A bipartisan centrist organization led by the wife of Mark Penn, the CEO of Stagwell Group that was recently a paid foreign agent for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has announced plans to launch a working group focused on strengthening U.S. ties in the Middle East, including with Israel.
Nancy Jacobson, the founder and CEO of No Labels, announced the initiative last week in a speech at the Jerusalem Post Miami Summit, which she co-chaired alongside Penn.
The announcement comes on the heels of a months-long period when Penn’s firm and its subsidiaries conducted public relations, messaging, and research work on behalf of the Israeli government, including work that required registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Penn has said he has no formal role in No Labels, which he describes as his wife’s independent project, though he remains the president of a nonprofit called The New Center, which was formerly known as the No Labels Foundation and functioned as No Labels’ education arm.
The January 11-13 summit brought together U.S. and Israeli political figures and corporate policy executives, including U.S. Special Envoy for Peace Steve Witkoff, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, the CEO of Israel Aerospace Defense Boaz Levy, and Meta’s public policy operation for Israel and the Jewish Diaspora Jordana Cutler. Ronald Lauder, an American billionaire and Israel advocate who was reportedly involved in Trump’s push to take Greenland, was a featured speaker at the summit. Jacobson said in her speech that bipartisan U.S. support for Israel was under historic strain and advocated shifting the relationship “toward embracing Israel as a partner in innovation.”
No Labels will be convening a bipartisan working group on Middle East policy with the goal of strengthening economic ties between the U.S., Israel, and other Middle East allies, Jacobson announced at the event, according to an article in The Jerusalem Post written in cooperation with No Labels. Jacobson added that "rebuilding the bipartisan consensus around Israel may require rethinking old narratives and recasting the debate," adding that "Israel doesn’t just need American power. It needs American bipartisanship."
The centrist group, co-founded by Jacobson and the late Sen. Joseph Lieberman in 2010, describes itself as a cross-partisan organization that pushes politicians to be less responsive to the far-left and far-right and to govern with “common sense.” With a budget in 2024 of about $7 million, the group has developed influence with Congress through its governing board of lobbyists and business executives, as well as its 49-member bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Penn has long-standing personal and professional ties to the Israeli right-wing, including polling work for former Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the Likud party in the 1980s and a $100,000 personal donation to AIPAC following the October 7 attacks.
Stagwell subsidiary SKDK, a Democratic Party-aligned public affairs firm, registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act last year to represent Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The $600,000 contract, signed in April 2025 and originally planned to run through March 2026, covered media relations and strategic communications, including outreach to outlets like CNN and Fox News, coaching spokespeople, and reaching out to influencers.
SKDK ended the contract early following a Sludge report that highlighted a clause in the contract for SKDK to build automated social media bots that could “flood the zone” with Israeli propaganda.
Separately, Penn’s Stagwell Global has conducted reputation research for Israel's foreign ministry amid the war in Gaza. The effort surveyed people across Europe and the U.S. to test messaging strategies, including themes such as "radical Islam" and jihadism, aimed at improving Israel's image amid the Gaza conflict, according to leaked documents reported by Drop Site News. The firm has also handled public relations for the AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League-led 10/7 Project, and its subsidiary Targeted Victory began handling communications services for Israel’s Ministry of Tourism last September.
No Labels did not respond to an inquiry about how the new working group will function or what, if any, safeguards will be in place regarding potential intersections with Penn’s or Stagwell’s Israel-related work. Any paid foreign agent or lobbying activity on behalf of Israel would require registration and disclosure under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). However, informal or “soft” influence, such as through Jacobson’s personal relationships, may not trigger these requirements and could potentially allow undisclosed foreign sway in the working group’s activities.
