How this $3.2 million Israeli campaign will digitally target Arizona Christians with anti-Palestinian ads

PHOENIX - In what is being called the "largest Christian church geofencing campaign in U.S. history," a newly-created firm is strategizing a massive digital marketing and outreach campaign on behalf of the Israeli government, and it’s targeting Christian churches and college campuses in four states, including Arizona.

Here's what to know.

What is geofencing?

Geofencing is a virtual perimeter surrounding a physical location, using tech like GPS or Wi-Fi to activate when a device like your smartphone enters or exits the area. That’s how it can be used for marketing ads like this pro-Israeli campaign.

Why are they launching the campaign?

The backstory:

Due to the Israel-Hamas conflict over the past two years, recent polling shows American evangelical support for Israel is on the decline.

According to figures from a poll by the Center for the Study of the U.S. at Tel Aviv University, nearly half of young American evangelicals under 30 (42.2%) support neither Israel nor Palestine, a jump from 25% in 2018. In 2021, 33.8% of young evangelicals conveyed support for Israel, while 24.3% supported Palestinians.

How much does it cost?

Big picture view:

This pro-Israeli campaign will cost at least $3.2 million, and the proposal, which is public record, is 86 pages long.

According to a filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), officials with San Diego-based "Show Faith By Works, LLC" say the "method of performance" is to carry out Christian outreach through grassroots and digital targeting in the western U.S.

The filing was made in late September 2025 on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, and funding is coming from Germany-based Havas Media. The plan is to distribute pro-Israel information online through geofencing.

Per the FARA filing, the costs include:

• $50,000 for Graystone HR
• $424,961 for grassroots equipment
• $1,549,000 for grassroots staff
• $685,000 for a targeted media budget
• $550,000 for a specialist purchasing budget

The total is just over $3.2 million.

Specialists include pastors and social media influencers with a big impact in Christian spaces. Staff in high-density Christian areas have to be hired and there needs to be a physical staff presence at Christian colleges and churches.

Who is being targeted by the campaign?

The states being targeted are California, Colorado, Nevada and Arizona, and the campaign should be rolling out by December, citing "Christmas messaging." There are additional options for budgeting to target Utah, Wyoming and Texas.

The FARA filing is public record and inside is an exhibit, which is a presentation put together by "Show Faith By Works, LLC." The slides state the goals are to combat low American evangelical Christian approval of Israel and increase awareness of Palestinian ties to Hamas and support for terrorism. The presentation cites "anti-Palestinian state" messaging, which is seemingly at odds with the decades-old goal of a "two-state solution."

The firm wants to hire a pastor for a weekly news podcast, keeping up with developments in Israel and also interviewing the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and survivors of the October 7th attacks. The initial plan even has a list of potential Christian celebrities the firm wants to speak on behalf of the campaign, including Chris Pratt, Tim Tebow and Steph Curry, but the firm is reportedly no longer going with the celebrity strategy.

The operation will be headquartered in Riverside, California, with media teams covering states in the western region, including Arizona. There will be a church and college outreach lead, deputy, college coordinator for six campuses, college student for a help desk, and an on-call photographer/videographer.

By the numbers:

According to Show Faith By Works, there are 219 Christian megachurches in California, 32 in Colorado, 14 in Nevada, and 38 in Arizona on the list for outreach. Locally, these include Dream City Church, which the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk attended, Calvary PHX and Highlands Church. Show Faith By Works says the targeted Christian population overall is nearly 3.9 million people.

The operation will be headquartered in Riverside, Calif., with media teams covering states in the western region, including Arizona. There will be a church and college outreach lead, deputy, college coordinator for six campuses, college student for a help desk, and an on-call photographer/videographer.

Show Faith By Works reportedly wants to geofence the targeted Christian churches on Sundays, and the Christian college campuses on weekdays. Besides the 38 Arizona churches on the list, there are six colleges, including Grand Canyon University and Arizona Christian University. They want to track attendees and students, targeting them with digital ads.

