Twittering the war

December 31, 2008 - 11:23 AM by David

After so many times of kicking ass on the battlefield, but losing the media war, various government bodies are paying much closer attention this time to explaining Israel’s positions and justification for their current operation in Gaza.

Fortunately, most people can think back longer than two minutes and understand the context here – that the air force strikes in Gaza were precipitated by years of Hamas rocket attacks in Israel’s southern cities and communities. But for those too blind to see the full picture – or for informed people who just want to receive more information, there’s some assistance and visual aids available thanks to our friends at both the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the IDF.

And these government officials learned the lesson finally, that most people aren’t getting their information anymore from the talking heads on CNN or from the oped pages of the New York Times… but from Twitter and YouTube.

On Tuesday, Israel’s New York consulate held a “live citizen press conference” on Twitter hosted by David Saranga, consul for media and public affairs. The conference saw thousands of on-line “attendees” who followed the consulate’s Twitter page during the two-hour discussion.

“This is a young audience that doesn’t want to hear history or long-winded stories. It wants clear, short and on-topic responses. That’s Twitter and that’s our goal: short and precise responses that answer their questions,” said Saranga.

“Since the start of the Gaza situation, we’ve noticed a very active discussion on Twitter that hasn’t been very complimentary to the Israeli side,” Saranga explained. “On Twitter, anyone can say whatever they think without giving a name, and they can present supposed facts and are believed. So we felt it was important to present a voice that is not anonymous, where people know the source of the information.”

YouTube Preview ImageMeanwhile, Saranga’s colleagues over at the IDF Spokesman’s Office have launched their own
YouTube channel, to disseminate footage of precision IAF bombing operations in Gaza.

“The blogosphere and new media are another war zone,” Foreign Press Branch head Maj. Avital Leibovich told The Jerusalem Post. “We have to be relevant there,” she said. “The important thing is to get the truth out there,”

I wonder, though, if footage showing an an IAF airstrike targeting a group of men the army says were loading rockets onto a pickup truck, to be driven to the border and launched into Israel, is going to win over and minds and hearts.

Those who support Israel will be gung ho, but those who feel that we’ve gone too far with this offensive might grudgingly admit that the men who were hit were about to launch an attack on Israel, but there must be some other way to prevent them from carrying it out… maybe like asking nicely?

Leibovich was’t too concerned that the footage might have some ’snuff film’ element to it. “The intelligent audience watching the footage will know that people killed did not have peaceful intentions toward Israel,” she told The Post. “I don’t believe they’ll be disturbed.”

With talk of a temporary cease-fire being bandied about, the online innovations adopted by the IDF and the Foreign Ministry may have to temporarily be put on hold. But it’s nice to see the opportunities are being utilized to aid our war effort in the just as important hasbara war.
I’m still not sure about those snuff films though.

Tags: , , , , • Category: A New Reality, Technology, War 

Comments

7 Comments on Twittering the war

  1. An Unsealed Room » The Stories You Won’t See on CNN on Wed, Dec 31st 2008 12:57 PM

    2. [...] They were calling the Second Lebanon War the first war to be blogged. This Gaza operation is the first to be Twittered. [...]

  2. Chas Newkey-Burden on Wed, Dec 31st 2008 1:07 PM

    3. That’s a really interesting post, as usual from you! Good luck.

  3. Litvshe on Wed, Dec 31st 2008 4:48 PM

    4. We’re also twittering and liveblogging the war. http://muqata.blogspot.com http://twitter.com/muqata

  4. Blake’s Think Tank » Blog Archive » Barack Obama: America’s First Online Social Networking President on Wed, Dec 31st 2008 5:58 PM

    5. [...] then there’s this news from Israel where its New York consulate held a 2-hour press conference on Twitter to discuss the current [...]

  5. Nicky on Wed, Dec 31st 2008 6:39 PM

    6. I wonder what the next war will be famous for…

  6. David-Joe on Thu, Jan 1st 2009 1:39 AM

    7. The only person I have seen on television in New York City that showed any paassion and determination was Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

    Yesterday he publicly intervened when a journalist asked about Israel’s justification and laid it out clearly, simply and well.

    Compared to my fellow Israelis that are “out there” he was fantastic.

    The Israeli PR is clumsy, they do not keep it simple and every single goddam time, they apologize and wrap the enemy as a victim!!

    Israel is never going to learn and mark my words, that this Gaza mission is going end in a way even worse than Lebanon in 2006.

  7. Alan Abbey on Mon, Jan 5th 2009 2:24 PM

    8. Here’s my piece on the Twittering and blogging from both sides in the conflict – from a week ago – as it ran (first) on Poynter.org and has been reprinted numerous times.

    http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=156317

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