He turned the conversation to Jewish lobbies after a caller had suggested the pro-Israel lobby was as dangerous to the U.S. as the Kremlin.

“That’s a reasonable point,” Farage told the caller.

“There are about 6 million Jewish people living in America, so as a percentage it’s quite small, but in terms of influence it’s quite big.”

To discredit the messenger, as the documentary reveals, the pro-Israel lobby has built up a spy network over the last few years to gather information on opponents’ private lives, careers and political convictions. Baime said: ‘The research operation is very high-tech. When I got here a few years ago the budget was $3,000. Today it’s like a million and a half, or more. Probably it’s two million at this point. I don’t even know, it’s huge. It’s a massive budget.’ He and his colleagues are keen to stay invisible: ‘We do it securely and anonymously. That’s the key.’

‘If you’re a racist, the world should know’

One of the groups most feared by Palestinian rights activists is Canary Mission (7), whose funding, members and methods are shrouded in secrecy. A journalist with close links to the lobby said: ‘People who hate it, the people who are being targeted by it, call it a blacklist. You have names here that showup on this database. Students and professors, faculty, speakers, organisations that have ties to terrorism, outright ties to terrorism, or terrorists who have called for the destruction of the Jewish state.’ Canary Mission’s website describes its aim as being to ‘ensure that today’s radicals are not tomorrow’s employees’. Above the biography of each victim is the slogan ‘If you’re a racist, the world should know’.
[...]
Students recounted in the documentary exactly what they faced. Summer Awad, who took part in a campaign for Palestinian rights in Knoxville, Tennessee, was harassed on Twitter, and information about her, some of it dating back a decade, was posted online: ‘They are digging and digging. Somebody contacted my employer and asked for me to be fired. If they continue to employ me they will be denounced as antisemitic.’ Denunciation can end careers or make it hard for students to find a job after graduation. To get their names off the blacklist, some victims write messages of ‘repentance’, which Canary Mission posts on its site.
[...]
Vaknin-Gil admitted that to gather information, ‘we have FDD. We have others working on this.’ The Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD) is a conservative thinktank that has played an important role in the recent rapprochement between the UAE and Israel. It took part in the 2017 campaign against Qatar and Al Jazeera, which was accused of being a destabilising force in the region. Under US law, organisations and individuals working for foreign governments must register with the Department of Justice. Would the DOJ dare take the FDD to court for failing to register?
[...]
There are other revelations, like the way that TIP takes charge of US journalists visiting Jerusalem and feeds them ready-made stories for publication on their return to the US; how the lobby pays for upscale holidays in Israel for US Congress members, circumventing US law; and how it pressures the media, including news agencies, to amend wires and copy.