Numerous well-funded, well-funded projects for Israel and Israel aim to flood the social media with propaganda against Israel while blocking facts that criticize Israel. The projects involve Israeli soldiers, students, American teens, and internationals, and widespread action ranges from infiltrating Wikipedia to influencing social media. Many work in Jewish community centers in the United States.
As it turns out, Israel and Israeli institutions are using an army of Internet warriors - from Israeli soldiers to students - to spread propaganda online and try to ban content Israel does not want to see.
Israeli soldiers are hired to press "Tweet, Share, Like, etc."
Israel and Israeli trolls have long had a significant presence on the Internet, working to promote Israeli fairy tales and blocking facts about Palestine, the Israeli lobby and other subjects they wish to hide.
Overconfident Israeli trolls provoke comments, influence content, blame, label healthy criticism "anti-Semitism" and spread misinformation. Many of these activities are carried out by individuals acting independently who work independently, voluntarily and ruthlessly.
In addition to these Internet warriors, however, many organized, often well-funded projects have emerged, sponsored by the Israeli government and others. These projects are working to post pro-Israeli content all over the Internet and to remove information that Israel does not want people to know.
Promotional video:
One such Israeli Internet project came to light when it was praised in an article by the Israeli news outlet Arutz Sheva, headquartered in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
This article describes a new project by the Israeli New Media desk dedicated to YouTube and other social networking sites. The article reported that Israeli soldiers were hired to press on "Tweet, Share, Like, etc."
The article notes: “It is well known nowadays that what happens on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has a big impact on events on Earth. The Internet is also a battleground. " It was "consolation," the article says, to learn that the IDF was using a soldier whose job it was to fight in this field.
Israeli students get paid to promote Israel on social media
Another project dedicated to the battle on the Internet was initiated in 2011 by the 300,000 National Union of Israeli Students (NUIS). The aim was to "deepen and expand hasbara [government propaganda] through student activities in Israel."
Under this program, Israeli students are paid $ 2,000 to work five hours a week to "fight the battle against hostile sites."
In the announcement of the program (here the translation is in English), it is noted that "many students in Israel are familiar with the Internet and know how to skillfully use the Internet, social networks and various sites, and are required to write and express themselves in English there." Students can work without leaving their own home, draws attention in the announcement.
“Students work in four groups: Content, Wikipedia, Monitoring and New Media,” according to the program description. The responsibilities of each team are also detailed:
The content group is responsible for creating original content in news format.
The Monitoring Team is responsible for “monitoring efforts to prevent and remove anti-Semitic [sic] content from social media in different languages”. (The program combines criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism; see below).
The New Media Group is responsible for social media channels: “including Facebook accounts in English, French and Portuguese, Twitter, YouTube channels, etc.”.
The Wikipedia team "is responsible for writing new articles and translating them into the languages that run in the program, updating current and up-to-date information, tracking and preventing the publication of objectionable information."
This program sometimes claims to work against anti-Semitism, but it combines 2 different concepts, anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. This is in line with the initiative of Israel, which legislatively defined the concept of "anti-Semitism", which includes discussion of the negative aspects of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians.
Wikipedia infiltration campaign
A few years ago, there was another project targeting Wikipedia. While manipulating Wikipedia elements does not directly impact YouTube, it provides a window for some of these online content management efforts.
In 2008, a revealing article in the Electronic Intifada revealed: "How a pro-Israeli pressure group is organizing a secret long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia."
While there are general rules for posting and disseminating factual information, and for editing Wikipedia entries and removing inaccurate data, this project was the opposite of such editing. As reported by EI, his goal was to "rewrite history, make crude propaganda as fact, and take over the administration of Wikipedia to ensure that these changes are either invisible or undeniable."
The author said that a credible source provided EI with a series of letters from members and partners of the pro-Israeli group CAMERA (Committee on the Accuracy of Messages from the Middle East in America), from which it was clear that the group "participated in what one activist called 'War' on Wikipedia ".
CAMERA Senior Analyst at Gilead Ini organized a project to infiltrate Wikipedia.
