This Sunday, the Israeli government ran three ads that called for support for hostages held by Hamas during the most watched television event of the year, amidst growing national criticism of Israel’s bombing campaign in Palestine which has lasted two days and killed more than 100 people.

The 30-second ads ran during the game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs, which was streamed on Paramount+ by approximately 115 million Americans last Sunday. 

The first was called Bring All Dads Back Home, and portrayed dads throwing the ball with their kids before shifting to images of Israeli hostages. The second was titled “136 Seats Are Still Available for Sunday’s Game” and showed empty seats in a stadium, representing the 136 Israeli hostages still believed to be held by Hamas. The last was titled “In a roaring stadium, their silence is deafening,” also showing a football stadium filled with fans with some seats empty.

The ads have been both celebrated and criticized by viewers. While pro-Israel supporters say the ads are a welcome first, many groups  groups who oppose Israel’s bombardment of Palestine say that the ads support genocide.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate, which acts as a press office for the Israeli government, bought the Super Bowl ad space through Paramount. Israel likely paid about $7 million for a 30-second space, according to pricing reported by Vivvix Ad Intelligence.

Here’s what we know about the ads and why they matter to American politics:

Why would Israel do this and what do they want?

Political science scholar Robert Boatright, who teaches at Clark University, says the ad campaign demonstrates Israel’s awareness that it needs American support for its war effort. US public support for Israel  has waned continuously as the death toll surges.

The number of Americans who say Israel has gone “too far” was up 40% in January compared to November 2023, according to data from AP-NORC. In November, 40% of Americans said Israel has gone “too far” in its campaign in Gaza. Now, half of all Americans say the same, a newer poll shows.

As the 2024 election season begins, polls indicate that the growing discontent of the American public around Pres. Joe Biden’s continued support of Israel may have political consequences.  “If I had any idea of voting for Joe Biden, I certainly will not be doing so now,” said Aldair Labrada, a Cuban American voter told Prism in November.

“Not only because his administration has proven to be against any form of ceasefire, but because he said that we cannot be sure that this many [Palestinians] have died. And honestly that’s just very saddening to me because it normalizes what is going on.”

Biden’s has continued to refuse to call for a ceasefire. However, his messaging about Gaza has grown more critical of Israel compared to last fall, when he proudly declared himself a “Zionist.”

Last week he took a markedly different turn from his usual unwavering support for Israel. He described Israel’s military assault in Gaza as “over the top” and said he was seeking a “sustained pause in the fighting” to help ailing Palestinian civilians and negotiate the release of Israeli hostages, The Guardian reported Wednesday.

Democrats are growing less supportive of the president because of how he has handled the conflict.

Prof. Boatright, who studies and teaches about campaign finance and elections, says that the Israeli government’s decision to air the ads highlights their recognition of the profound importance that American public opinion plays in their ability to keep fighting their war.

“It seems Israel has a legit perception that it needs to do a PR campaign in America,” Boatright said. They know there’s conflict in the U.S. over what we should be doing in terms of Israel and Palestine.”

Israel’s PR war, while robust, is failing because of its own inconsistencies, including videos social media users say appear staged, but also because of the widespread instant access to information on the war, said Mohamad Elmasry, Professor of Media Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, in a January article for Middle East Eye.

Death at this scale has not been observed in the internet era, making the war potentially the world’s first “livestreamed genocide,” as South Africa’s legal team has called the conflict.

Aside from the coverage being posted by Palestinians in Gaza, the ones being shared by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) aren’t helping either.  IDF soldiers have used social media to post videos and photos that depict triumphant soldiers alongside  shocking images of hostages stripped and tied up being carried away in trucks.

Some of the even more horrifying stories, which include those of a pregnant woman whose stomach was cut open and her unborn baby stabbed in front of her, are either based on already-published fiction or made up for the moment.

“These stories are entirely fictional, a set of audacious lies weaponized to generate the type of collective rage used to justify the unjustifiable,” Intercept reporter Jeremy Scahill said in his February report titled “Netanyahu’s War on Truth.”

Despite overwhelming opposition, the senate recently voted to pass a foreign aid package that includes $14 billion in military assistance to Israel.

So, did it work?

According to Boatright, the success of political ads meant to shift public opinion  is measured by whether or not people remembered them. When he asked his college students if they remembered the ad from the game, he said most of his students did remember the 30-second ad.

“So on those grounds, I’d say it was a successful ad.  Part of what made it successful, I think, is the novelty of it and perhaps the controversial nature of it.  My students think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a lot, so they are sort of primed to notice when something unusual is said about it, or when it pops up somewhere they weren’t expecting it to,” Boatright told Reckon.

Criticism of the ad and the “Stop Jewish Hate” ads paid for by a foundation owned by billionaire owner of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft came from both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine viewers who aired their grievances online.

Some users criticized the “136 seats” ad with their edits of the ad featuring Palestinian fathers who endured Israeli attacks like this remake posted by X user Propaganda and Co.

Many online critics were also appalled, pointing out that while the Super Bowl ad aired, Israel began a bombing campaign of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, the last safe zone in the region where 1.2 million Palestinians have fled after the Israeli Defense Forces indicated that it was a safe zone.

Holding power to account

An activist-led effort to get the Federal Communications Commission’s attention led to more than 10,000 complaints being filed about the ads as of Wednesday, according to  Abed A. Ayoub, National Executive Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Ayoub said the FCC is required to disclose if programming is paid for by a foreign government. FCC regulations seem to support his claim made in his posts on X.

“CBS violated FCC rules by not making proper disclosures to the viewers across all platforms. This not only undermines the integrity of broadcasting standards but also misleads the public by not providing necessary context about the ad’s origins,” he said, calling for the FCC to “hold CBS and the NFL accountable” for not clearly disclosing the ad’s sponsor.

“The American public has a right to know and be informed about the influence of foreign governments in our media, and this includes Israel,” Ayoub said in the post on X.

The ADC has set up a call to action on its website where people can complain directly to the FCC. The FCC has not yet responded to complaints about the ads as of Wednesday afternoon.