Football star Tom Brady and rap legend Snoop Dogg will appear in a big-money Superbowl ad denouncing hatred. The ad is paid for by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, a group staffed by Israel lobbyists that attempts to equate opposition to Israel’s destruction of Gaza with anti-Jewish racism. The group was founded by billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft, who is one of the pro-Israel Lobby’s most generous benefactors. Kraft has used his power to attempt to crush the nationwide Palestine solidarity movement on campus and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
As they tune in to watch the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs this weekend, hundreds of millions of Americans will also be served up something they are not expecting: pro-Israel propaganda. Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady and rap star Snoop Dogg are set to appear in a big-money advertisement for the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) that will air twice during the Superbowl.
The ad features Brady and Snoop hurling insults at each other before both conclude that hatred and intolerance in America have become “so bad [that] we have to do a commercial about it.”
The FCAS was founded in 2019 by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft to counter the growing wave of anti-Israel, pro-Palestine sentiment across America. Kraft (net worth $11.8 billion) has sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into the foundation and dozens of pro-Israel lobby groups and politicians.
Thus, although it is titled “No Reason to Hate,” and its message is not explicit, it is clear that “hatred,” in this context, means opposition to the State of Israel’s treatment of its neighbors.
The ad, which has already been released on social media, has garnered a mixed response, to say the least. Many commenters suggest that this is the latest and most embarrassing thing Snoop Dogg has ever done for money.
Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg star in new commercial to tackle “anti-Semitism.”
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— AF Post (@AFpost) February 3, 2025
Deep Pockets
Superbowl commercials do not come cheap. Fortunately, the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism has backers with seemingly limitless funds. The FCAS was founded, in their own words, “To stand up to Jewish hate and all hate by inspiring Americans to become active allies in the fight.” The FCAS has received hundreds of millions of dollars since 2019, including two $100 million donations from Kraft and the Norman R. Rales and Ruth Rales Foundation.
However, upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the FCAS is simply another pro-Israel group using the language of anti-racism to crush grassroots opposition to Israeli actions abroad. Firstly, many of its key figures are former Israeli officials or lobbyists. For example, the organization’s Director of Partnerships and Strategy, Clara Schwartz, previously served as a secretary to multiple Israeli Ambassadors to the United States. Meanwhile, Maya Buki Dabby, FCAS’ Chief Philanthropy Officer, is the former director of AIPAC, the principal Israel lobbying institution in the United States.
The FCAS asserts that antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed in recent years. The basis for this claim, however, is data from the Anti-Defamation League, who specifically include peaceful pro-Palestine protests as examples of anti-Jewish hatred, meaning that any expression of sympathy or solidarity with Palestine and its people could be counted.
The ADL’s CEO, Johnathan Greenblatt, has not only alleged that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic but even stated that “anti-Zionism is genocide.” Explaining his position, he insisted that “Every Jewish person is a Zionist…it is fundamental to our existence.” This will likely be news to the large plurality of American Jews under 40, who, polls show, consider Israel to be a racist Apartheid state.
On its website, the FCAS takes a similar position to Greenblatt, listing anti-Zionism in the same bracket as Holocaust denial or support, seemingly equating the two.
Krafty Character
Kraft, who made his money in the manufacturing and packaging business, was one of the key figures in suppressing the recent wave of pro-Palestine protests across American universities. The epicenter of the movement was Columbia University in New York. The billionaire is one of the institution’s most important benefactors, donating millions of dollars, including $3 million to fund the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life. This gives him considerable leverage over the university’s board.
In April 2024, Kraft publicly announced he was cutting Columbia off from his lavish funding over its failure to suppress the protests effectively enough. “I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country,” he said in a statement, claiming that Columbia was not protecting its Jewish students. Soon after, university authorities called for the police to destroy the demonstrations. Hundreds of students were arrested, and some were suspended and face deportation.
“Israel does not have a more loyal friend than Robert Kraft,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once said of his close associate. Netanyahu is right; the Jewish State is a primary driving force behind Kraft’s politics. The 83-year-old plutocrat married his wife in Israel in 1962 and has made over 100 visits to the country since, including many meetings with successive prime ministers.
He is also one of the principal sources of money for the notorious Israel lobby in the United States. In 2022, for instance, he gave $1 million to AIPAC’s super PAC. Indeed, it sometimes seems that there is barely a pro-Israel group he has not underwritten. Other organizations he has made sizable donations to include the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Agency for Israel, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), StandWithUs and the Israel Project.
But the most significant way in which Kraft inserts pro-Israel policy into American life is through donating to Israel-friendly politicians standing against progressives and other advocates for justice for Palestine. In 2021, for example, he funded Congresswoman Shontel Brown’s campaign against Nina Turner. At the time, Brown was a relatively little-known but strongly pro-Israel candidate standing against a democratic socialist, the national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 election campaign, and an outspoken critic of Israeli government policy.
