Parscale, who is the chief strategy officer for Salem Media, is not the only registered representative of Israel working for the media company.<\/p>\n
One of Parscale\u2019s team members working on the Israel contract, Ashley Evdokimo, is Salem\u2019s vice president for communications. According to her\u00a0LinkedIn profile<\/u><\/a>, Evdokimo, who works with Parscale at his digital strategy company Campaign Nucleus, took a position at Salem Media in September 2025, the same month that Parscale was hired to work for the Israeli government. A month later, Evdokimo registered as a foreign agent for Israel.<\/p>\n One of the largest recipients of the Israeli funds coming in through Parscale\u2019s contract is a firm called Portman Road Strategies, which is run by longtime GOP strategist Mike Shields, according to Virginia state records. Shields\u2019 firm received just under $5 million from Parscale as part of the contract in exchange for\u00a0media<\/a>\u00a0placement, consulting, polling, and advertising work.<\/p>\n Shields, a longtime Parscale ally, is also largely responsible for staffing the contract with the Israeli government. Of Parscale\u2019s 18 team members at Clock Tower X, 14 are staffers at Convergence Media, a \u201ccampaign strategy, digital, public affairs & media firm\u201d led by Shields.<\/p>\n During the first\u00a0Trump administration<\/a>, Shields and Parscale operated as a package deal, consistently\u00a0recommending<\/u><\/a>\u00a0each other\u2019s services as both became power brokers in Trump world. Parscale frequently convinced GOP campaigns \u2014 including that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis \u2014 to hire Shields\u2019 Convergence Media. The duo are now applying their digital influence campaign playbook to\u00a0Israel<\/a>. According to\u00a0his bio<\/u><\/a>, Shields was also a CNN commentator, a former chief of staff for the Republican National Committee, and a\u00a0strategist<\/u><\/a>\u00a0for former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).<\/p>\n Parscale directed another $6 million of the Israeli funds to SparkFire Technologies, an AI chatbot company. SparkFire\u2019s role was previously unknown, but it was related to a campaign of text messages that was first reported by\u00a0Responsible Statecraft<\/u><\/a>. Under the contract, Parscale\u2019s firm reaches out to Americans under the auspices of supposed \u201cpeace\u201d organizations.<\/p>\n SparkFire\u2019s main service, called the\u00a0flywheel<\/u><\/a>, uses AI to reach out to people with personalized messages. The AI then performs an analysis on the conversation, with SparkFire storing the data and using it to target messages to the recipient.<\/p>\n Bot texts sent by SparkFire can appear compassionate, understanding, and referential, based on screenshots shared with the Intercept and Responsible Statecraft.<\/p>\n SparkFire claims these types of conversations are highly effective. The company boasts its messaging had a\u00a045% conversion rate<\/u><\/a>, suggesting almost half of the recipients were persuaded by the AI-powered conversation. While the scale of its text campaigns is unknown, SparkFire\u00a0says<\/u><\/a>\u00a0it can reach millions of people.<\/p>\n In text conversations with Americans about Israel, SparkFire\u2019s bots frequently push links to pro-Israel websites and videos created by Parscale. One video, posted by a YouTube channel called Allies for Peace,\u00a0claims<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that the narrative of suffering in Gaza was manufactured.<\/p>\n The pro-Israel websites and videos created for the initiative are also intended to influence artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT and Claude that scrape the internet for content.<\/p>\n Parscale\u2019s websites include a legal disclaimer that they were created on behalf of the Israeli government. To identify the connection to paid pro-Israel advocacy, users of ChatGPT and Claude would have to ask the chatbot for sources, click the links to Parscale\u2019s websites, and then scroll to the bottom of the pages to see that they are receiving information from a contractor for Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Another company that appears to be involved with Parscale\u2019s Israel contract is Jackson Parker, whose\u00a0Florida chapter<\/u><\/a>\u00a0was founded by Parscale and billionaire oil tycoon Tim Dunn in early 2025. The company shares an Ohio office with several other Parscale companies working on the Israel project.<\/p>\n A\u00a0recent job listing<\/u><\/a>\u00a0from Jackson Parker for a director of strategic communications says, \u201cWe are a mission-driven organization focused on combating anti-Semitism and strengthening public understanding of Israel as America\u2019s closest ally in the Middle East.\u201d One of the position\u2019s requirements, the listing says, is to maintain compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.<\/p>\n Dunn, a major Trump donor, is an evangelical preacher and billionaire who has spent tens of millions of dollars to\u00a0push Texas<\/u><\/a>\u00a0towards a Christian governance model. He\u2019s staunchly pro-Israel and chairs the Christian Advisory Board of the Israel Allies Foundation. Dunn once\u00a0told<\/u><\/a>\u00a0a Jewish Republican Texas House speaker, however, that only Christians should hold leadership positions in the statehouse.<\/p>\n Dunn is also heavily involved in the recently announced purchase of Salem Media. Earlier this month, WaterStone, a Colorado-based nonprofit that already controlled a 49.5% voting interest in Salem Media, said it would\u00a0acquire<\/u><\/a>\u00a0the remaining shares of the company at a 250% premium of its recent share price, taking the company private. Hexagon Foundation, a nonprofit led by Dunn, is the largest institutional donor to WaterStone. Dunn\u2019s organization, which says its\u00a0mission<\/u><\/a>\u00a0is to support WaterStone,\u00a0gave<\/u><\/a>\u00a0$70 million to Salem\u2019s new owners in 2025.<\/p>\n On LinkedIn, an employee of another company called Three Tech, which received close to half a million dollars from the Israel contract, wrote \u201ccome work with us\u201d and then shared job listings from Jackson Parker.<\/p>\n Three Tech, a software development company founded in 2024, is connected to a constellation of interwoven firms run by Parscale in Ohio and Texas that have been paid with Israeli government money. Three Tech is listed as a \u201ccertified partner\u201d of a\u00a0marketing firm<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that shares Clock Tower X\u2019s Medina, Ohio, address (along with another Parscale company receiving Israeli money as part of this deal, AI company Eyesover). According to the CEO\u2019s LinkedIn, Three Tech uses a team of \u201c80 Serbian engineers.\u201d<\/p>\n Parscale\u2019s work, with the help of subcontractors, is part of a broader strategy by the Israeli government to win back support from young conservatives and evangelicals. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans aged 18 to 49 have an unfavorable opinion of Israel, according to a\u00a0Pew poll<\/u><\/a>\u00a0from March.<\/p>\n Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu\u2019s government has ramped up spending on influence operations. Earlier this year, Israel\u00a0more than quadrupled<\/u><\/a>\u00a0its public diplomacy budget from $150 million in 2025 to $730 million in 2026.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nA Parscale partnership<\/h3>\n
Israel-loving oil tycoon<\/h3>\n