Sabbah Report » Twitter

Angry Twitter Birds Topple Arab Dictator in a TV Ad [VIDEO]

Haitham Sabbah — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 08:57:16 +0000

In this TV ad, French international news channel France 24 is promoting Twitter's power to dislodge dictators in a dramatized manner.

The two-minute ad shows an animated Mubarak (Egypt), Ben Ali (Tunisia) and Gadaffi-like under attack by righteously blue angry birds representing freedom. The scene, of course, is an allegory for the Arab Spring, in which Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media contributed to the ousting of rulers in Egypt and Tunisia along with civil uprisings in Libya and many other Arab countries.

Warning: Boycott Israel success brings ‘Boycott Arab goods’ smear

Stuart Littlewood — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:58:15 +0000

By Stuart Littlewood * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Congratulations, BDS campaigners.

Swiss activists disrupts Israel's World Cup qualifier, September 2007

Your global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions effort is hurting Israel so much that panic-stricken propaganda bosses are casting about in desperation for something to hit back with... for example, the libelous press release which portrays yours truly and other Palestine freedom campaigners as promoters of a new movement boycotting Arab goods.

This tissue of lies arrived the same day as news that Israel is spending $1.6 million to train "new media warriors" in the use of social media tools for disseminating the regime's endless stream of disinformation. Of course, it's nothing new. Israel's Ministry of Dirty Tricks launched a revised training manual eighteen months ago to serve as a communications primer for the army of cyber-scribblers it was then recruiting to spread Zionism's poison across the internet.

According to the lie machine I addressed hundreds of Muslim Britons in front of the Libyan embassy in central London and "excoriated the Arab and Iranian regimes for plundering their countries of their wealth and depriving their people of their basic human rights". And I upbraided them for "their entrenched system of apartheid".

The Zionist "media warrior" who thought up this garbage writes that my fictitious new organization -- Britons for Boycotting Arab and Iranian Goods (BBAIG) -- has demanded that all UK importers immediately terminate their contracts with Arab countries, and that I'm claiming "the UK public is supporting our initiative until the vicious dictatorships of the Arab Middle East and Iran are overthrown and their civilian populations are finally endowed with classical democracy".

Not that Zionists know anything about classical democracy. Rabid ethnocracy is more their thing.

Also targeted, and dubbed a co-founder of the imaginary BBAIG, is Dr Ghada Karmi of Exeter University, whom they describe as "a crusader for the seething Arab population of Gaza and the West Bank". The public are supposed to believe that she is threatening the illegitimate Muslim government leaders of the Middle East with arrest warrants should they set foot on British soil or seek asylum here. "Under Britain's laws of universal jurisdiction, war criminals and their genocidal ilk are liable to arrest upon the deposition of a citizen's complaint before a UK magistrate."

Well, not any more actually. Israel's 'heavies' put pressure on British government wimps a year ago and our universal jurisdiction laws are being watered down on Tel Aviv's instructions to provide a safe haven for the world's war crimes riff-raff who qualify as friends of Whitehall and specifically Israel's psychopaths.

Dr Karmi is reported to have "cast aside her life-time enmity towards Israel and pleaded with the Jewish state to invade Syria and Iran and wipe out their respective feudal ruling classes".

Lawyer Daniel Machover and Sarah Colborne of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which leads numerous BDS campaigns, are also named in this wild fiction.

Attempting to strike fear into our hearts the press release contains a footnote saying: "Guaranteed Distribution to 330,000 media, government and NGO activists around the world via Internet, Twitter, Facebook, My Space." The bogus story has managed to surface on a couple of sites, but all activists (and editors) need to be alert to the new tactic.

Just for the record I haven't been in London for months, and I've never met Dr Karmi. However, she emailed to say: "Why not use it to let people know about this latest idiocy?" Agreed.

Truth is fatal to Israel's vile ambition. Its propagandists can only peddle lies. For them the challenge is finding new avenues for their dishonesty and fevered imagination.

But at least they keep us amused.

Note: The source of disinformation on this occasion calls himself/herself Baldev Singh baldevrsin@gmail.com. If anyone recognizes the name or address, please broadcast the details!

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

What next?

Paul J. Balles — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 10:44:43 +0000

By Paul J. Balles * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Revolutions raise more questions than answers. The prime one: What happens after the thrill of protest victory wears off?

Zen master Alan Watts once said there are only four basic questions that apply to anything:

What are we going to do?

Who's going to do it?

How are we going to do it?

Who's going to clean up the mess afterwards?

Protests in the streets are only part of the answer to Watt's first question. Do the protestors know or agree upon what they want?

The desire for some kind of change is obvious. But what change will satisfy most or all?

