Israel turns to YouTube, Twitter after flotilla fiasco:
CNN (wired): The Israeli government is hoping YouTube and Twitter can help restore its reputation after a botched raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla killed nine people.
Every few hours, the Israeli Defense Forces is uploading to YouTube a new video meant to demonstrate that their troops acted responsibly -- and that the people in the "Free Gaza" flotilla were the hostile ones.
At around 10 p.m. local time Monday night, it was footage taken by IDF naval boat showing the passengers beating up Israeli troops. An hour later, it was a clip of the "knives, slingshots, rocks, smoke bombs, metal rods, improvised sharp metal objects, sticks and clubs" found on board the Mavi Marmara. About two hours ago, the IDF showed how it was unloading "humanitarian cargo" from the ships and into Gaza. In between, the IDF is providing a stream of Twitter updates and blog posts to reinforce its position.
But no one -- not even the Israeli military -- seems to think it'll make much of a difference in the international tide of ill will following the raid. "We know one thing for sure, in the media we are going to lose the war anyhow," Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for Israel's Defense Ministry, told the Christian Science Monitor. "It doesn't matter what we do."
The IDF has been practicing a willful indifference to global opinion for years. After the Hezbollah war of 2006, it decided that sensitivity to outside perception made its forces too hesitant, and put lives on both sides at risk. So in its 2009 Gaza campaign, the IDF decided to do the exact opposite: Shut out the international press, and fight without restraint and without a care about what anyone else thought.
Just look at the heavy-handed, tone-deaf response to the "Free Gaza" ships. "The IDF had hoped to obtain a complete media blackout and planned to jam the signals from the Mavi Marmara," the Jerusalem Post reports. "This did not work and the cameras on the boat successfully transmitted images throughout most of the takeover and enabled the activists to get their message out about the Israeli 'aggression.'"
Maybe there's an argument to be made that certain countries -- the United States, for example -- are strong enough to ignore the rest of the planet. "With roughly the population of Houston, Texas, Israel is just not large enough to withstand extended isolation, meaning this event has profound geopolitical implications," Stratfor observes. The U.N. Security Council has condemned the raid. Israel's strongest ally in the Muslim world, Turkey, is speaking out against its one-time friend:
"Public opinion matters where issues are not of fundamental interest to a nation. Israel is not a fundamental interest to other nations. The ability to generate public antipathy to Israel can therefore reshape Israeli relations with countries critical to Israel. For example, a redefinition of U.S.-Israeli relations will have much less effect on the United States than on Israel. The Obama administration, already irritated by the Israelis, might now see a shift in U.S. public opinion that will open the way to a new U.S.-Israeli relationship disadvantageous to Israel.
"The Israelis will argue that this is all unfair, as they were provoked. Like the British [in the 1940s], they seem to think that the issue is whose logic is correct. But the issue actually is, whose logic will be heard?
*********************
As with a tank battle or an airstrike, this sort of warfare has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy around the world."
*********************
The next battle in that information war will come soon. Two more ships are headed towards Gaza. "Next time we'll use more force," one officer said.
Israel turns to YouTube, Twitter after flotilla fiasco:
CNN (wired): The Israeli government is hoping YouTube and Twitter can help restore its reputation after a botched raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla killed nine people.
Every few hours, the Israeli Defense Forces is uploading to YouTube a new video meant to demonstrate that their troops acted responsibly -- and that the people in the "Free Gaza" flotilla were the hostile ones.
At around 10 p.m. local time Monday night, it was footage taken by IDF naval boat showing the passengers beating up Israeli troops. An hour later, it was a clip of the "knives, slingshots, rocks, smoke bombs, metal rods, improvised sharp metal objects, sticks and clubs" found on board the Mavi Marmara. About two hours ago, the IDF showed how it was unloading "humanitarian cargo" from the ships and into Gaza. In between, the IDF is providing a stream of Twitter updates and blog posts to reinforce its position.
But no one -- not even the Israeli military -- seems to think it'll make much of a difference in the international tide of ill will following the raid. "We know one thing for sure, in the media we are going to lose the war anyhow," Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for Israel's Defense Ministry, told the Christian Science Monitor. "It doesn't matter what we do."
The IDF has been practicing a willful indifference to global opinion for years. After the Hezbollah war of 2006, it decided that sensitivity to outside perception made its forces too hesitant, and put lives on both sides at risk. So in its 2009 Gaza campaign, the IDF decided to do the exact opposite: Shut out the international press, and fight without restraint and without a care about what anyone else thought.
Just look at the heavy-handed, tone-deaf response to the "Free Gaza" ships. "The IDF had hoped to obtain a complete media blackout and planned to jam the signals from the Mavi Marmara," the Jerusalem Post reports. "This did not work and the cameras on the boat successfully transmitted images throughout most of the takeover and enabled the activists to get their message out about the Israeli 'aggression.'"
Maybe there's an argument to be made that certain countries -- the United States, for example -- are strong enough to ignore the rest of the planet. "With roughly the population of Houston, Texas, Israel is just not large enough to withstand extended isolation, meaning this event has profound geopolitical implications," Stratfor observes. The U.N. Security Council has condemned the raid. Israel's strongest ally in the Muslim world, Turkey, is speaking out against its one-time friend:
"Public opinion matters where issues are not of fundamental interest to a nation. Israel is not a fundamental interest to other nations. The ability to generate public antipathy to Israel can therefore reshape Israeli relations with countries critical to Israel. For example, a redefinition of U.S.-Israeli relations will have much less effect on the United States than on Israel. The Obama administration, already irritated by the Israelis, might now see a shift in U.S. public opinion that will open the way to a new U.S.-Israeli relationship disadvantageous to Israel.
"The Israelis will argue that this is all unfair, as they were provoked. Like the British [in the 1940s], they seem to think that the issue is whose logic is correct. But the issue actually is, whose logic will be heard?
*********************
As with a tank battle or an airstrike, this sort of warfare has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy around the world."
*********************
The next battle in that information war will come soon. Two more ships are headed towards Gaza. "Next time we'll use more force," one officer said.