CAMERA has encouraged volunteers to secretly work on editing Wikipedia entries. He stressed the importance of keeping the project secret. The volunteers were trained to avoid detection. After registering as editors, they were required to "avoid editing articles related to Israel for a short period of time."
They were also told to "avoid, for obvious reasons, choosing a username that identifies you as pro-Israeli, or that allows people to know your real name."
A Wikipedia editor known as Zeq helped with this, informing the volunteers: “Edit articles at random, make friends, not enemies - we'll need them later. This is a marathon, not a sprint. " He stressed the importance of secrecy: "You should not be linked to CAMERA on Wikipedia."
Zeq recommended that they work and learn from an independent, pro-Israeli Wikipedia editor known as Jayjg, but warned them to keep the project a secret even from him.
When all this became clear, Wikipedia took action against such manipulation of its system, and the CAMERA program may have closed.
If so, others have surely closed the gap with themselves. In 2010, two Israeli groups began offering a course in Zionist Editing on Wikipedia. The aim was to "ensure that the information in the online encyclopedia reflects the worldview of Zionist groups." The course organizer explained that the use of the word "occupied" in Wikipedia entries was a problem that could be solved with the help of a new team of editors."
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported: “The organizers' goal was twofold: to influence public opinion in Israel by having people who share their ideological point of view, and to participate in writing and editing in Hebrew and in English to paint a good image of Israel. which would be supported abroad.”
There was a prize for "Best Zionist Editor" - the one who, over the next four years, included the most "Zionist" changes in the encyclopedia. The winner received a hot air balloon ride over Israel.
Hi-tech millionaire Naftali Bennett, a reactionary minister close to the settler movement, describes the program:
The Guardian reports: “One Jerusalem-Wikipedia editor who doesn't want to be named said that publishing the initiative might not be such a good idea. “Publicity in the past has had a bad effect,” she says. "There is a war going on, and unfortunately, the way of fighting in it must be underground."
Then in 2013, there was evidence of pro-Israeli interference with Wikipedia. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that an NGO social media monitoring officer biased articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Draiman hid the fact that he was an employee of NGO Monitor, which is often described as a right-wing group, and that he used a middle username that is prohibited under Wikipedia rules," the article says.
Such actions had an impact. A website criticizing Wikipedia says that in 2014, there were "almost ten times more articles about the murder of Israeli children than articles about the murder of Palestinian children," although this is actually not the case, and at least, 10 times more Palestinian children.
The site also stated, While editors such as Zeq (T – C – L) and CltFn (T – C – L) may eventually get banned, their articles they started remain.”
If YouTube reviewers and others use Wikipedia in their decisions about whether to remove content or not, these Zionist efforts to censor Wikipedia could negatively influence their decisions.
Social Media Missions for Israel
In 2017, another project was launched for targeted internet platforms. Known as Act.il, the project uses a software application that "leverages the power of communities to support Israel through organized online activities."
The software is a joint venture between three groups: Israel University IDC; the Israeli-American Council, which is working to “organize and activate” the half million Israelis living in the United States; and another American group called the Maccabee Task Force, created to fight the international boycott of Israel, which he called an "anti-Semitic movement." Maccabee states that it is "a laser focused on one main mission to fight and defeat those who criticize Israel and demonize the Jewish people."
In addition, the project is supported by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and the Israeli intelligence community. Its CEO is an eight-year veteran of the Israeli army's intelligence service.
Israel's Jerusalem Post reports that Act. IL is "a large-scale mass campaigning application that allows people to fight BDS in the palm of their hand" or, as we will see, from publicly available computers in the US.
“Act. IL is more than just an application,” explains the Post article. "This is a campaign that brings together the collective knowledge of IDC students who together speak 35 languages, come from 86 countries and have connections with the pro-Israel community around the world."
The article states, "A platform like Act. IL offers world Jewry the opportunity to fight for the majority to support Israel" (ignoring the fact that there are many Jewish individuals who oppose Israel's policies).
Israeli Internet warriors around the world download the app, and then "in this virtual room with experts, they discover cases of Israel being attacked on the Internet, and their task is to find and destroy those attacking Israel at the touch of a button."
The organizer notes, "When you work together with the same goals and values, you can be incredibly powerful in the social media landscape."
