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It seems Israel’s starting to get social media with new videos on YouTube!

Posted on March 27, 2008 • By Miriam Schwab
Category: Social media 2 Comments

As many of us are aware, a large portion of the battle for Israel’s right to exist and be secure plays out in the media. Until a few years ago, the main battle field was on TV: CNN, Sky, and our biggest fans: BBC; and in the papers: New York Times, Washington Post, and our biggest fans: The Guardian. (Oh, those Brits. I know we’re fabulous, but they really should try to tone down their love for us.)

Now, the battle takes place on the web. Thousands of blogs are pro Israel, tens of thousands think Israel is the cause of the all of the world’s ills, and the fight goes on. Social media has added to the fun, with facebook becoming a shooting range for those who think people who live in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) are Israelis, while facebook insisted they were Palestinians. Yet Israel’s official stance in these arenas has been silent. Until now.

The Web vs. Israel 

One of the most frustrating things about this battle is the fact that the State of Israel hasn’t exactly taken up a position on the web. They have made lukewarm efforts here and there, but nothing substantial. This makes sense, since the people running our State aren’t exactly embracers of transparency, which is what the new web is all about.

So I was pleased to read that our glorious leaders have actually started to upload videos on YouTube, which is an enormous Middle Eastern battleground all unto itself. In an article titled “Israel’s new weapon against terror: videos on YouTube,” The Marker has reported that the government has posted three videos about the recent terror attack on the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. As the paper points out

this is an unusual case where a State representative has used the Internet in an unofficial manner as part of Israel’s PR efforts. Until now, Israel has only officially responded through spokespersons on television and radio.

The videos were uploaded by a user named AtiyaRachel, who joined YouTube at the beginning of March. I used my tremendous sleuthing powers and decoded this user name to uncover her real identity: Rachel Atiya. I don’t know how The Marker discovered that she works for the government, since there is nothing on the web to indicate that, but Rachel is pretty active in social media, with profiles on facebook, digg and flickr. In all of these profiles, Rachel is busy trying to get the message out that terrorism is, well, bad.

Still a long way to go

Israel still has a long way to go in the social media battlefield. When will the Ministry of Foreign Affairs set up a department dedicated to creating an effective web presence? In the meantime, we’re still losing. Guess who owns the domain name “israels60thbirthday.com”? Not Israel, and not one of Israel’s friends, or even acquaintances (I purposely didn’t link to the site so as not to give them any “link juice” which can increase their position in Google). Even small businesses know that they should buy up all domain names related to their business and products.

State of Israel – I would be happy to come in and give you guys a lecture on using the web and social media. Just give me a call!

Here are the three videos + one that I threw in to show the contrast between the blood of the students and the candies in Gaza. Warning: the videos are very bloody and are hard to watch.

Footnote: I highly recommend Andre Oboler’s study titled “Online Antisemitism 2.0. ‘Social Antisemitism’ on the ‘Social Web‘” for a thorough analysis of how social media is impacting the spread of antisemitism on the web.

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