Israel Matters!Matters!
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ISRAELISRAEL MATTERS!MATTERS! Publication of the Israel Affairs Committee of Temple Beth Sholom 1809 Whitney Avenue, Hamden, CT 06517-1401 Issue Number 120 February 2018 Fighting for Israel on Social Media US Ambassador to Israel Adds Late in the afternoon on July 28, 2014, Daniel Rubenstein was scrolling through Twitter at Momentum to Taylor Force Act IDF headquarters in sunny Tel Aviv when he Limiting PA “Martyr” Payments saw a tweet from NBC News reporter Ayman Mohyeldin: “Israeli airstrike has hit the outpa- Reacting on Twitter to the recent murder of a tient clinic at Shifa Hospital. Local Palestinian rabbi by Palestinians, David Friedman, the media is reporting several children among dead US ambassador, said the episode spoke to the #gaza.” Minutes later Mohyeldin tweeted core issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. again, this time accusing Israel of striking Al “An Israeli father of six was killed in cold Shati refugee camp. blood by Palestinian terrorists,” the ambassa- dor wrote. “Hamas praises the killers and PA Rubenstein, an Israeli immigrant originally laws will provide them financial rewards. from Sugar Land, Texas, was an IDF reservist “Look no further as to why there is no peace,” during the 50-day war known as Operation Pro- the diplomat added. tective Edge, leading the Spokesperson Unit’s English social media team. He switched into crisis mode, moving quickly to get the facts Friedman was referring to a program at the before responding. An hour after Mohyeldin’s first tweet, Rubinstein heart of a bill fast proceeding through Con- sent information via text message to reporters after receiving confir- gress that Ramallah warns will lead to the mation that the airstrikes were actually coming from Hamas, the ter- dissolution of the Palestinian Authority. The ror group that rules the Gaza Strip. Taylor Force Act threatens a dramatic cut in aid to the PA if it continues its decades-old Mohyeldin subsequently scheme of compensating families of Palestini- tweeted, “IDF: Palestini- ans convicted in Israel of murder and terror- ans killed in Gaza at ism, and the families of slain terrorists. Israel Shati refugee and strike and the US argue that the program, referred at Shifa hospital were to by the PA as a “martyr” fund, is immoral result of Hamas rockets and contrary to the pursuit of peace; Pales- that landed in Gaza.” tinians claim it compensates families of the Rubenstein, then 30 wrongfully convicted and legitimate combat- years old, could breathe ants in the “resistance,” representing a wel- again, having prevailed in yet another quick round of fire in the social fare program essential to the PA’s support. media war raging alongside the ground conflict. [Illustrative image President Trump was quoted as saying he left: Screen capture of MSNBC reporter Ayman Mohyeldin during a “strongly supports” the Taylor Force Act, all broadcast in which he erroneously claimed that a Palestinian shot by but assuring he will sign it into law once it security forces as he carried out a knife attack was unarmed. reaches his desk. Trump underscored his (YouTube/MBC NESS)] willingness to cut PA funding in a tweet of This anecdote among with many others is told in the new book, “War his own. “We pay the Palestinians HUN- in 140 Characters: How Social Media is Reshaping Conflict in the DREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year Twenty-First Century” by journalist David Patrikarakos. The book is and get no appreciation or respect,” the presi- a fast-paced read exploring the power of the individual in shaping the dent said. [JPost.com] (Continued ) (Continued from page 1) ment where there are almost no boundaries to entry,” Pa- trikarakos says. narrative of war online. Patrikarakos spoke with The In contrast to Farah is the IDF’s Spokesperson’s Unit. Times of Israel about his new book and what the increas- Aliza Landes who, like Rubenstein, is North America-born ingly challenging media war will mean for Israel in future and educated. At 25, with a wider outlook than the post- conflicts. high school soldiers around her, Landes is exceptionally “What we’re seeing now is that war is the practice of poli- placed to play a role in creating the IDF’s social media tics itself,” Patrikarakos says. “[Hamas is] infrastructure during Operation Cast Lead not trying to achieve a military victory. It that started in the winter of 2008. Bureauc- can’t have one. What it wants to do is try to Help Wanted! racy runs faster during a war, and Landes goad the