Some missions ask users to report anti-Israel videos. Israeli government officials say the Act.il app is "more effective than official government requests to remove these videos from online platforms."
The project is led by former Israeli intelligence officers and has close ties to American billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Another sponsor is the Paul R. Singer Foundation.
The Israeli Forward calls on Act. IL to act more intensively, because each new entry is a shot in the "online propaganda war", in which "there are already many thousands of volunteers who can be sent from Israel to the swarm of social networks."
According to Forward, "his work still provides a terrific view of how he was able to shape online conversations about Israel without ever showing his hand."
Forward reports: “Act.il says its app has 12,000 subscribers and up to 6,000 regular users. Users are located all over the world, although most of them seem to be in the United States. Users receive "points" for completed missions; the highest rated users complete five or six missions a day. The best users win prizes: a congratulatory letter from a government minister or a David Ben-Gurion doll, Prime Minister of Israel.
Photo of the group that participated in the Act. IL training
According to Forward article: Act. IL CEO, an Israeli army intelligence veteran, said the Israeli military and intellectual security services sometimes "ask" Act.il for help in obtaining services such as Facebook influence to remove specific videos calling for violence in the attitude of Jews or Israelis."
Subsequently, gene. The director tried to correct his statement by saying that: “Shin Bet (Intelligence Service) and the Army are not requesting assistance for specific videos, but are in regular informal contact with Act.il. He said that Act.il employees are mostly former Israeli intelligence officers."
Teens in American JCCs carry out missions assigned from Israel
The project recruits Jewish teenagers and adults and sometimes works from local Jewish community centers, according to the Israeli Forward. The article describes one example:
"The dozen or so Israelis seated at the conference table at the Jewish community center in Tenafly, New Jersey on Wednesday night did not look like the cutting edge of a new online propaganda campaign tied to the Israeli government."
“With the laptops closed, a group of high school students and adult mentors completed social media missions assigned from their headquarters in Herzliya, Israel.”
New Jersey, “Media Room”, IAC New Jersey project in partnership with Act. IL.
In addition to the Media Room, there is another program in Boston, in collaboration with the Jewish Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. There is also regular Act.il advocacy training at Frisch School, a Jewish day school in Paramas, New Jersey.
Forward reports: “In November, in Boston, they created a mission statement for an app in which users were asked to send a letter as if they were from a Boston church, complaining about a documentary criticizing Israel. The proposed letter compares the screening of the film to a white racist riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, and calls the film's director, Pink Floyd vocalist Roger Waters, "a notorious anti-Semite."
Photo of the Boston Media Room, published by Greater Boston United Jewish Charities, captioned: “Media Room Ambassadors are student and adult mentors who are trained in the knowledge, skills and tools to positively influence public opinion by developing pro-Israel social media campaign”.
According to Forward, Act.il also produces “pro-Israeli content that has no logo. He is distributing this content to other pro-Israel groups, including the Adelson-funded Jewish brotherhood Alpha Epsilon Pi and The Israel Project, who are pushing it on all social media channels.”
Forward predicts: "initiatives in cyberspace are likely to increase."
Screenshot of a video promoting the project posted on the Greater Boston United Jewish Charitable Foundation website.
Israeli media reported that the Israeli military "began to seek out young computer geeks in Jewish communities abroad" to recruit.
An Israeli official described the process: "Our first priority is to find teenagers in Jewish communities abroad who can qualify, then our representatives will go to the communities and start the selection process there."
Israeli government supports secret online campaigns
General Sima Vaknin-Gil ordered Israeli tech developers to "flood the Internet" with pro-Israeli propaganda. As Israel's chief censor, she said: "We censor information that is critical to our enemies, who do not have the capabilities of ours, do not have a Jewish brain, and therefore our enemy relies heavily on open information …"
Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which is behind this and similar projects, has mobilized significant resources for Internet activities.
Israeli news portal Ynet reports that the director of the ministry "sees this as a war in every sense and purpose." “Criticism of Israel needs to be curbed through public diplomacy and soft instruments,” she says. "We must use cunning and cunning to win."
