Did Google Really Take $45 Million to Push Israeli War Propaganda?

Several reports and investigations claim that Google has signed a $45 million deal with Netanyahu to push Israeli war propaganda.

These reports state that in June 2025 a six month contract was signed for $45 million for Google's YouTube and Display Video 360 platform. There are also additional reports of ads buys of up to $3 million on X and $2.1 million on Outbrain/Teads (advertisers).

This campaign is referred to as "Hasbara" — public diplomacy/ media messaging, which is used to promote government messaging, including ads that have disputed reports of famine in Gaza. One particular video, reaching over 6 million views, released by Israel’s foreign ministry in August stated: “There is food in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie.”

These alleged contracts are coming from the Israeli government advertising agency, Lapam, which directly reports to the prime minister's office.

According to the alleged leaked screenshots of government documents, Lapam has been contracted since June 17, 2025 till December 31, 2025.

Calcalitechal, a prominent Israeli business and financial newspaper, claims that Lapam obtained a tender exemption in June for contract companies including Google, YouTube and X. The amount listed in NIS (Israeli New Shekels) is in the tens of millions of USD.

Google headquarters Mountain View, California.

This would not be the first time Google has come under fire for questionable contracts with the Israeli Military. In December of 2024, Google's $1.2 billion cloud contract with the Israeli government, Project Nimbus, faced scrutiny for potential human rights violations. These potential violations sparked internal protest among employees, lawyers and even consultants.

Project Nimbus authorized the Israeli government to access cloud services from Google and Amazon. It enabled the use of AI tools to analyze and identify objects in images and videos.

It's estimated that from 2021 to 2028 Google will earn $525 million from the Israel Ministry of Defense.

Google claimed the Nimbus contract was solely for the workloads running on their commercial clouds by the Israeli government ministry subject to Google's Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy. But in Israeli government contract documents it shows that Project Nimbus was enjoyed "adjusted terms of service."

Protesters disrupted the annual Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco, over Google's contract with Israel’s military, Project Nimbus.

Prior to the 2021 contract, Google sought counsel from a consultant firm called Business for Social Responsibility (BSR). BSR apparently recommended against the contract with the Israeli military—barring them from using the AI tools. The firm was concerned about surveillance and weaponisation of Israel's cloud access.

Despite the BSR recommendations, Google still initiated the contract.

In January 2025 it was reported that Google staff expedited requests for advanced AI tools from Israel's ministry of defense after the October 7, 2023, attack. Request for increased access to Google's Vertex AI platform and Gemini AI were shown in internal Google cloud division document.

Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, head of the IDF’s Southern Command, pictured to the left of IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, in the Rafah area of Gaza.

The Israeli Defense Forces recently announced that Southern Command commander Major General Yaron Finkelman Asor has approved a three-phase plan for operations in Gaza City.

According to Israeli media, the third phase of the plan involves actions "unprecedented in war." What role will Google have in this next three phase plan....