Beginning October 1
The Fort Worth Municipal Court, in collaboration with the law firm Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, LLP, will launch text message alerts for individuals with past-due unpaid court balances that have been referred to collections.
Wednesday, Oc tober 1
7:02
You will receive messages from Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP. Now
The Watchers
New filing reveals Israel’s plans to use geofencing to propagandize Fort Worth churchgoers.
BY DIAMON GARZA
I recall making jokes on how it felt as if our phones, Facebook, or Instagram were listening in on our conversations. Perhaps you’d comment on coffee, then conveniently get a Starbucks ad, or you’d talk about needing new dishes and see an Amazon ad for dining plates. But most people are aware by now that this isn’t by chance and that our phones are truly listening to us — not just listening but monitoring our whereabouts, tracking our Google searches, collecting information on our interests, and monitoring our spending habits. Eventually that information is sold to companies that pay top dollar for our personal data.
All of this is bad on its own, but it’s a just a reality of our current way of living. But advertisers are one thing. What does it mean when a foreign government is tracking that data? What is the purpose, and what are the repercussions?
One of the most divisive topics today is the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after the October 7 attack on Israel by the terrorist group in 2023. Israel has been on the receiving end of much of the backlash after two years of a mostly one-sided war. The circulating photos of Gaza’s destruction and images of continued suffering from Palestinians, mostly children, have sparked conversations across world — especially in the United States, which serves as Israel’s primary source of aid. Both the war and the countries’ seemingly growing influence on American politics have caused criticism even among Israel’s traditionally most loyal communities: Republicans and Evangelical Christians. More so among younger members.
One report by Tel Aviv University in 2024 shows that nearly half of young American evangelicals, those under 30, no longer support Israel. Several other surveys show similar results, and the Israeli government has taken notice and is moving quickly to control the narrative, based on a September filing to FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act). The filing is required when an American company is operating on behalf of a foreign government. The company that made the filing is Show by Faith Works, and it reveals that Israel is planning to spend approximately $4.1 million to target Christian churches across America in the hope of feeding them favorable
METROPOLIS
messaging about Israel and the war. Churches right here in Funkytown are listed as potential targets for the second phase of what the statement says is the “largest Christian-church geofencing campaign in U.S. history.”
Show Faith by Works will use geofencing, a technique often employed by advertisers and law enforcement to create virtual boundaries around a given area to track movement, IP addresses, or mobile devices. In this case, the virtual boundaries will be set around churches, Christian colleges, and Christian gatherings to collect mobile data and send pro-Israel content to visitors. The document states campaigns will “combat low American Evangelical Christian approval of the Nation of Israel” and “counter new and evolving pro-Palestinian messaging as the global narrative shifts.”
Some of the messaging plans to highlight what Show Faith by Works calls the “great
partnership between Americans and Israelis internationally” and more on-the-nose messaging like “Christians in Israel” and Israel as “the birthplace of Christmas.” A clear goal of the targeting is to amplify the physical location of Israel and its relevance to the Christian faith. Using megachurches enforces ideas like December being about Jesus and Israel as his birthplace. Plus, urging churchgoers to visit Israel.
The geofencing is set to start soon in every major church in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado. But funds are being requested for the next round of targeting in states like Wyoming, Utah, and Texas — of which $250,000 will be used on churches here in the Lone Star State. Some Fort Worth churches on the radar include Christ Chapel Bible Church (estimated 4,500 members), Travis Avenue Baptist Church (2,000 members), and Harvest Church (1,800 members), to name a few. The list also includes a
host of nationally known Texas-based churches like T.D. Jakes’ The Potter’s House in Dallas, Michael Chandler’s The Village Church in Flower Mound, and Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston.
The targeted messaging isn’t just about Christmas. A major portion of the campaign is to promote anti-Palestinian sentiment while making clear that Show Faith by Works doesn’t separate the terrorist group Hamas from Palestinian citizens. “Highlight that Palestinian and Iranian goals are not land-focused but genocidal” and “Palestinian support for Hamas” are just some of the statements presented in the filing.
