Russian hackers sought to influence US-Israel relations — report

Hundreds of Russian accounts originating from Russia have sought to influence relations between the United States and Israel, Channel 10 reports.

A group of researchers cited by the TV channel found that from three million posts from fake Russian accounts, tens of thousands of them had to do with Israel and the broader region.

Sixty percent of the posts on Israel worked to bolster the relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, oftentimes by criticizing former president Barack Obama.

Roughly a quarter of the posts on Israel sought to cast Netanyahu as corrupt and highlighted the police investigations into his conduct.

The researchers cited by Channel 10 found that the Russian bots were not trying to influence the Israeli conversation, but rather the American one, where the Jewish state has become a more polarizing issue.