Peter Oborne, the Daily Telegraph's chief political commentator says, "They have been impelled into action by mass poverty and unemployment, allied to a sense of disgust at vast divergences of wealth and grotesque corruption."

Will removal of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali or Hosni Mubarak or Ali Abdullah Saleh respond to the problems of "mass poverty and unemployment?"

What's to be done about the "vast divergences of wealth and grotesque corruption referred to by Oborne?"

What about those not actually involved in the demonstrations? How many Tunisians, Egyptians or Yemenis were actually among the protestors? Hundreds of thousands?

What about the rest of the populations (more than 80 million in Egypt)? Do the demonstrators represent them? Should the protestors make decisions about what to do simply because they took part in the shouting and waving of arms and flags?

Oborne questioned the popular belief that the revolutionary activity was stimulated by social networking.

He wrote, "Far from being inspired by Twitter, a great many of Arab people who have driven the sensational events of recent weeks are illiterate."

The last I heard, Egyptian males have a literacy rate of 83%, with females at 59.4%. In Tunisia, it's 78% for all.

While these are a long way from the 90% to 100% rates of 98 countries, they don't preclude the use of social media like Twitter to organize the youth.

However, not even 83% literacy can solve the post demonstration problems. There are those who want constitutional changes. Others look for leaders who will not follow in the footsteps of their predecessors.

Then there are dreamers who hope that employment and elimination of poverty will somehow come out of a genii's bottle.

Protestors look back with obsessions about the ills that brought them into the streets. As long as the past commands attention, the question of "who" cannot be focused on tomorrow.

Answers to "what are we going to do?" should extend beyond cleaning the political house.

Some semblance of unity must preclude the choice of "who's going to do it?" Things don't simply run by themselves. Post revolutions require leaders to take over the task of putting humpty dumpty back together again.

If supreme councils or parliaments could lead, the loudly touted democracies wouldn't need presidents or prime ministers or cabinets to run things.

How much do the demonstrators take into account the need for leaders with the expertise or experience necessary to make the decisions that keep a country functioning?

The mess to be cleaned up afterward includes recovering an economy wrecked by the revolution.

The Egyptian economy, for example, depends heavily on a tourist trade that is now in shambles.

Dear protestors, in getting rid of one problem, you have created another that may be harder on your pocket book than the one you eliminated.

The problems you create will be greater than the ones you solve. Look at the history of any revolution. Then go home and start answering Watt's questions.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He's a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

State Department Warns Students Against Discussing WikiLeaks on Facebook, Twitter

SR Editor — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 18:53:19 +0000

By Lauren Indvik

A State Department official warned students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs this week that discussing WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter could endanger their employment prospects.

The official, a former student of the school, called the career services office of his alma mater to advise students not to post links to WikiLeaks documents, nor to make comments on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, as “engaging in these activities would call into question [a student's] ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government,” he was quoted as saying in an e-mail sent to students by the career services office on Tuesday.

The warning coincided with WikiLeaks’s release of thousands of secret U.S. embassy cables on Sunday, November 28. The site has since been plagued by multiple DDoS attacks, and termination of service notifications from its DNS provider, EveryDNS.net, its temporary website host, Amazon, and PayPal, which handled many of the donations the organization received.

Student Issandr El Amrani posted a copy of the e-mail on his blog on Thursday, the same day Senator Joseph Lieberman and other lawmakers proposed legislation that would hold those who publish the names of any U.S. intelligence sources “criminally accountable.” A full copy of the e-mail, which the career services office has since confirmed sending, is pasted below:

From: “Office of Career Services”

Date: November 30, 2010 15:26:53 EST:

Hi students,

We received a call today from a SIPA alumnus who is working at the State Department. He asked us to pass along the following information to anyone who will be applying for jobs in the federal government, since all would require a background investigation and in some instances a security clearance.

The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.

Regards,

Office of Career Services

According to an e-mail sent by spokesperson Phillip J. Crowley to The Huffington Post, the warning does not, however, represent a formal policy position. “We have instructed State Department employees not to access the WikiLeaks site and download posted documents using an unclassified network since these documents are still classified. We condemn what Mr. Assange is doing, but have given no advice to anyone beyond the State Department to my knowledge,” he wrote.

Employees in the State Department are among the many government workers who were told by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget not to view the leaked documents without the required security clearance on Friday.

Although you may not be going for a job at the State Department any time soon, does the warning nevertheless make you wary of discussing WikiLeaks on public forums such as Facebook and Twitter?