The messaging is finetuned for the Christian audience being geofenced, stating that “Hamas and the Palestinians have killed many of the American Christian aid workers distributing food in the region,” conveniently leaving out that the Israeli government has also killed aid workers, blown up churches, and killed Christians in the region since the war started, as reports show.
Content isn’t the only thing Show Faith by Works is focusing on. They plan to sway America’s Christian population with the help of paid celebrities, athletes, podcasts, and large Christian festivals. Some influential figures considered in the document include former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, NBA player Steph Curry, and actor Chris Pratt, although there is no indication that those conversations have taken place yet.
A notably unique tactic set to roll out is the use of a mobile trailer custom-built by professional Hollywood set designers that will give American Christians the “10/7 experience.” It’s an interactive virtual-reality experience that will visit churches and colleges. Participants will interactively view scenes from the 10/7 attacks, receive detailed explanations from the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), and see media from the Darkness to Light Museum, which is all about the 10/7 attack.
Pro-Israel packages for pastors and church leaders are also being curated. Specific messaging can differ slightly depending on the Christian denomination, race of the church population, and age. All are designed to “encourage Christians to have a more favorable view of the Nation of Israel and to encourage Christians to visit Israel for tourism purposes.” These campaigns haven’t reached Texas yet, but it might be worth seeing if your church is on the list — just in case you start to notice that your pastor’s Sunday sermon and your social media content seem suspiciously aligned. It may not be a coincidence but rather something more sinister, like a foreign government using your faith as a tool to shape the way you view the world. l
This column reflects the opinions and fact-gathering of the author(s) and only the author(s) and not the Fort Worth Weekly . To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. He will gently edit it for clarity and concision.
Travis Avenue Baptist Church is one of several Christian churches in town about to be geofenced by a pro-Israel group.
METRO
Chaos for FWISD?
TEA intervention into locally controlled school districts has become increasingly common — despite mixed results.
BY JOSEPHINE LEE
Despite months of community protests, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced last week that it would begin the process of
taking over Fort Worth ISD, Texas’ ninth-largest school district with 68,000 students. The move marks the second-largest district to be taken over by the state, next to the highly controversial takeover of Houston ISD in 2023, and is part of an increasing trend of state intervention into locally controlled public education systems.
In a letter to district leaders, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said he planned to appoint a superintendent, a conservator, and a new board of managers, thereby deposing the currently elected school board, after the appeal process ends on October 30.
After long legal delays over state accountability ratings, the Leadership Academy at Forest Oak Sixth Grade received its fifth consecutive failing rating for the 2022-23 school year in April this year, triggering a state law that empowers TEA to take over an entire school district if a singular school receives a failing mark for five years in a row. In 2020, the district handed the campus to the nonprofit Texas Wesleyan University Leadership Academy Network as part of another state law that incentivizes privatization of struggling campuses to avoid takeover.
When the school still received failing ratings after two school years, Fort Worth ISD closed the campus in 2023 to avoid state sanctions, but according to Morath’s letter, the closure occurred after the school had already earned its fifth consecutive failing rating and “did not address the district’s underlying
continued on page 8
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SCREEN
Who’s Laughing Now?
History says the FCC’s open threat to ABC and Disney’s panicked suspension of Jimmy Kimmel mark the start of a censorship trend.
BY DANNY GALLAGHER
FCC chair Brendan Carr’s threat to a public but still civilian figure was chilling, and that’s a generous assessment. Disney’s response to this bluster fueled by thin skins and an overreach of power was just as scary.
Fortunately, there’s a way to fight this kind of blatant government and corporate censorship. It doesn’t call for guns, violence, or even threats. It requires taking away the one thing that scares government officials and large corporate entities the most: losing tons of money.
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel attracted the ire of the right in September while setting up (not joking about) a story about the reaction to the death of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk (not Kirk’s death). Kimmel wasn’t trashed and suspended for joking. He was trashed for reiterating an assessment of a very real political situation.