General Sima Vaknin-Gil, said at an Israeli technology developer forum, "I want to create a community of fighters." The goal is to "limit the activities of anti-Israeli activists" and "flood the Internet with pro-Israeli content."
An Israeli report in December said the ministry had received about $ 70 million from the budget to “stand at the forefront of the fight against delegitimization using intelligence and technology. There is a reason why ministry officials define it as a "war on consciousness of terrorism." [“Delegitimization” is a generic Israeli term for criticizing Israel. See here.]
According to a Haaretz newspaper article: "The leaders of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs see themselves as the leaders of the commando unit that collect and disseminate information about" supporters of the delegitimization of Israel, "and they prefer to keep their actions secret."
The article says that a new position has appeared in the ministry, it is "a high-ranking official of the new media sphere," responsible for supervision and activities in the Internet sphere."
This leader is responsible for analyzing social media and designing a social media campaign against sites and activists considered to be a threat to Israel.
His responsibilities include:
“Analyzing the world's social networks in terms of content, technology and network structure, highlighting the centers of gravity and focus of influence, methods, messages, organizations, sites and key activists, studying their characteristics, directions, areas and key models of the competing campaign, and formulating a strategy awareness campaigns in this area; and social media crisis management. That is, monitoring activities mainly in the Internet arena.”
Ministry officials are tasked with "creating and promoting creative and suitable programs for new media."
The group works by keeping its activities secret from the public. For example, a program to prepare young Israelis for social media activities has been exempted from publishing a public funding proposal. Likewise, the ministry's special anti-delegitimization unit, “Hama'aracha” (“Battle”), is excluded from Israel's Freedom of Information Law.
The 29th floor of Tel Aviv's Champion Tower is a nerve center, a 24-7 "war" room in which Israeli agents working behind the scenes promote US legislation, torpedo events, organize counter-protests and close bank accounts. The director says, "We must use cunning and deceit to win."
Reportedly, its activities include: "Room 24-7 conducts round-the-clock operational monitoring, which controls all activities to delegitimize Israel: identifies protests, conferences, publications calling for an anti-Israeli boycott." The operations center communicates information to the appropriate people to ensure an appropriate response to these actions, whether through counter-protest or through steps to thwart the initiative behind the scenes.”
Other programs are included in the NIS 22 million project to work with unions and professional associations overseas "to eradicate the ability of BDS entities to influence trade unions" and programs in the 16 million project focused on student activities around the world.
Israeli UNIT 8200
Another Israeli unit that plays an important role in covert activity on the Internet is the legendary high-tech espionage branch of the Israeli army, Unit 8200. This unit consists of thousands of "cyber warriors", mostly between 18 and 21 years old; some are even younger. A number of its alumni have moved on to leadership positions in high-tech companies based in the United States, such as Check Point Software (where the spouse of the head of the Jewish Voice for Peace works as Solutions Architect).
Photo from an article on Unit 8200 on Britain Israel Communications and Research Center.
In 2015, Israel's Foreign Ministry announced plans to "create a dedicated team to combat anti-Israeli incitement on social media." The team will operate within the hasbar [propaganda] department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and will give preference to graduates of the 8200 unit when recruiting.
An article in the Jewish Press about the new team reports that Unit 8200 “has an excellent reputation for being effective in gathering intelligence, including working with a huge global spy network. Several 8200 alumni have gone on to build leading Israeli IT companies including Check Point, ICQ, Palo Alto Networks, NICE, AudioCodes, Gilat, Leadspace, EZchip, Onavo, Singular, and CyberArk.”
Check Point Software headquarters in Tel Aviv. Founded by a former member of UNIT 8200, it also has offices throughout the United States that sometimes help with online espionage.
Numerous Israeli high-tech companies, many of which are led by former military intelligence officers, help in this online espionage, sometimes receiving funding from the Israeli government "for digital initiatives to gather information about activist groups and counter their efforts."
According to the ministry, the companies' actions include “searching for offensive videos and filing complaints on relevant sites.”
To make it clear, this is the military work of the occupation authorities to censor truthful information about their actions.
What does it mean
The Internet and social media give us much greater access to information and communication tools than ever before, but they can be controlled too - and they are already under control.