[Mashable]

Gaza Flotilla – 20 Killed – Live Twitter Update from Free Gaza Movement

Haitham Sabbah — Mon, 31 May 2010 08:25:16 +0000

Israel deploys cyber team to spread positive spin

Jonathan Cook — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:14:49 +0000

By Jonathan Cook * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitters and Facebook may not be all that it seems.

Israel's foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.

Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilised soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government's line on the Middle East conflict.

"To all intents and purposes the internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose," said Ilan Shturman, who is responsible for the project.

The existence of an "internet warfare team" came to light when it was included in this year's foreign ministry budget. About $150,000 (Dh551,000) has been set aside for the first stage of development, with increased funding expected next year.

The team will fall under the authority of a large department already dealing with what Israelis term "hasbara", officially translated as "public explanation" but more usually meaning propaganda. That includes not only government public relations work but more secretive dealings the ministry has with a battery of private organisations and initiatives that promote Israel's image in print, on TV and online.

In an interview this month with the Calcalist, an Israeli business newspaper, Mr Shturman, the deputy director of the ministry's hasbara department, admitted his team would be working undercover.

"Our people will not say: â€˜Hello, I am from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry and I want to tell you the following.' Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis," he said. "They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the foreign ministry developed."

Rona Kuperboim, a columnist for Ynet, Israel's most popular news website, denounced the initiative, saying it indicated that Israel had become a "thought-police state".

She added that "good PR cannot make the reality in the occupied territories prettier. Children are being killed, homes are being bombed, and families are starved."
Her column was greeted by several talkbackers asking how they could apply for a job with the foreign ministry's team.

The project is a formalisation of public relations practices the ministry developed specifically for Israel's assault on Gaza in December and January.

"During Operation Cast Lead we appealed to Jewish communities abroad and with their help we recruited a few thousand volunteers, who were joined by Israeli volunteers," Mr Shturman said.

"We gave them background material and hasbara material, and we sent them to represent the Israeli point of view on news websites and in polls on the internet."

The Israeli army also had one of the most popular sites on the video-sharing site YouTube and regularly uploaded clips, although it was criticised by human rights groups for misleading viewers about what was shown in its footage.

Mr Shturman said that during the war the ministry had concentrated its activities on European websites where audiences were more hostile to Israeli policy. High on its list of target sites for the new project would be BBC Online and Arabic websites, he added.

Elon Gilad, who heads the internet team, told Calcalist that many people had contacted the ministry offering their services during the Gaza attack. "People just asked for information, and afterwards we saw that the information was distributed all over the internet."

He suggested that there had been widespread government cooperation, with the ministry of absorption handing over contact details for hundreds of recent immigrants to Israel, who wrote pro-Israel material for websites in their native languages.

The new team is expected to increase the ministry's close coordination with a private advocacy group, giyus.org (Give Israel Your United Support). About 50,000 activists are reported to have downloaded a programme called Megaphone that sends an alert to their computers when an article critical of Israel is published. They are then supposed to bombard the site with comments supporting Israel.

Nasser Rego of Ilam, a group based in Nazareth that monitors the Israeli media, said Arab organisations in Israel were among those regularly targeted by hasbara groups for "character assassination". He was concerned the new team would try to make such work appear more professional and convincing.

"If these people are misrepresenting who they are, we can guess they won't worry too much about misrepresenting the groups and individuals they write about. Their aim, it's clear, will be to discredit those who stand for human rights and justice for the Palestinians."

When The National called the foreign ministry, Yigal Palmor, a spokesman, denied the existence of the internet team, though he admitted officials were stepping up exploitation of new media.

He declined to say which comments by Mr Shturman or Mr Gilad had been misrepresented by the Hebrew-language media, and said the ministry would not be taking any action over the reports.

Israel has developed an increasingly sophisticated approach to new media since it launched a "Brand Israel" campaign in 2005.

Market research persuaded officials that Israel should play up good news about business success, and scientific and medical breakthroughs involving Israelis.

Mr Shturman said his staff would seek to use websites to improve "Israel's image as a developed state that contributes to the quality of the environment and to humanity".

David Saranga, head of public relations at Israel's consulate-general in New York, which has been leading the push for more upbeat messages about Israel, argued last week that Israel was at a disadvantage against pro-Palestinian advocacy.

"Unlike the Muslim world, which has hundreds of millions of supporters who have adopted the Palestinian narrative in order to slam Israel, the Jewish world numbers only 13 million," he wrote in Ynet.

Israel has become particularly concerned that support is ebbing among the younger generations in Europe and the United States.

In 2007 it emerged that the foreign ministry was behind a photo-shoot published in Maxim, a popular US men's magazine, in which female Israeli soldiers posed in swimsuits.

* Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair".

Links: Daily Roundup

Haitham Sabbah — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 07:04:29 +0000

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