dinsdag 21 juli 2009

De Pro Israel Lobby 145

Israel deploys cyber team to spread positive spin


Jonathan Cook

The National

July 21. 2009


NAZARETH. ISRAEL // The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems.


Israel’s foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.


Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government’s line on the Middle East conflict.


“To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.


The existence of an “internet warfare team” came to light when it was included in this year’s foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 (Dh551,000) has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.


The team will fall under the authority of a large department already dealing with what Israelis term “hasbara”, officially translated as “public explanation” but more usually meaning propaganda. That includes not only government public relations work but more secretive dealings the ministry has with a battery of private organisations and initiatives that promote Israel’s image in print, on TV and online.


In an interview this month with the Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, Mr Shturman, the deputy director of the ministry’s hasbara department, admitted his team would be working undercover.


“Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis,” he said. “They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed.”


Rona Kuperboim, a columnist for Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, denounced the initiative, saying it indicated that Israel had become a “thought-police state”.


She added that “good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved.”

Her column was greeted by several talkbackers asking how they could apply for a job with the foreign ministry’s team.


The project is a formalisation of public relations practices the ministry developed specifically for Israel’s assault on Gaza in December and January.


“During Operation Cast Lead we appealed to Jewish communities abroad and with their help we recruited a few thousand volunteers, who were joined by Israeli volunteers,” Mr Shturman said.


“We gave them background material and hasbara material, and we sent them to represent the Israeli point of view on news websites and in polls on the internet.”


The Israeli army also had one of the most popular sites on the video-sharing site YouTube and regularly uploaded clips, although it was criticised by human rights groups for misleading viewers about what was shown in its footage.


Mr Shturman said that during the war the ministry had concentrated its activities on European websites where audiences were more hostile to Israeli policy. High on its list of target sites for the new project would be BBC Online and Arabic websites, he added.


Elon Gilad, who heads the internet team, told Calcalist that many people had contacted the ministry offering their services during the Gaza attack. “People just asked for information, and afterwards we saw that the information was distributed all over the internet.”


He suggested that there had been widespread government cooperation, with the ministry of absorption handing over contact details for hundreds of recent immigrants to Israel, who wrote pro-Israel material for websites in their native languages.


The new team is expected to increase the ministry’s close coordination with a private advocacy group, giyus.org (Give Israel Your United Support). About 50,000 activists are reported to have downloaded a programme called Megaphone that sends an alert to their computers when an article critical of Israel is published. They are then supposed to bombard the site with comments supporting Israel.


Nasser Rego of Ilam, a group based in Nazareth that monitors the Israeli media, said Arab organisations in Israel were among those regularly targeted by hasbara groups for “character assassination”. He was concerned the new team would try to make such work appear more professional and convincing.


“If these people are misrepresenting who they are, we can guess they won’t worry too much about misrepresenting the groups and individuals they write about. Their aim, it’s clear, will be to discredit those who stand for human rights and justice for the Palestinians.”


When The National called the foreign ministry, Yigal Palmor, a spokesman, denied the existence of the internet team, though he admitted officials were stepping up exploitation of new media.


He declined to say which comments by Mr Shturman or Mr Gilad had been misrepresented by the Hebrew-language media, and said the ministry would not be taking any action over the reports.


Israel has developed an increasingly sophisticated approach to new media since it launched a “Brand Israel” campaign in 2005.


Market research persuaded officials that Israel should play up good news about business success, and scientific and medical breakthroughs involving Israelis.


Mr Shturman said his staff would seek to use websites to improve “Israel’s image as a developed state that contributes to the quality of the environment and to humanity”.


David Saranga, head of public relations at Israel’s consulate-general in New York, which has been leading the push for more upbeat messages about Israel, argued last week that Israel was at a disadvantage against pro-Palestinian advocacy.


“Unlike the Muslim world, which has hundreds of millions of supporters who have adopted the Palestinian narrative in order to slam Israel, the Jewish world numbers only 13 million,” he wrote in Ynet.


Israel has become particularly concerned that support is ebbing among the younger generations in Europe and the United States.


In 2007 it emerged that the foreign ministry was behind a photo-shoot published in Maxim, a popular US men’s magazine, in which female Israeli soldiers posed in swimsuits.


12 opmerkingen:

Unknown zei

Over hasbara gesproken: als dit waar is (en het stuk over Darfoer klopt in grote lijnen), dan ga ik enigszins aan mijn verstand twijfelen...

Het huidige regime in Rwanda heeft het Engels als Europese taal ingevoerd ter vervanging van het koloniale Frans. Iedere overeenkomst met de VS is natuurlijk strikt toeval.

Paul2 zei

David Saranga, head of public relations at Israel’s consulate-general in New York, which has been leading the push for more upbeat messages about Israel, argued last week that Israel was at a disadvantage against pro-Palestinian advocacy.
@Stan

Dat is niet zo moeilijk te begrijpen .Negatieve spin produceren de Israeli's zelf genoeg.Palestijnen kunnen het stellen zonder PR-bureau,en toch winnen ,dat zegt toch wel genoeg.
Nu dit weer:

A remarkable story in Haaretz (via Antiwar.com) reveals that Orthodox Jewish extremists in the United States have, with the help of radical sectarians in Israel, distributed booklets to Israeli soldiers and officers claiming that the Vatican is organizing "tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews."

