"In a campaign to improve its image abroad, the Israeli government plans to provide scholarships to hundreds of students at its seven universities in exchange for their making pro-Israel Facebook posts and tweets to foreign audiences."
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, which will oversee the programme, confirmed its launch and wrote that its aim was to “strengthen Israeli public diplomacy and make it fit the changes in the means of information consumption”.
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I look upon this new initiative with one skeptically raised eyebrow. Just one.
I suppose this counters, in a nonviolent way, the cash payments Saddam used to make to parents and loved ones of Palestinians who blew themselves up for their cause. It's a horrible comparison to make, but it shows two different approaches to conflict resolution.
I guess Netanyahu feels that Palestinian voices are overrepresented in the media in comparison to Israel supporters.
The leftist turd ARM has no problem with the tunnels that have been built under Gaza, hundreds of them, specifically to tunnel Palestinians into Israel TO KILL JEWS.
On a British humor site a fellow dropped an anti-Israeli link to a video of a son of an Israeli general presumably about horrible things Israelis do.
I responded by asking what is this now, appeal to son of authority?I Included links to three videos explaining things from another perspective, and saying, "No sympathy. None. Not one bit." But I'm willing to change my mind when I see Jews smash into a British soldier with a vehicle, disable him and slice open his throat on a London street in broad daylight.
Or toss an old man and his wheelchair off a recreational cruise ship to get our attention.
Then I noticed on another site I own relating to food an uptick in tiny British flags, and coming from that site. Meaning people wondered "Who is this ass hole?" And checked out my profile there, a bit long, read through the photoshop stuff, read through the pop-up stuff, read through the hieroglyphic stuff, to get at the simple food-related link at the end. Then clicked it. Then read a bunch of food-related posts.
I haven't bothered going back to see how anyone responded directly and engage further because I don't care. What I do care about is the counter narrative being out there, and out there and with some bit of force. So when someone goes "Look at this: pow" with some absurd disingenuous fallacious sophistry, I go, "POW, POW, POW" with logic and clear thinking. And why bother arguing? Just get it out there. Especially to Europeans who should know better.
To Americans I assume they're just stupid as shit. And if posting on Twitter and in comments and such then resolutely fiercely stupid, as I keep seeing repeatedly. Thick as mud with no chance of clearing. No counterargument works with those types. They like the attention they draw, Any links given will go unwatched while they continue their miserable way. So insults instead are in order.
Apparently that Is what is coming down to. Some version of the old squeaky wheel.
Twitter lends itself to that. sadly.
OT, but related to the idiocy that passes for "smart" these days, Insty linked to a Walter Russell Mead piece and in the comments there several people wrote that WRM voted for Obama twice. That's where I picked up that fact - in the comments at Instapundit.
Are the commenters correct? I think they might be. WRM is a professor, right? He is therefore a communist.
WRM is a professor, right? He is therefore a communist.
Even in the physical science, most professors are lefties. It like an archetypelago* across the nation. That's why right-of-center science professors like the late Al Cotton stood out.
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*Portmanteau of archetype + archipelago
Goulash archetypelago - lunch time when you are Hungary.
I don't see why not. It's not like Paleostinians etc. aren't doing their best to do some damage with the social media. (Usually while muttering the usual anti-Jewish nonsense on the same technology a decent number of Jews invented in the first fucking place).
What ends up being fought over is the replacement of this society with something so much worse, the contrast couldn't be clearer.
None of this would be happening if Hamas didn't feel the propaganda of dead Paleostinians outweighed the "morality" of making sure enough of them get killed to elicit that sympathy. They are a bunch of scum who want this to happen - having rejected every one of a number of ceasefire offers - as upping the dead body count, they rightly believe, helps their cause. Don't believe me, check out what other Arab societies are upset about.
Assisting them in any way is an outright disaster. It's a morally perverse position they're trying to put you in, but what's even more morally perverse is giving them an inch on it. Media's too "pro-Israel"? The governments are too, now. They know what's really going on.
Don't fall for it. Not for one minute.
Every iteration of this conflict is exactly the same.
Lol. Israel responded to Brazil's withdrawal of their ambassador with what a statement about the real meaning of disproportionate force.
While I think there should be as much pro-Israel tweeting as possible, quid pro quo rewards will work to make all of them suspect and diminished. If you want to go to a college to expand your mind, you should already be pro-Israel.
I watched a documentary today about Nazi death camps that included footage of the local Germans being marched into them after the liberation. Many were in tears and saying they did not know this was happening. I doubt that, as did many survivors. I'm sure they knew enough to know they were supporting evil, even if they talked themselves into believing otherwise or cooked up some unhinged immoral justification. I think we have many people around us today who will do the same after the next holocaust, but this time they don't even have fear as an excuse.
I think people with supposedly "neutral", pro-Palestinian sympathies are intuitively catching on a bit, but I don't think information campaigns are unnecessary. I think Israel shouldn't trumpet up too much, just make sure the facts are out there, and that the case is made, however subtly or overtly, that this is a Hamas-led propaganda war to kill as many Palestinian civilian casualties as it takes for foreign humanitarian urges to overwhelm a basic understanding of moral responsibility.
Our Western minds find it incomprehensible to think that leaders would do this to their own people, but that's precisely what's occurring. The battle against assuming powerlessness equals moral justification is a very difficult one to wage, so countering the erroneous psychological link between "oppression" and "victimization" requires a consistent struggle.
The good part here, is that you can agree that the Palestinians are undergoing a humanitarian disaster, and then ask the fuzzy-headed Arab nationalist or Western dupe you're debating, why Hamas wants it to continue? How many cease-fires will they reject? How many Palestinian dead do they think it will take to give them a decisive "edge"?
I have not gotten a single answer from them or anyone on what it is that Hamas is trying to achieve. What is Hamas' goal? Direct their own sense of cynical moral superiority back at them with some basic Socratic reasoning. You can sound as sympathetic and neutral as you want this way, and still leave them mutely grasping for a single justification of what they're supporting.
Democracy's supposed to be "breaking out" over there, or so I hear. So the idea that this will be an indefinitely sustainable tactic is one that should quickly lose steam. I just don't see how long it will go on being tolerated.
No doubt the Netanyahu's seen the July 22 and 23 Gallup poll that found Americans under age 30 oppose Israel on the Gaza conflict by a two-to-one margin.
And also heard about Jon Stewart, the under-30s go-to news guy, making jokes last week about big, bad Israel and the “asymmetrical” nature of the conflict.
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