Kimmel said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
The Trump administration freaked out, which is saying something. The president and his people are the definition of reactionary. Trump carves out time from his schedule to hate-tweet about the slightest slight on a social media forum he had created for himself because he doesn’t even have the guts to read a single critical reply.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said the FCC’s Carr on a conservative podcast about Kimmel’s words. “These companies can find ways to change conduct — to take action, frankly, on Kimmel — or you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Executives at Irving-based broadcaster Nexstar went into panic mode, leading to an announcement that they would not air Kimmel’s show on their ABC affiliates. Sinclair Broadcast Group followed suit, prompting Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney Entertainment Chair Dana Walden to postpone the late-night show “indefinitely.”
The threat of government interference on Carr and Trump’s part backfired — bigly.
Kimmel returned to the air five days later with the show’s highest rating in its 22-year history. The bump even rubbed off on other late-night shows, whose hosts and writers rallied to Kimmel’s defense, and when Kimmel and CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert appeared on each other’s shows to joke about Trump’s thin-skinned reactions, Trump clearly couldn’t hold himself back, because he vomited out his belief to reporters that licensed networks aren’t “allowed” to criticize him.
Fact check: They are.
The reactions were even worse for Disney and TV broadcasters like Nexstar and Sinclair.
Disney’s streaming services, Disney+ and Hulu, saw their average cancellation rate double in a month, representing a loss of 7 million subscribers in a matter of weeks, despite an increase in signups, as Variety reported. Disney also lost $4 billion in market value, and a group of its shareholders is trying to obtain company documents on the matter that could lead to more legal problems for the media giant, according to The Hollywood Reporter
Nexstar and Sinclair also took a hit over their wild mismanagement of the FCC’s overreach. Marketplace.org reported that viewers started a boycott of both broadcasters, leading to a noticeable drop in advertising among local affiliates.
There could even be further legal fallout for Trump, Carr, and Carr’s agency. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that in a government overreach case, public servants coercing private companies not to work with other entities violates the First Amendment.
This latest attempt to suppress free speech isn’t an anomaly. It goes back further than our so-called age of “cancel culture,” the rise of “woke mobs,” and other thoughtless buzzwords that only mask true forms of censorship.
Germany’s Third Reich passed its Treachery Act in 1934, outlawing any critical speech, even jokes. Now, I’m aware that the term “Nazi” gets batted around in modern political circles in a
never-ending game of propagandizing pickleball, but it’s also an unavoidable fact in the annals of criminalizing comedy.
The Third Reich’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, expelled five well-known cabaret actors in 1939 from the Chamber of Culture for performing bits that mocked the Nazi regime. Comedian Werner Finck often caricatured the regime’s top leaders, then he walked onstage with a Nazi arm salute and used his outstretched arm to “adjust a picture.” The expulsion ended his career. These days, media censorship may not involve open threats (until Carr, of course), but it hasn’t stopped other governments from criminalizing criticism of politicians through back channels and loopholes. One example that resurfaced in the wake of Kimmel’s cancellation involved the censoring of the late 1990s satire show Kukly. Russia’s version of the U.K.’s long-running TV comedy Spitting Image, Kukly featured crude puppets from Russian and Western politics, economics, and pop culture, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. It quickly became Russia’s most popular scripted show. Kukly portrayed Putin as a diminutive, screaming baby and an indecisive buffoon propped up to power by oligarchs and media moguls. Some of the show’s clips became one of TV’s first viral clips on YouTube. Putin didn’t appreciate the joke. He didn’t issue an outright ban, but he used his power to threaten broadcaster NTV and even staged raids on its parent company. The network caved and cancelled the show in 2000.
Some of you may still think Kimmel’s joke (again, it was a setup that offended so many of Trump’s Southern belles) crossed a line. You have the right to express such opinions, and, even better, you can just not watch him or any other show that offends your sensibilities. The parallels to some of these and other incidents in broadcasting history are still alarming.
We may not be in the same state as past mistakes here and across the globe may indicate, but failing to learn from them could have hewge consequences beyond just the ability to tell a joke on TV. l
Though the FCC essentially forced them off the air, Jimmy Kimmel (right) and sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez returned five days later to monster ratings.
Courtesy Disney
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Marquis of Vaudeville Performs! DJ spinning tunes throughout the night to keep you in the
Trick-or-Treating for Kids 12 & Under (first 500 kids get a free bag)
Costume Contest for Adults & Kids (family friendly costumes - no gory or frightening costumes please)
