Arab-Israeli Conflict on Twitter

In the past Hamas supporters and other anti-Israeli protestors in the Arab world had to rely on the age-old method of expressing their views – i.e. scrawling graffiti on walls. The influx of social media over the last few years has opened up new channels for communicating hostile feelings, on both sides of the conflict.

The Israeli military have been all over Twitter, Youtube, Flickr and other social media sites employing a vast staff to ensure that the war to win over public opinion is as active as any military objective. The Israeli army have been open about their use of social media, as military spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Avital Leibovich admitted, “I’m sort of addicted to Twitter, you can say. It’s a great tool to release information without the touch of editors’ hands,” she said. “Militaries are usually closed operations, but we’re doing the opposite.”

Hamas have also been active on social media sites with tweets such as “Our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are (You Opened Hell Gates on Yourselves).” Hamas also regularly update their Facebook page which publishes material in multiple languages in a clear attempt to court opinion across the world.

What should our response to all this be? I suppose it is inevitable, in a world where media outlets are now immediate and uncensored that military leaders would seek to exploit this form of mass communication. I can think of many prominent historical figures who would have loved the opportunity to reach millions of people with their message and this is all the more powerful when the message comes as an image or video. The task that faces sites such as Youtube is phenomenal. With 100,000 hours of video being uploaded on a daily basis it is impossible to effectively limit those who seek to use social media for propaganda purposes and the current conflict has already seen the release of videos showing assassinations and the horrifying images of innocent civilian victims.

For educators this gives an opportunity to revisit lessons about censorship and propaganda. It has always been an important aspect of history and politics lessons to encourage a degree of scepticism and questioning of news stories and politically motivated content. This is now all the more important in an age when most children have fairly open access to content that, by its nature, is trying to persuasive and often employs shock tactics to accentuate its point. Schools should be discussing the current conflict in Israel, not just from the perspective of history and current affairs, but as a valuable lesson in how to digest the wealth of information that is fired at us on in the battle for the control of social media.