Britain secretly advised the Israeli military on psychological warfare techniques, Declassified has found.
Leaked documents reveal how the British army’s 77th brigade discussed strategy and tactics with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
The 77th brigade uses psychological operations and social media to help fight wars “in the information age”.
It specialises in “non-lethal forms of psychological warfare” such as cyber-attacks, propaganda activities, and counter-insurgency operations online.
Israel’s own information operations have involved using fabricated videos and fake social media accounts to defend the bombing of Gaza.
Two exchanges with the IDF took place at the 77th brigade’s barracks in Hermitage, Berkshire, between 2018-19.
Leaked documents about the encounters originate from a hack of the IDF by a group called “Anonymous for Justice”. The dataset was subsequently published by Distributed Denial of Secrets.
Although some of the documents reference “secret” matters, there is strong public interest in reporting on their contents.
Israel is being investigated by international courts for genocide and war crimes in Gaza, while the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) refuses to answer freedom of information requests or parliamentary questions about its military assistance to Israel.
Professor Paul Rogers, an honorary fellow of the Joint Services Command and Staff College, commented: “This is a highly significant revelation that shows the extent of high level links between Israeli and British counter-insurgency and psychological warfare operators – and, as ever, the need for greater transparency from the military right across the board”.
An MoD spokesperson said: “We regularly conduct non-operational defence engagements at staff level with partners across the globe. All engagement focuses on best practices and is in compliance with International Humanitarian Law”.
The department refused to clarify whether psychological warfare collaboration with Israel was ongoing.
77th brigade
Israeli officer Benzi Zimmerman began organising a high-level information exchange between the IDF’s J3 operations directorate and the British army in 2018.
The goal was “to familiarise the IDF J3 IO [information operations] team with the management, planning, and conduct of IO operations from the strategic to tactical level”, according to one of the leaked emails.
A British army major subsequently helped to develop a two-day programme for the IDF team, which would be split between the MoD headquarters in Whitehall and the 77th brigade’s barracks in Berkshire.
The itinerary included briefings at the “SECRET REL UK/ISR” classification level on such topics as “strategic operational information operations” and “IDF IO approach and structure”.
IDF information operations chief Avinoam Frenkel was chosen to lead the visit. He was to be joined by IDF officers Oded Gonen and Dan Krinsky, the Israeli defence attaché in London, and Zimmerman.
Information operations
The IDF’s trip to the 77th brigade in November 2018 was unexpectedly cancelled, but plans were put in place to maintain collaboration on information operations.
In February 2019, Erez Maisel, the commander of the IDF’s international cooperation unit, led a delegation to the 77th brigade. There are no further details about this visit.
Over the following months, Britain’s defence attaché in Tel Aviv Ronnie Westerman pushed for the aborted 2018 trip to be rescheduled.
The Israeli embassy in London agreed, registering its “wishes to pursue planning for this visit to go forward”.
By June, the IDF team’s visit to the MoD and 77th brigade had been rearranged on the same lines as “the trip we had to postpone from last year”.
It took place on 10 and 11 July 2019, with one day spent at the 77th brigade’s barracks in Berkshire and the second at the Ministry of Defence.
As previously planned, the exchanges focussed on “the management, planning and conduct of IO operations from the strategic to tactical level”.
The timing was seen to be particularly fortuitous given the 77th brigade’s “Operations Centre Opening Event” and “Cocktail Party” were taking place that week.
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Follow on visit
Following the “successful visit” of the IDF team to Britain, 77th brigade commander Daniel Reeve requested that one of his lieutenants “conduct a follow on visit” to Israel.
An army major, who had recently been put in charge of the Middle East Mission Team in the 77th brigade, was chosen to accompany him.
The visit was due to take place between 28 March and 4 April 2020, according to a visitor request issued by the British embassy in Tel Aviv. However it did not go ahead, probably due to Covid travel restrictions.
The application noted how the “subject to be discussed” was “Capacity Development: Information Operations”, with the classification level listed as “Secret”.
Huda Ammori, co-founder of the campaign group Palestine Action, told Declassified: “Psychological warfare and propaganda are tools often used by the Israeli regime to spread disinformation whilst occupying, massacring and torturing the Palestinian people”.
She said the revelations confirm that Britain plays “an active role in repressing Palestinians”.
The IDF did not respond to a request for comment.