Israelis into action and display its Your editor has been used this to her advantage, pushing permis- suffering to the world, get more sympathy, the Chair of the TBS sion through to start the IDF’s various social get more condemnation of Israel, and that Israel Affairs Commit- media platforms. “It is both odd and instruc- is a political goal, and that is where coun- tee for about a decade. tive,” Patrikarakos writes, “that it took a tries like Israel are at a disadvantage.” During that time Israel soldier instead of a diplomat to greatly ex- This, he said, is what will make it harder has seen significant pand Israel’s public diplomacy and propa- for Israel to fight the next war. changes to its national ganda machine.” “Israel is quadruple damned. It’s doubly identity, including By 2014, the IDF had a finely tuned social damned in the sense that if it suffers casu- those in security, tech- media presence; they knew that competing alties, it loses, and if it inflicts casualties, it nology, and the sociol- in the emotional debate was a nonstarter, so loses. It’s also doubly damned in that it’s ogy of the country. strategy focused on contextualization, show- seen as the bully and the Palestinians as Few things last forever ing Hamas’ use of tunnels as tools for terror the underdog but actually online the re- and the time is right and of civilians as human shields. Patrikara- verse is true. Online, Israel is the underdog; for a change in the kos writes, “In a major way, Operation Pro- it is massively outnumbered. The amount of committee’s leadership. tective Edge inverted war’s traditional para- pro-Palestinian accounts far outweigh the digm: it was an information war played out Israeli ones.” This disadvantage, Patrikara- If you are passionate on the battlefield, in which the former was, kos said, has significant implications. In the about Israel and are at times, more important than the latter. It book, Patrikarakos introduces the reader to willing to take the ini- was gladiatorial combat, war as political 16-year-old Gazan girl Farah Baker who tiative to continue to theater: a truly postmodern conflict.” live-tweets from her home during the 2014 bring to the TBS mem- bership an increased As Patrikarakos discovered in interviews Gaza conflict. She comes to represent the with officers from the IDF’s Spokesperson’s Palestinian side of the narrative. awareness of events in, or affecting Israel, then Unit, this struggle pushes Israel into a Sisy- What is so different about Baker, as Patri- this is the challenge for phean exercise. The country knows it’s karakos points out in the interview, is that you. If this sounds like doomed to lose the mass media war from the traditionally as a young female in a patriar- you, please let Rabbi start, particularly as news media and inter- chal society she would be the most power- Scolnic know of your national organizations are shown to display less person in a war, yet she became a interest. inherent pro-Palestinian leaning. But it has highly influential player thanks to social no choice but to play the game. media. Her tweets during the war are per- Still, Israel very much uses social media to its advantage, sonal; they emphasize the suffering of children and her but media wins for the IDF are few and far between — constant fear of death. like having an NBC journalist correct a false story or get- Farah’s tweets started gaining exposure from traditional ting coverage of how Israelis in Sderot live under the con- news outlets. Patrikarakos points out that with her fair stant threat of Hamas rocket fire, according to the skin, blue eyes and vulnerability on display, “in a sea of Spokesperson’s Unit. the faceless, Farah was Taylor Swift.” It was Western me- According to the author, the 2014 war was an example of dia that transformed her from a young terrified girl into a how in 21st century conflict one side can conclusively win phone-wielding soldier, essentially becoming her spear- on the battlefield but lose the wider war. holder, he said. And more than that, reporters let Baker tell her story directly, listing her tweets as the body of the For a small country which requires outside diplomatic and article itself and allowing readers to directly link back to financial support, global opinion holds value. As Patri- her accounts. karakos’s timely work shows, determining who won and who lost depends on where you stand. But what that “Now, [Baker] is not Hamas, but she became a foot soldier means for future conflicts is still yet to be seen. for the Palestinian cause and it’s a form of mass enlist- [timesofisrael.com] .