Leaked Emails Expose ‘Collaborative Efforts’ Between 'Israeli' Govt and Center for Countering Digital Hate

By Max Blumenthal – Jan 6, 2025

Emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal how leading “anti-hate” campaigner Imran Ahmed collaborated with Israeli embassy officials to censor pro-Palestine social media accounts — and courted them for donations to his censorship-obsessed Center for Countering Digital Hate.

Since emerging in America from seemingly out of the blue in 2020, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has become one of the trans-Atlantic establishment’s most effective tools for censoring online speech. Its founder, Imran Ahmed, has nurtured close ties with the Biden White House since moving to Washington DC, targeting its political enemies with calls for their removal from social media. Back in his hometown of London, Ahmed was an influential advisor to the neoliberal wing of UK Labour, helping sabotage the leftist insurgency of Jeremy Corbyn and place his ally, Keir Starmer, in charge of the party.

Ahmed has been embroiled in controversy since journalists Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi published internal CCDH documents showing he held private meetings with influential Democratic lawmakers throughout 2024 to advance a plan to “kill Elon Musk’s Twitter.” The billionaire Twitter/X owner and his allies in president-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle retaliated by accusing the British operative of violating laws against foreign interference in American politics.

Ahmed, for his part, has dismissed the charge that he colludes with foreign governments as a kooky conspiracy. “The Center for Countering Digital Hate researches conspiracy theories. We don’t engage with them,” he said.

However, internal CCDH emails obtained by The Grayzone reveal that while Ahmed nurtures ties to the Labour government in Britain, the self-styled “anti-hate” campaigner also enjoys a secret, “collaborative” relationship with a rogue foreign government whose leadership currently stands accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice, and is wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

Provided by a CCDH insider who requested to remain anonymous out of fear that Ahmed and his allies would retaliate against him, the emails reveal that top officials in the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC helped introduce Ahmed to potential funders, and were even invited to review a CCDH report before its publication. The report urged Meta to remove pro-Palestine Facebook groups on the grounds that they promoted “anti-Jewish hate.”

Ahmed seemed agitated when The Grayzone reached him by phone and asked him to confirm his email exchanges with the Israeli officials. “I have no idea which emails you’re talking about,” he stated. “You’ll have to send them through to us and have a look at them and come back to you.”

When asked if he had collaborated with the Israeli government, Ahmed did not deny the relationship. “We work with all governments,” he claimed.

Asked a second time about whether he had colluded with Israeli officials, he responded, “In what respect?”

After The Grayzone provided Ahmed with a copy of one of the correspondences, CCDH’s head of communications, Jonathan Freed, replied with the following statement: “The Center for Countering Digital Hate works to stop the spread of online hate and disinformation through innovative research and policy advocacy. Our mission is to protect human rights and civil liberties online and we take pride in publicly working with a range of partners who support our efforts, particularly those with a vested interest in curbing the spread and harmful impact of antisemitism. As a matter of policy, we will not comment directly on proprietary information that may, or may not, have been disclosed without authorization.”

Freed’s statement included a link to an October 21, 2020 State Department “Conference on Internet Antisemitism” that featured Ahmed’s participation alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and an array of Israel lobbyists.

Ahmed’s responses all but confirm the authenticity of the emails. The contents of the exchanges suggest that his relationship with the Israeli government is longstanding, and has played an important role in shaping his organization’s agenda.

Israeli officials pledge “continued support of [CCHD’s] work”
In an email dated June 12, 2024, Ahmed thanked Efrat Hochstetler, the Public Diplomacy Counselor of the Israeli Embassy in the US, for his “continued support of [CCHD’s] work.” He then introduced himself to Marco Sermoneta, Israel’s consul general in San Francisco, to “emphasize the importance of our collaborative efforts in combating hate and lies online.”

Email exchanges earlier that month demonstrate that Ahmed met with top Israeli officials to discuss funding for his censorship operation. Following a June 3 meeting with Ahmed, Israeli Embassy Minister of Public Diplomacy Sawsan Hasson wrote the CCDH director to connect him with Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Daniel Meron, and to introduce him to “some of the philanthropists that might be interested in your work.”

“Thanks you for the connection to Geneva,” Ahmed replied a day later. “I hope to meet them later this week. I would of course be delighted to be connected to any philanthropists who might support our strategic, proven and impactful solutions. Similarly, meetings with your Hill team and your California teams working on social media company relations would be helpful.”

On June 6, Hochstetler emailed Ahmed to introduce him to Marco Sermoneta, the Israeli consul general in San Francisco, describing him as “best suited to answer any questions regarding efforts vis-a-vis the social media companies out west.” Hochstetler informed Sermoneta that he and Hasson had met with Ahmed three days prior, “and are trying to offer our assistance with connecting him to relevant parties as best as we can, as the work that the CCDH does is extremely important.”

Asked about his email to Sermoneta, Ahmed told The Grayzone, “You’re asking me about a theoretical email from seven months ago. Send it through to us and we will come back to you.”

The Grayzone also reached Sawsan Hasson on her mobile phone. She refused to respond to questions related to her relationship with Ahmed. “I can’t answer without any coordination with the embassy spokesperson,” the Israeli diplomat stated.

