the IAEA has said it “did not have any proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon.”

Alex Wellerstein, a historian of nuclear weapons at the Stevens Institute of Technology, told me that “implying that Iran has weapons-usable uranium right now is misleading” because “Iran’s known level of maximum enrichment (60%) of its uranium means it would be very difficult to weaponize.” Wellerstein added that “while it might be technically feasible, as far as we know from what has been released by other states, it would be unprecedented to use that level of enrichment in a weapon, and would come with a lot of practical difficulties and a high chance of failure.”

All but one of the ads in our sample are hosted on the official YouTube channel of Israel’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The outlier is a video featuring Rafael Grossi, director general of the IAEA. Over footage of Grossi at a press conference, the ad’s audio track proclaims that “the UN’s atomic watchdog sounds the alarm: the Iranian regime is violating its nuclear commitments while advancing long-range missile capabilities that could reach Europe.”

Grossi expressed grave concerns about Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA shortly before Israel’s strikes. On June 9th, he said that “unless and until Iran assists the Agency in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues, the Agency will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful.”

In the same statement, however, Grossi noted that “I am convinced that the only way forward goes through a diplomatic solution, strongly backed by an IAEA verification arrangement.” In a speech to the Security Council on June 20th, Grossi called for “maximum restraint,” warning that “military escalation threatens lives and delays indispensable work towards a diplomatic solution for the long-term assurance that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon.”

It is therefore highly unlikely that Grossi feels comfortable being used in an ad claiming that Iran “must be neutralized” through military means. (The IAEA did not respond to my requests for comment.)

I first came across Israel’s ads because my friend Daniele, who is based in Rome, told me he kept seeing them everywhere he went online. One video autoplayed when he was reading a news article about a ransomware attack on the municipality of Pisa. Another appeared over a recipe for mini cheesecakes on a cooking blog.

Besides news media and niche publications, users report seeing the ads on YouTube and on streaming platforms including Lifetime, Pluto TV, and Tubi.

Though the Israeli government has also run some Iran-related ads in the United States, its current effort appears primarily focused on five European countries with geopolitical significance. Britain, France, Germany, and Italy are the continent’s largest economies; Belgium is the seat of the European Union’s institutions. The videos have been translated into French, German, and Italian. 

The precise reach of the ads is not available through Google’s ad library. But we can estimate their reach based on the views that the videos received on YouTube. As of Monday, that number was upwards of 34 million.

The ads were labeled by Google as “Arts & Entertainment.” This topic labeling may have affected where the ads appeared, as publishers can presumably opt out of certain controversial topics. A Google spokesperson told me that “it’s possible our systems may misclassify ads. When we detect this or it’s brought to our attention we correct it.” Following my inquiry, the labels on my sample were switched to “Law & Government” (see before and after below).

While reporting this story, I also found that the Israeli government has at least two Google Ads accounts with the same name (“Israeli Government Advertising Agency”). One is verified and the other is not. The unverified account ran some of the videos described above as well as ~200 variations of a banner ad declaring that "the world’s most dangerous regime must never obtain the world’s most dangerous weapon.”

The reason behind the unverified duplicate account is unclear.

Google told me advertisers are allowed to have multiple accounts and that it “strictly prohibit[s] advertisers from “making it seem like they are affiliated with another brand, organization or government entity when they are not.”

The Israeli government has the right to make its case in the international arena and that extends to digital spaces. The question is whether it should be able to buy targeted amplification through Google’s advertising network. 

Emma Briant, a researcher of propaganda and Visiting Associate Professor at Notre Dame University, told me that “governments put out their messaging anywhere they believe will be most effective for reaching their desired audience. That includes commercial advertising channels.” 

Briant notes that banning governments from advertising on online platforms is not desirable given that this “would restrict their ability to use these channels to communicate sometimes necessary guidance on public safety or public health.” She advocates for tight behavioral policies that avoid profiling based on sensitive characteristics, ensure transparent attribution, and penalize misleading or deceptive messaging.

The messaging itself is evidently not deemed misleading or deceptive by Google. A company spokesperson told me that “we have blocked ads related to this conflict when they’ve crossed the line and violated our policies.”

Based on publicly available guidelines, it seems the Israeli campaign doesn’t violate Google’s unreliable claims policy because the relevant clause on political claims is narrowly scoped to ads that “are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.” The ads also don’t appear to violate policies on dangerous and derogatory content or shocking content because they are neither targeted harassment nor contain violent imagery.

This regular feature provides a breakdown of how we reported an article and how you can use the same tools and techniques.