Imagine that a Russian military unit secretly operated what appeared to be an independent fact-checking organisation during wartime.
Imagine that Chinese-linked actors used fake online personas to influence political debates in Europe.
Imagine that Tehran hired Western political consultants to shape public opinion abroad through unidentified online “think tanks”.
Brussels would have little difficulty finding the right label: what the European External Action Service calls Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI).
Yet when similar allegations emerge from investigations involving Israeli actors, the language changes.
The same methods are more likely to be described as public diplomacy, strategic communications, advocacy, or isolated misconduct. If they are not ignored, almost gaslighted, in such parliamentary inquiries.
The result is a glaring blind spot in Europe’s approach to information security.
This matters because the EU has spent years developing a sophisticated framework for analysing influence operations.
Fake personas and covert amplification
FIMI was designed to move the discussion beyond questions of ideology or regime type and focus on behaviour: fake personas, covert amplification, disguised sponsorship, proxy networks, and manipulation of public discourse.
If that framework is to have any credibility, it cannot apply only to geopolitical adversaries.
A series of investigations published over the past year raises precisely this challenge.
In France, investigations by Haaretz and Libération traced an online campaign targeting leftwing political figures — through fake accounts and AI-generated nude images to an Israeli-developed influence infrastructure.
If a Russian network had used fake personas and synthetic content to target political actors in a European democracy, few would hesitate to classify the operation as foreign interference.
Another investigation by the Israeli outlet HaMakom reported that the Israeli Defence Force Spokesperson’s Unit operated what appeared to be an ‘independent fact-checking’ and news initiative during the Gaza war, relying on fictitious civic branding and undisclosed influencer networks.
Again, imagine the reaction if a Russian military body had secretly operated a supposedly independent fact-checking organisation while conducting a major military campaign.
The resemblance to the methods highlighted in EU assessments of Russian influence operations would be difficult to ignore.
The comparison is particularly striking when viewed alongside Russia’s Doppelgänger operation, one of the best documented FIMI campaigns identified by the EU.
Doppelgänger relied on fake and cloned media outlets masquerading as legitimate news organisations in order to inject narratives into public debate while concealing their origin. The specific content differs, but the underlying logic is similar: create an apparently independent source and use it to shape public perceptions without transparent attribution.
The same pattern appears elsewhere.
Earlier this year, Haaretz revealed the activities of Clock Tower X, a political consulting firm linked to former Donald Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale that reportedly conducted pro-Israel influence campaigns aimed at the American evangelical right.
The significance of the story lies less in the message than in the mechanism.
A foreign government seeking to influence audiences abroad through commercial political consultants, digital targeting specialists, and sophisticated marketing techniques is precisely the kind of hybrid ecosystem European security officials increasingly associate with contemporary influence operations.
Here the comparison is less with Russia than with China.
China’s covert operations
Recent EU assessments describe how Chinese influence campaigns often rely on intermediaries, influencers, commercial actors, and ostensibly independent organisations that obscure the original source of a message.
Modern information operations rarely resemble Cold War propaganda. They function through networks. The Clock Tower X case suggests that Israeli actors have embraced similar models.
None of this means that Israel should be treated as equivalent to Russia or China.
Russia’s influence operations are larger, more systematic, and more directly aimed at undermining European institutions.
China is a major player in terms of influence campaigns.
But seeing Israel as a democratic ally which should not be scrutinised for its actions is a mistake, First because at best, Israel is described as a flawed democracy, by V-dem and the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, (when ignoring its control of the occupied territories).
Second, even democracies can engage in manipulative influence practices, and they should be called out for it.
The question is not whether Israel belongs in the same geopolitical category as Europe’s principal adversaries. It does not. The question is why similar methods are analysed through entirely different conceptual frameworks.
When Russian actors deploy fake media brands, Europe speaks of FIMI. When Chinese actors use opaque networks of intermediaries, Europe speaks of FIMI. When Iranian actors target foreign audiences through covert influence campaigns, Europe speaks of FIMI.
When investigations describe fake personas, disguised information platforms, military-linked influence operations, or outsourced political targeting linked to Israeli actors, Europe usually reaches for a different vocabulary.
Germany illustrates the problem particularly clearly.
Because of Germany’s historical responsibility toward Israel, scrutiny of Israeli influence activities often carries political sensitivities that do not exist in discussions of other foreign actors. Legitimate concerns about antisemitism can make institutions reluctant to examine Israeli influence operations through the same analytical lens applied elsewhere.
But information security frameworks are only useful if they are applied consistently. A fake persona remains a fake persona regardless of whether it serves Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, or Jerusalem. An undisclosed influence network remains an undisclosed influence network regardless of its political objectives.
The purpose of FIMI is not to identify enemies. It is to identify manipulation.
If Europe applies that principle selectively, the framework becomes less a tool of analysis than an expression of geopolitical preference. And that is a vulnerability that hostile actors of every kind will be quick to exploit.
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