Do you think that Israel's use of social media is an effective means of spreading its hasbara?

[Richard Richardson]

http://www.lobelog.com/israel-uses-socia...t-on-gaza/

"The spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been tweeting for years a consistent stream of reports of thwarted terrorist attacks, pictures of sexualized female IDF soldiers, reports of the many tons of goods allowed into Gaza and almost daily reports of the million or more Israelis living under constant threat of Hamas rockets. Now, Facebook and the IDF blog have been shifted into overdrive, with some rather shocking new features."

"There have been, for some time, various programs offering tourists to Israel the opportunity to play as an IDF soldier at various sites in the country. Now, there’s a new game to help urge people to promote IDF hasbara, IDF Ranks. The idea is that you go to various pages, you like them on Facebook or you tweet a page and you help the IDF get its message out. In essence, a virtual army of supporters on the internet."

[Ben]

We're smart aren't we. Actually IDF ranks has been around for quite sometime now. I'm at quite a high level.
But seriously. It's a good way of letting the world know the truth about what's really going on. We all know western media (especially the BBC), never report the missiles that are regularly fired into Israel. They only report it when Israel strikes back, Often not even mentioning the previous week of Hamas rocket attacks.
Sharing on FB is one of the ways Israel can countereact this bias behavior.

[Shani]

So you think the media should be one-sided? True open-minded people like to grasp a complicated political situation from different perspectives.

[Dean]

I think it's great that Israel is using social media to communicate it's issues and problems, which are ignored by traditional media. And the haters claim that the news is controlled by Zionists. It's pathetic, really, if you see what's NOT reported that would gather sympathy for Israel.

In any case, Israel IS intercepting attacks on their nation, it does allow women to protect their nation equally if they have the ability, it does transfer tons of aid into the strip daily, and there are civilians who have taken shelter due to the threats.

You are making a good case here for the Israelis, because these things ARE true.

I don't know about the program you mention, but whatever it is, it's not done in the fashion that you seem to imply it has. It is not done to praise war, but to support the defensive forces of the IDF.

It's effective in spreading truth, because Israel is better than what most people know.

[n00bz]

I think it was a step needed to be taken since the Palestinians do the same,
only the IDF try to show current/actual pictures, rather than recycle old pictures/use some of Syria's...

@b - I'm not saying there were no cassualties. War is he'll and people get hurt.
However, a lot of tweets and FB pictures turned out to be from Syria or from older conflicts. some even showed Israeli casualties only the caption was edited.

Just search the web for "fake pictures gaza".

@Rabbi- it's all about math, see, there are around 2 billion Muslims vs 20 million Jews.
1:100 ratio would seems right, so cording to your 1:10 stats we actually won ?!

[trancinguy]

They prefer inexperienced youngsters and the retirees wiki around

[b]

n00bz, you disgraceful bastard, recycle old pictures from Syria? You zionist dog. go to hell.

[BMCR]

Leave it to the anti Israel cranks to take a rather banal point (that people use the internet to articulate their point of view) and make it into something more than that when it comes to Israel.

[Chrome]

Their using of "pictures of sexualized female IDF soldiers" is a desperate attempt to attract more followers. And I think it is in very poor taste.

EDIT

So the pro-Israels that thumbed me down believe it is OK for to post "pictures of sexualized female IDF soldiers" to attract followers. You guys are morally bankrupt.

[Ann]

Israeli use not just social media , They use words like Hitler, Nazi , anti-Semitic, holocaust, six million Jews, so on as their weapons, now that Victim Palestine state is fighting back
Israeli are criminal state, terrorist state, The world know it , UN know it You know it.
If you take All Jews to USA to live, They will build Israel in USA and they will kills American Women and child's too.Same thing they in Palestine.