WJC session on defending Israel on the internet
Eli Novershtern of WJC Diplomatic Corps is moderating.Panelists:
Yoav Adler of Israeli embassy in Argentina.
Noah Pollak of ECI.
Alejandro Donzis, a Jewish Diplomat (I think that's what they mean by JD) from Buenos Aires (World Jewish Diplomatic Corps Observatorio project)
New media is real time, online and anyone can write. But local credibility is important.
New media drives agenda of old media. Noah talking about this now. Bloggers were the undoing of Chas Freeman. New media important for Israel because most people know nothing about Israel except for the media, and the mainstream media has an agenda about Israel.
Yoav Adler says classic hasbara is to people who are predisposed to Israel. Today people think they know about Israel because of all the information out there.
Noah says groups don't read each other's materials so it's very hard to get through to the other side. We need to play offense and set the agenda - traditionally hasbara has been defensive. Until now we have always played on others' terms. We have to have a more offensive mindset and have to go after the negative campaigners against Israel. That doesn't come naturally to us. You have to discredit people who go after Israel. That's how to win the delegitimization wars. You have to keep attacking them and questioning their credibility. Eli says that WJC approach until now has been pluralistic.
In Latin America, they have tried to use viral video songs and give them pro-Israel themes. They're showing the video. I found it - without the English subtitles they put on it for the audience here.
Let's go to the videotape.
Noah says there's no secret and that these people are all on Twitter and you can find them easily. And I can confirm that you can. The pro-Israel world needs to get more familiar with what we're up against.
Alejandro says that there are rules and that we have to make sure the rules also apply to the internet (sounds like an exercise in futility to me).
I got up and commented about how Israeli bloggers work with the IDF Spokesperson's office, the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister's office (yes, they send us material from time to time).
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:19 PM
4 Comments:
I would willingly work with, eg, the Israeli embassy in London, but!
They are totally dhimmified!
They removed all my comments almost as soon as I posted them to the embassy facebook page; I was posting about this very issue, being more pro active. One guy told me I was missing the point( of protecting Israel) that we should not descend to muslims level!!
Also, they put up a peace now activist to "promote" Israel at a silly little, non-advertised meeting at the LSE, London. There were about 8 silly uneducated middle-class JAPs and one lying muslime who said she was Spanish!
Leadership on this issue will not come from the current Israeli gov. It must come from elsewhere.
I SO love that video! Every time I run across it, I wind up singing throughout the day, "Israel, Israel, que bonito es Israel. ¡Israel, Israel, en tus tierras bailaré!"
They should just hire you and AussieDave and a couple of others so you can spend all your time (which it looks like you do anyway) and keep diversifying on subjects. The govt and the peace now types just can't bring themselves to actually post facts. They think it's just too mean, not positive thinking, out of our influence, etc. because such crummy things happen in the world. But now I've gone back a whole century (not to mention that I need to read back even further from sources other than govt. schools) by, for example, reading Churchill's River War about Sudan (and I just ordered his book on Malakand about the AfPak mountain area)). I am thinking that if enough people actually read facts with links, videos, recommended and excerpted books, etc. then our chances of reestablishing the means of living a good life (I don't mean $$ or coerced religion) are increased.
Trying to limit the internet goes the other way.
When you said that "sounds like an exercise in futility to me" you should know that in Brazil more than 18,000 court cases block inappropriate content. In Argentina the wave is going the same way. Latin America, freedom of speech is in effect, but stops when its became discrimination. This is a main difference from USA where you can say anything without any limits.
If you care about the problem of "abuse" over the internet you can do some research about what is happening in Latam. It is very interesting.
I invite you to get in to http://www.observatorioweb.org
Post a Comment
<< Home