Vast amounts of pro-Israel money flowed into Brown’s campaign, helping her to defeat Turner. In her acceptance speech, Brown praised Israel and later thanked the Jewish community for “help[ing] me get over the finish line.” Other pro-Israel Democrats Kraft has funded include David Cicilline, Juan Vargas, Ted Deutch, Jake Auchincloss and Ritchie Torres.
In addition, his own organization, Touchdown in Israel, regularly organizes publicity trips to Israel for NFL stars, hoping they will become advocates of the Jewish State.
Tom Brady: Supporting Genocide
One of the players that Kraft has personally taken to Israel is his own star quarterback, Tom Brady. The two traveled there in 2006, meeting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and visiting an IDF military base. Brady was even baptized in the Jordan River.
The trip clearly made a deep impression on Brady, who remains an outspoken supporter of Israel to this day. He was vociferous in his condemnation of the October 7, 2023 attack; “There should be no gray area about condemning Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens. No human deserves this,” he wrote, adding, “The devastation in Israel is tragic and unacceptable. The murder and violence against innocent people by Hamas is terrorism.”
He also promoted highly questionable assertions of mass sexual violations carried out against Israeli women by Hamas. “All of us must loudly condemn sexual violence wherever it occurs,” he stated. He has not, however, said anything about the well–documented cases of mass sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners by Israeli forces.
Today, he is the face of the FCAS campaign. “The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism is doing incredible work, and I’m honored to stand with them in the fight against hate,” he said. “This Super Bowl, football is on my mind, but so is something even bigger – building a world where hate has no place. The No Reason to Hate campaign isn’t just a message; it’s a movement. I’m proud to be a part of it, and I hope you’ll join us,” he added.
Targeting Black Communities
The inclusion of Snoop Dogg is part of an FCAS attempt to target Black communities specifically. The ad is part of a broader campaign that includes partnering with historically Black colleges to, in FCAS’ own words, “develop social change initiatives and continuously improve the Black-Jewish alliance.” This partnership includes bringing together the United Negro College Fund and pro-Israel college group Hillel International together for a “unity summit” on February 7, which will bring “Black and Jewish college students together under one roof with the shared mission of combatting hate.” The event will feature panels from notable Black sports stars and a keynote speech from Kraft himself.
Israel and its advocates are losing the Black community. A 2024 poll found that African-American support for Israel’s genocide is greatly lower than that of the rest of the country. Only 10% of Black respondents said that Israel’s military actions since October 7, 2023, were justified. In comparison, a plurality of white Americans (33%) said they supported Israel’s attack on Gaza. Black Americans are also much more likely to support Washington exerting diplomatic pressure and restricting military aid to Israel than the population at large.
The reasons for this are manifold. But many Black leaders, as well as movements such as Black Lives Matter, have allied themselves with the Palestinian cause, seeing parallels and connections between the oppression of Palestinians abroad and the treatment of Black Americans at home. As such, Israel has a serious PR crisis in the Black community. Hence, the attempts to reach them through sports and music.
This is not the first time the FCAS has attempted to target African-Americans. Last year, the organization debuted another Superbowl commercial featuring Clarence B. Jones, the former advisor to Martin Luther King, who drafted his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The ad’s message was that there was a growing wave of racist intolerance across the United States and that we must all come together to oppose anti-Semitism. It ends by instructing viewers to visit the website StandUpToJewishHate.com.
The pro-Israel lobby has long understood that it has a serious problem with the Black community. Emails released by WikiLeaks revealed top entertainment executives bemoaning their inability to convince Black Americans to support Zionism and discussing tactics to achieve this end.
The lobby found a powerful ally in hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, the co-founder of Def Jam Records. Simmons suggested that what was needed to improve Israel’s image was “Simple messaging from non Jews specifically from Muslims promoting peace and Israel’s right to exist… We have resources and the desire to win rather than lose the hearts of young Muslims and Jews.”
Simmons’ emails reveal the existence of a vast and well-funded psychological operation targeting the Black community. As he put it,
We have hundreds of collaboration programs between imams, rabbis and their congregations. We have many respected imams who would join former Chief Rabbi [Yona] Metzger, Rabbi [Marc] Schneier and non-Jews in promoting the Saudi peace plan.”
Through this campaign, we will be helping Israel,” he concluded.
Propaganda Wars
Israel may have been able to flatten Gaza, but it has failed to win the global war of public perception. A Morning Consult poll last year found that the country’s favorability dropped in 42 of the 43 nations polled. Even wealthy, developed nations like Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom view Tel Aviv negatively.
In the United States, support for Israel is also dropping, particularly among young people and people of color. Its supporters are acutely aware that their colonial project would collapse without support from the U.S. government. This was a prime cause of the TikTok ban last month; the platform was not sufficiently censorious of pro-Palestine voices for Washington’s taste. It is also the reason for the massive propaganda operation being launched on the American public by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism and other groups, who are trying to persuade the country that opposition to genocide is akin to support for Hitler. That message seems like a tough sell. But anything might be possible when you have Robert Kraft’s billions behind you.
Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News
Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.