The plan is also to build and deploy a mobile pro-Israel display with October 7th themes at Christian events. Think of a trailer with a 55-inch touch screen and standing kiosk display. There will be strobe lights, empty tents and scene materials to create an Oct. 7 experience, along with VR headsets. The goal is to bring this experience to different churches and college campuses, showing footage of the IDF.

The estimated impact of this digital campaign for one whole year is a little more than 47 million impressions at the average cost per thousand of $8.40. This is a significant financial investment, and the approach seems high-stakes. The political nature and focus on a specific community can be seen as concerning, especially in terms of ethics.

Students, activists speak out

Mohyeddin Abdulaziz with the Arizona Palestine Solidarity Alliance says this campaign is outright propaganda and dangerous.

"This is really taking it steps further," he said. "A very invasive, very strong, very cruel targeting and intimidation. It's very intimidating to have your movement, what you listen to, what you know, controlled by one source, which is a foreign country, a foreign state called Israel."

We also asked students at GCU what they think about pro-Israeli information targeting them on a daily basis. Some did not want to go on camera, but one student said that this is the world we live in, and you have to seek out accurate information.

"With all this information coming out, you don’t know what’s real, you don’t know what to believe," said the student, identified only as ‘Kenui’. "I feel like if people are interested, they can find their own perspective and their own point of view of the whole situation and let them believe what they want to believe."

One young man who was visiting the park behind the GCU campus says this pro-Israel strategy feels invasive. When asked what he thinks about the influence, Emmanuel said no one should be controlling social media feeds.

"That’s a place where you go for information and if someone is controlling they might feed you some wrong information and make you think it’s the right information," he said. "My thought on this topic is no one should be controlling you and they should make it illegal to geofence places like this."

Local perspective:

According to the firm’s anti-Palestinian messaging, they want to emphasize Hamas as a Palestinian terrorist organization, and that Palestinians elect Hamas’ leadership. However, it’s important to note that no recent public elections have been held in Gaza since the Palestinian legislative election in 2006, nearly 20 years ago. This means only a fraction of Gaza’s current population voted for Hamas.

When asked about the potential for misinformation, Abdulaziz said, "It’s huge."

"That's why Israel is concerned that the American people are now, including Jewish Americans, who are disagreeing with what Israel is doing, who are disagreeing with what Zionism is about, who are disagreeing with weaponizing anti-Semitism against our academic institutions," he said. "So, they need to reverse that. And they need to reverse that by… they don't need that if they know that people support them. So now they're going to do that in a very, very intimidating way."

The other side:

Project manager Chad Schnitger, a conservative activist based in California who is in charge of Show Faith By Works with a salary of $150,000, declined to be interviewed. He said plans are still settling in after some changes, like deciding not to go with Christian celebrities.

Schnitger says as American evangelical support for Israel declines among young Christians under 30 who don’t remember 9/11 or have witnessed increases in "antisemitic demonstrations" on other American college campuses.

In his email response, he also says:

"We hope that our work over the coming months will help the Christian church make informed opinions about our ally Israel, and all of our materials and exhibits will be vetted by teams of Christian Pastors from different denominations for accuracy and intention. Americans and Christians should be celebrating the recent peace agreement led by President Donald Trump and the safe return of the hostages, but we also need to become more educated about Israel from a historical, biblical, and geographic perspective. We're creating free resources for the American Christian Church and a world-class mobile museum exhibit that we can't wait to show everyone... when we've finished building it. We just started, and I'm a ‘show’ and tell kinda guy, so give me about a month, and I'll drive the mobile exhibit out to you and give you an exclusive tour and interview."

Schnitger says the firm is still in discussions with Christian pastors throughout Arizona who can help in this region, but no one has been hired yet. This is all happening as the country heads into an all-important mid-term election year in 2026. The FARA filing, including the presentation submitted by "Show Faith By Works," is available to the public.

InvestigationsReligionExplainersArizonaCaliforniaColoradoNevadaWorldEducationNews