Gaza.

Disinformation Warfare

We are always wary on this blog of people who spew nonsense about insidious Jewish plots to control the media.  Such assertions are always proven to be the ridiculous fantasies of racist hate mongers.  However, it cannot be denied that as a sovereign State, Israel appears to be going out of it’s way to ensure that public opinion is not swayed by compassion for Palestinians living under the military occupation of a foreign nation.

In July Jonathan Cook told us that:

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 has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.

The project is apparently a formalisation of volunteer work that was undertaken by Israelis and non-Israelis to promote the Israeli stance across the Internet during the 2008/2009 Israeli attack upon Gaza.

What is particularly immoral about this project is that the targets of this state propaganda will never know if they are being addressed by a non-salaried supporter of Israel - who may be open to discussion - or to a paid up member of the Israeli PR team whose paid purpose is to crowd out criticism of Israel from Internet:-

“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… 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.”

Many consumer brands use this practice to market their products, but this appears to be the first time an actual state has straight out admitted it’s intent on the Internet. This is literally the next level of state propaganda.  Government sponsored spam, anyone?

Cook raises the possibility that such teams of online propagandists could be used against internal dissidents

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.

Indeed.

But this blog is well aware that Israel is spending money not only on politics-for-hire spammers, but also on far reaching banner advertising.  We noticed at least a month ago that Israel was gearing up it’s online presence by using the Google banner advertising network to spread it’s own messages.  Apart from the YouTube example we give above, here are some more:-

Read More