When questioned on whether the Israeli embassy spokesperson would have information about her collaboration with Ahmed and CCDH, Hasson replied, “I don’t know who you are and I just told you how it should work. Any communication with journalism or media should go through our spokesperson.” She then hung up.

UK’s Arrest of Founder of Pro-Palestine Network Sparks Outcry

The anti-Corbyn connection
It is unclear which “relevant parties” were furnished to Ahmed by the Israeli Embassy in DC. However, the emails obtained by The Grayzone indicate that Israel’s government planned to assist CCDH through wealthy cut-outs masquerading as altruistic “philanthropists.”

Ahmed appears to enjoy a working relationship with at least one figure who fits this mold. He is Trevor Chinn, a multi-millionaire British auto industry baron who is a top funder of Israel lobby activities in the UK.

Imran Ahmed’s ally, Trevor Chinn (left) at an event he co-hosted in 2018 with Israeli ambassador Mark Regev (second to left). Also in the picture is Tony Blair (second to right) and Israeli President Isaac Herzog (right).

As Paul D. Thacker and Matt Taibbi revealed, Ahmed emailed Chinn on June 4, 2024 – one day after he met with the Israeli embassy’s Hasson and Hochstetler – to set up a rendezvous. Copied on the email was Louise Jacobs, a British Zionist activist who serves on the Board of Governors of the Israeli government-controlled Jewish Agency for Israel.

Both Chinn and Ahmed had worked to drive Jeremy Corbyn out as leader of the Labour Party. While Chinn donated heavily to Corbyn’s conservative opponents within the party, Ahmed helped launch an outfit called Stop Funding Fake News which claimed to combat “left-wing antisemitism,” but which was, in fact, dedicated to muzzling Corbyn’s allies in the media.

Posing as a grassroots “social movement” composed of anonymous citizens concerned with misinformation, Ahmed’s group successfully knee-capped one of the most popular pro-Corbyn, antiwar outlets, The Canary UK, by organizing a boycott of its advertisers.

On August 2, 2019, Stop Funding Fake News tweeted, “The Canary has announced that, thanks to our campaign, its business model ‘no longer works’ & they’re downsizing. We want to spend more time and resources on this campaign & target new sites.”

Following Corbyn’s resignation as Labour leader in 2020, Ahmed pivoted from Stop Funding Fake News to the more boldly themed Center for Countering Digital Hate. CCDH’s office shared space with Labour Together, a neoliberal, Trevor Chinn-funded political group which crusaded for online censorship of Labour’s political enemies. The group’s director, Morgan McSweeney, went on to serve as chief-of-staff to Keir Starmer.

In 2021, CCDH registered as a non-profit in the US, and its founder settled down just a few blocks from the US Capitol in Washington DC with his new American wife. He quickly homed in on the enemies of the Biden White House, branding influential critics of its Covid restrictions as “The Disinformation Dozen,” and earning a shout-out from then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki as she successfully clamored for Facebook to ban their accounts.

The October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, and the resultant panic within the Zionist movement over a supposed surge in antisemitism in the US, brought Ahmed a wealth of new and apparently lucrative opportunities.

Israel-vetted CCDH report aims to crush pro-Palestine Facebook accounts
In June 2024, as he apparently shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic to plot with Israeli officials, the CCDH director shared a forthcoming report with Sawsan Hasson, the Minister of Public Diplomacy at the Israeli Embassy in DC.

“Please do not distribute it outside the [Israeli] Government, as this is embargoed for public consumption until Wednesday,” Ahmed urged, appearing to invite the Israeli officials to vet the report before its publication.

Entitled “Antisemitic Admins,” the Israeli government-approved CCDH report demanded that Facebook impose a sweeping crackdown on pro-Palestine community groups, accusing their admins of “camouflaging their antisemitism by cynically adopting pro-Palestinian or human rights language and themes to inculcate hatred against Jewish people.” According to CCDH, Facebook groups that accused Israel of seeking to “control the American media,” or which edited an image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make him resemble Adolph Hitler, were guilty of “anti-Jewish hate.”

CCDH’s report relied on the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA)’s notoriously expansive definition of antisemitism, which equates condemnation of Israel’s discriminatory system of apartheid with hatred of Jews. Among the examples of antisemitism listed by the IHRA is, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” The definition has been exploited so rampantly by the Israel lobby, that its author, Ken Stern, complained that “right-wing Jews are weaponizing” his work.

Ahmed’s “five year plan” is underway
Ahmed has made no secret of his far-reaching censorship objectives. He has disclosed to journalists his “five-year plan” to demonetize any content creator who engages in what CCDH defines as “hate speech.” As his report attacking pro-Palestine Facebook groups makes clear, he sees little distinction between expressions of “hate” and advocacy for the rights of Palestinians living under siege and bombardment.

What Ahmed has failed to tell the public is that his crusade to censor and punish online Palestine solidarity activism is an outcome of his secret collaboration with the state of Israel – and that it may have been financially incentivized by the Israeli government as well.

Asked if his collaboration with the Israeli government to promote political censorship in the US could be considered an act of foreign interference, Ahmed grumbled, “This conversation is just becoming circular. Send [the emails] through, we’ll come back to you.” And with that, he hung up the phone.

(The GrayZone)

Max Blumenthal

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Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath,The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.