In recent years, the term “poison machine” has become common in Israeli public discourse. Each political camp accuses the other of spreading lies, manipulating public consciousness and amplifying coordinated messaging. But amid the noise, we are missing something far more important. The real poison machine is not operating inside Israel. It is operating against Israel.
This is a global, well-funded and highly capable influence system that has been active in the international arena for more than a decade. It is a machine that mobilizes mass protests, fuels hatred of Israel, ignites waves of antisemitism on university campuses and shapes public opinion across liberal Western democracies.
It is the machine that has turned Israel into a symbol of evil for an entire generation that has never met an Israeli. It is the machine that ultimately helped propel one of its representatives, Zohran Mamdani, into the mayor’s office of New York City. And it is the same machine that stood behind the brutal terror attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney this week.
This is not a local political or social phenomenon. It is an imperialist influence system, financed with billions of dollars, carefully orchestrated and operating across every pillar of Western consciousness. Education, culture, academia, law, media, politics and social networks. It is built on the understanding that Israel, the United States and the Western world cannot be defeated militarily. So instead, they are being fought through deception, subversion and long-term patience.
It is critical to understand that this machine did not emerge overnight. It was built quietly over years, under the radar, in Doha, Tehran and Moscow. It was shaped on elite campuses, legitimized by think tanks and expanded through social coalitions that present themselves as movements for justice.
This is a transcontinental campaign that identified the West’s vulnerabilities. Colonial guilt, generational divides, distrust in institutions and hostility toward Israel. It exploited those cracks and turned them into weapons.
For more than a decade, this machine has funneled money into student organizations, built activist infrastructures, created networks of young influencers, seized control of human rights discourse and fused it with overtly anti-Israel and anti-Western agendas.
The results are visible everywhere. Students who cannot find Israel on a map but are convinced it is an apartheid state. Jewish communities forced to conceal their identity. Western politicians who cave to public pressure. Masses in the streets who do not realize they have become foot soldiers for extremist regimes.
And this leads to the central question. How can a country capable of destroying Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, executing the pager operation, eliminating Hassan Nasrallah, conducting unprecedented deep operations and running some of the world’s best intelligence services stand helpless in the face of what is happening on social media and university campuses?
The answer is simple. What is not defined as a concrete security threat is not treated as one.
The Israel Defense Forces know how to win a declared war. The Mossad knows how to dismantle systems when given defined objectives. The Shin Bet neutralizes threats that are officially recognized. But Israel has never defined the eighth front.
And where there is no definition of threat, there is abandonment.
Once we understand that the machine operating against Israel is a strategic battlefield, not hostile discourse or a public relations problem, the first step is issuing an order of battle. That begins with alignment and recognition that there is a direct line connecting September 11, Qatari and Iranian influence operations, October 7 and what is unfolding on social media, on European streets, on U.S. campuses, in Mamdani’s rise and in the growing threat to Diaspora Jewry.
These are not isolated events. They are the same front.
The next step is an accurate reading of the arena. This is not public diplomacy. It is not branding. It is not a fight against antisemitism. Those terms obscure the scale of the threat.
This is a struggle over truth. A struggle over the survival of Israel, Jewish communities in the Diaspora and the Western world itself. In two words, the eighth front.
From this understanding comes the necessary declaration. The eighth front is a strategic, existential threat to Israel. Such a definition unlocks authority, budgets and capabilities. It activates an intelligence and operational value chain that ends in victory, just as in other fronts.
Marco MorenoThe first operational step is convening the Security Cabinet and formally declaring the opening of this front. Once it is defined as a theater of war, the system begins to move. The next step is establishing an Eighth Front Command, a coordinating body under the prime minister, alongside dedicated intelligence and operational units within the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet and the broader intelligence community.
This must be followed by redefining the roles of the Foreign Ministry, the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, national institutions and existing initiatives against antisemitism, alongside the complete abandonment of the concept of “hasbara,” one of the foundational failures exposed on October 8.
Because the eighth front is unlike any other, it must integrate Israeli civil society, Diaspora Jewry and, critically, non-Jewish communities, especially evangelical Christians and pro-Western value groups whose future is at even greater risk than our own.
Sagiv AsulinIt also requires a deep understanding of the battlefield itself. Social media, traditional media, legal systems, economics, diplomacy and politics. The focus must be on the younger generation and above all on the most important arena, the United States.
Finally, it must be understood that this is a long campaign. Not a short operation. Not a matter of days. A struggle that will take years, requiring patience, persistence and long-term capacity.
Israel has won every front it has properly defined, staffed with a command structure, built doctrine for and fought with determination. The eighth front is the only one that remains undefined.
It is time to declare it and move toward a real and complete victory.
Marco Moreno is a lieutenant colonel in the reserves, a former senior commander in Unit 504 and an expert in intelligence and covert operations. Sagiv Asulin is a former senior security official and an expert in influence and cognitive warfare