StandWithUs to take cash, messaging from Israeli gov’t

By The Seventh Eye January 13, 2015 | Edit

The American ‘hasbara’ organization will disseminate government messages in a contract with the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

By Itamar Bazz / ‘The 7th Eye‘

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, will fund a hasbara organization to disseminate propaganda on behalf of the Israeli government. The allocation of public funds, over NIS 1 million (over $250,000) in 2015, is intended to fund a joint project by the National Information Directorate and the Israeli branch of StandWithUs, an American hasbara organization.

Hasbara is a Hebrew term that refers to public diplomacy efforts on behalf of Israel.

The committee in the Prime Minister’s Office that issues tenders for government contracts met at the end of November to approve an allocation of NIS 860,000 a year to a joint project with StandWithUs, while the organization’s funders will contribute a matching amount. The cooperation between the two parties, which was approved by the committee, may be extended for another two years at the end of 2015. The PMO told the Seventh Eye media watchdog website that the initiative is meant to strengthen “Israeli hasbara on social media platforms.”

According to the agreement, StandWithUs will run “interactive media war rooms” manned by students who will be trained to disseminate Israeli hasbara on social media platforms. The project will be based a model that was tried during Operation Protective Edge and previous military operations, in which “hasbara war rooms” were established in academic institutions across Israel in order to disseminate IDF and government messages.

A graphic distributed online by StandWithUs during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge.

At the end of the operation, the volunteers were rewarded with a recorded thank you message from the prime minister, who is in charge of the National Information Directorate. The goal of the new initiative is to allow such activity to take place on a regular basis.

According to the governmental plan, the students who will be enlisted to take part in the program will be trained by Yair Edi Freiman, the head of interactive media and hasbara organizations in the National Information Directorate, alongside workers from StandWithUs. In addition to Israeli students, the project will also enlist students from the U.S. and Britain, who will be flown to Israel in order to take part in “educational and training meetings.”

‘Citizen activism’

The participants in the new project will spread official governmental messages, although the initiative is marketed in such a way that will amplify authentic voices among the younger generation in Israel and the Jewish communities around the world.

In a press release, the organizers of the project characterized the initiative as a “volunteer-based start-up” that is meant to provide its participants a chance to work in “citizen activism.” The head of the StandWithUs branch in Israel, Michael Dickson, was quoted saying that the project is intended to give young people in Israel a chance to “raise their voice and describe their experiences as they experience them.”

Yarden Vatikay, who manages the National Information Directorate, took a similar line and declared that the “goal of the program is to provide young students the tools to pass on their message to a crowd that uses social media in the best way possible.”

However, the committee’s protocol, which includes details on how the project will be run, clarifies that the National Information Directorate will be highly involved in determining the messages disseminated by the students, and will include a mechanism that allows government representatives to oversee the content of those messages as well as the means of their dissemination.

According to the agreement, “the degree of involvement by the National Information Directorate in the initiative will be high, and will include the [project’s] strategic planning and the messages that they wish to spread.”

“In addition, a steering committee will be established and run by the representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office, including Mr. Freiman, as well as oversight mechanisms. Representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office will be part of the committee that selects the students.”

Read the minutes of the committee meeting in Hebrew here (PDF).

This article was first published in Hebrew by The 7th Eye media watchdog website. It is reproduced here with permission.

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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