Israeli FM pushing for web propaganda

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Hasbara spam alert

                                                  **With Israel's foreign ministry organising volunteers to flood news websites with pro-Israeli comments, Propaganda 2.0 is here**

The hasbara brigade strikes again! You always hear about Israeli attempts at media manipulation. Everyone knows it’s going on but usually the process happens through cyber insurgents like those involved with Giyus (and its media monitoring software, Megaphone). Now, we know that the Israeli foreign ministry itself is orchestrating propaganda efforts designed to flood news websites with pro-Israel arguments and information.
A reader of my blog has received the following email which documents both the efforts and the agency that originated them. The solicitation to become a pro-Israel “media volunteer” also includes a list of media links which the ministry would like addressed by pro-Israel comments:Dear friends,
We hold the [sic] military supremacy, yet fail the battle over the international media. We need to buy time for the IDF to succeed, and the least we can do is spare some (additional) minutes on the net. The ministry of foreign affairs is putting great efforts in balancing the media, but we all know it’s a battle of numbers. The more we post, blog, talkback, vote – the more likely we gain positive sentiment.
I was asked by the ministry of foreign affairs to arrange a network of volunteers, who are willing to contribute to this effort. If you’re up to it you will receive a daily messages & media package as well as targets.
If you wish to participate, please respond to this email.
My friend did so and received this official communique from the ministry with talking points about Operation Cast Lead which s/he was to use in her/his propaganda efforts. Among the links was was a Peter Beaumont Cif piece. The following were identified as “target sites”: the Times, the Guardian, Sky News, BBC, Yahoo!News, Huffington Post, and the Dutch Telegraaf. Also targeted were other media sites in Dutch, Spanish, German and French considered critical of the invasion.
Locally, here in Seattle, peace activists held a rally at our federal building attended by 500 protesters. In the foreign ministry communique issued the next day, activists were directed to comment in the Seattle Post Intelligence article about the demonstration. The comment thread for the article is riddled with clear hasbara “plants” who distort the balance and tone of the discussion with their programmed arguments, making it much more favorable than it otherwise would be.

Besides the talking points provided by the foreign ministry to the pro-Israel web activists, they are offered online pro-Israel material to link to in their comments.

Richard Silverstein: The Israeli foreign ministry itself is asking volunteers to flood news websites with pro-Israel arguments and information | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Is that true Burqa and pals? :hehe: Just kidding. :slight_smile:

I see nothing new here. Israel has always been one for propaganda to pre-counter any reaction that might build against its Nazi-Inspired crimes against the Palestinians. The tempo has just been raised, but the tool was always there, always utilized.

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Re: Israeli FM pushing for web propaganda

Wow. That is just pathetic. Joseph Goebbels will be proud.

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Re: Israeli FM pushing for web propaganda

The only way israel knew how to balance the media was to ban journalists from gaza, so the world has no view but the israeli view.

The problem with this form of censorship was that international journalists were restricted to report from the distant borders of israel/gaza' and they often had very little to report and hence mostly relied on the two journalist that decided to bravely stay in Gaza, throughout the bombing campaign.

These two journalist were from Al-jazeera and the london based iranian english channel, PRESS TV. These are not known to hold back thier information and both became a regular source of information for the public and press during the campaign.

So no matter how big the lies told by israeli media spokesmen, the rest of the world was seeing the opposite, and for this reason, thier spokesmen and women were often ridiculed by the media and public alike. Mark regev being the most prominent, churned out every PR line he knew,seemed to be under the impression he was the only source of information we had, yet the horrific images and reports coming from the other side were showing completely the opposite.

His lines of hamas was hiding in the UN aid centre, using children as human sheilds, and was also the source of the phosphorous bombs, were deemed jaw dropping outrageous. When confronted, his only defense was he did not have enough information. Later he did mange to backtrack on some of his ludicrous claims.

Wether Israel realised or not, these two tv stations alone quietly tore through the comfy humanitarian image Israel had tried to portray. Thanks to them, the world really got to see the truth. And so when the hasbara group were exposed by journalists, and when the isrelai leaders pretended they cared for the palestinian civilians, their lies were exposed immediately. They were often ridiculed and dissmissed on the majority of the british discussion forums. It was obvious some of them were posting the same points, word for word, copying and pasting from their spin masters. They are usually easily to spot, as the irrational and defensive type.

Im not sure really, if the israelis realized what was actually happening, because the only people willing to buy into thier lies and spin were the israeli public and perhaps also not surprisingly most americans.... hence the large protests to boycott israel world wide, and students sit-ins across UK universities, seemed rather surprising....and the only thing they put it down to was anti semitism.

So whilst they thought they had the upper hand in the media by keeping journalists out, they were totally unravelled and exposed by the two unsuspecting tv journalists and thier small band of camera crew. Hence why the other day, shimon peres and other leaders could not understand and seemed a tad puzzled at the the war crimes allegations, or why europe, and britian in particular, were so anti israel, this despite their huge media censorship efforts. What they havent realised for sure, is that the world has finally awoken to thier henious crimes and is asking for israel to be held accountable.