As Haaretz notes, the booklets -- published by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America -- has been given to Israeli soldiers "for months." The booklet is purportedly written by a former Hezbollah insider who converted to Judaism. He writes of Pope Benedict XVI's personal direction of a wide-ranging program among "European elites" to train Hezbollah cadres in genocide, while also paying huge fees to journalists, academics and politicians who are critical of Israeli policies. What's more, the booklet asserts that Israeli critics of government policy are also funded by the Vatican-led effort to exterminate Jews. "Every real Arab, deep inside, is kind of a fan of the Nazis," the purported author declares.
Zo krijg je de hele katholieke gemeenschap wel achter de Palestijnen.
En er stond nog wat in het artikel dat interessant is:

One might also note here that the West's new favorite Palestinian, Mahmoud Abbas -- the sort-of president of the Palestinian Authority whose term expired months ago but who still somehow remains in office with America and Israel's full backing -- wrote a doctoral thesis declaring that the Holocaust was "a Zionist fantasy," a "fantastic lie", and that the "few hundred thousand" Jews who did die at Nazi hands were only killed because "Zionist" fanatics provoked the Germans: "The Zionist movement led a broad campaign of incitement against the Jews living under Nazi rule to arouse the government's hatred of them." But Abbas is a useful tool of Israeli domination, so his genuinely horrific revisionism is whitewashed, while outrageous falsehoods -- like a Vatican-Hezbollah genocide plan -- are used to stoke the hatred of soldiers sent to wage war on civilians in Gaza.

Was deze doctoral thesis geschreven door de president van Iran,MSM zou het tot de laatste letter aan toe analyseren ,warmongers zouden denken'goud' in handen te hebben gekregen.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3-articles/1800-hostile-takeover-holy-warriors-peddle-new-protocols-seek-military-dominion.html#comments

Anoniem zei

Spanning in Oost Jeruzalem, VS en Israel

En ook van Naftaniel komen we weer wat te weten, berichten worden steeds leuker om te lezen

anzi

Anoniem zei

De Hasbarahans Jansen haalt ouwe lulkoek maar weer tevoorschijn. Spuugbakje klaarzetten!

Goede Duitsers door een fout blaadje gezien Volkskrant
anzi

Anoniem zei

Iran’s exports to Belgium up by %84
Tehran, May 4, IRNA – Some dlrs 410 million worth of various commodities and products were exported to Belgium during March 2008-March 2009.

The deputy head of Iran's Trade Development Organization (ITDO) said the figure indicated a growth of 84 percent compared to the previous year.

During March 2007-March 2008, over dlrs 225 million worth of commodities were exported to Belgium from Iran, Babak Afqahi added.

He said the exported items included steel bars, pistachio, carpets, caviar, steel products, pipes, melamine, gas condensates, machinery, chemicals, medial instrument, foodstuff, minerals and agricultural products.

anzi

Anoniem zei

Nu Jansen toch ouwe Duitse lulkoek tevoorschijn haalt waarbij de Moslim weer in het middelpunt mag staan, kunnen we ook nog ander vergelijkingsmateriaal vinden bij de IRNA.
Ga naar de site van de krant, voorpagina rechtsonder, afbeelding IDF figuur en Nazi. Klik hierop en zie de tegenovergestelde realistische vergelijkingingen en zet lulkoek Jansen hier tegenover.
Treffend is de bekende foto met het joodse jongetje met zijn handen omhoog en die van het Palestijnse jongetje die in zijn broek plast van angst.

Het zou goed zijn als meer mensen dit onder ogen zou komen!

anzi

Anoniem zei

Het zou goed zijn als meer mensen dit onder ogen zou komen!

Ik bedoel hiermee dat men laat zien dat het een en ander niet ontkend wordt door o.a. publicatie van joodse en Palestijnse slachtoffers, dit tegenovergesteld w.b. de 'joods christelijke' cultuur.
Iran erkent allebei.

anzi

Anoniem zei

Trouw 22-7-2009

PVV: Wat kost ons de allochtoon?

De PVV wil exact weten hoeveel geld allochtonen de staat kosten en hoeveel ze opbrengen. Het is de vraag of de ministeries meewerken aan deze kosten-batenanalyse.

Polderpeil
Moeten de ministeries meewerken aan een kosten-batenanalyse van allochtonen?
Ja65 %
Nee35 %

Totaal aantal stemmen: 942

Hoever gaan we afzakken??
Lees verder in Trouw

anzi

Anoniem zei

Original 1944 Lyrics

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.

I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
Saying this land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,
This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

anzi

Sonja zei

De vraag moet m.i. zijn hoeveel de PVV ons kost.

Vrije-wereldburger zei

Dit vraagt Trouw besmuikt en het kan de strontkar over zich heenkrijgen.

Die fascistjes weten dat zij geen antwoord op deze vraag zullen krijgen en dan kunnen ze weer gaan janken dat de Democratie jesjonden wogt want hunnie kgijjen nooit antwoogd (oeps, ik ontspoor zelf jeloof ik)...

Anoniem zei

Wilders importeert de rottigheid van Israel naar Nederland.
Trouwens VVD stond wel achter Wilders wat dit betreft (natuurlijk officieus met veel meer zaken). Kan je nagaan hoever we al zijn!!
Misschien een idee om te onderzoeken hoeveel Israel en de lobby de wereld al heeft gekost w.b. mensenlevens, financieel, moreel, de rottigheid die zij veroorzaken in landen tussen bevolkingsgroepen, regeringsleiders etc.

anzi