Investigation reveals person and group behind pro-Israel network: report

A Florida-based technology entrepreneur has been exposed as a key figure behind a pro-Israel disinformation network seeking to influence public opinion about the occupation regime’s months-long genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

A report by the Guardian published on Saturday said Daniel Linden, who co-wrote a guide for OnlyFans users, was one of the main figures behind the Shirion Collective, an organisation that harasses pro-Palestinian activists and seeks to influence public opinion about Gaza in the US, Australia and Britain.

“The Guardian’s investigation used public records and open source materials to confirm information originally provided by the White Rose Society, an Australian anti-fascist research collective,” the newspaper said.

According to the investigation, the Shirion Collective has attacked pro-Palestinian activists – many of them Jews – offered money for the identities of pro-Palestinian protesters, spread conspiracy theories surrounding figures such as George Soros, and boasted about an AI surveillance platform without providing specific details about how the technology works.

According to the daily, Linden initiated Shirion’s crowdfunding efforts and appears to play a key role in managing the network’s social media profiles and organizing the group’s activities through a Telegram channel to coordinate the further dissemination of pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian propaganda and the intimidation of pro-Palestinian protesters.

In late 2023, Shirion began offering “bounties” of between $500 and $10,000 on X for identifying participants in pro-Palestinian protests that they deemed “anti-Semitic.”

The Guardian’s investigation also found that Shirion promotes Islamophobia and hatred of Palestine while glorifying death and devastation in Gaza, violence against supporters in the West, and frequently cheering the killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

The organization responded to an X-post with images of destruction in the Gaza Strip on April 27, saying: “I love that Gaza looks like this now.”

The Shirion Collective has also repeatedly praised police brutality against pro-Palestinian protesters in the United States, as well as violence against journalists.

According to the Guardian’s research, Shirion has frequently promoted conspiracy theories about Muslims, including predicting a Muslim takeover of Europe. He has also posted videos of pro-Palestinian protesters learning Haitian martial arts and accused them of “practicing killing techniques on Jews.”

Shirion also makes exaggerated claims about its relationships and the AI ​​technology it plans to use to detect imaginary enemies. On X, for example, it claims it has contacts with the New York Police Department, the FBI, Israeli intelligence, and the Metropolitan Police in London.

The collective claims to have developed the AI ​​technology “Project Maccabee” to “protect and survive our people” and “expose these disgusting anti-Semites,” but has never demonstrated how it works.

In addition, Shirion was sharply criticized by the U.S. Congress and attracted worldwide media attention for his attempts to suppress criticism of Israel’s behavior in the Gaza Strip.

Shirion organized two GoFundMe fundraisers in April and May 2024 for an effort to display footage of the October 7 retaliatory attack by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on Israeli-occupied territories on trucks with large screens near universities in various U.S. cities.

The move caught the attention of vocal American critics, including Representative Ilhan Omar, who spoke out in Congress against Shirion’s screening of the footage at the protest camp at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The organization has repeatedly acknowledged the deaths of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on the Internet, including Palestinian journalists and children.

Israel began the war against Gaza on October 7, 2023, after Hamas-led resistance groups unexpectedly launched Operation Storm Al-Aqsa against the occupied territory in retaliation for increasing atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The occupation regime has killed at least 37,834 Palestinians and injured 86,858 others since the offensive began. More than 1.7 million people have been displaced within the country.