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From the trenches of Twitter: Israeli army propaganda war Gaza

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On May 14, the official Israeli military Twitter account tweeted a “pop quiz” video, inviting viewers to “imagine” that it was up to the Israeli armed forces to decide what to do from the Gaza Strip in the face of rocket fire. The answer options were as follows: “A. Nothing[.] Allow terrorists to destroy Israeli cities ”or“ target terrorists who fire rockets ”.

According to the military, there was “only one correct answer”: Option B. In fact, a more specific response would be something like this: “C. Bomb Gaza to all explosives and massacre entire Palestinian families in response to rockets incapable of destroying Israeli cities – and they are firing on Israel because Israel has been massacring and torturing Palestinians for the past 73 years because he has given them. ‘

So far, nearly 250 Palestinians, including 66 children, have been killed in the May 10 Israeli attack. As usual, the Israeli military has been a valuable weapon for the military to carry out a parallel propaganda war to strengthen the physical.

Today’s account of 1.5 million followers is largely dedicated to reversing victim and victim roles to represent Israel as the latter – in theory it is a daunting task because “victims” do not usually violently elevate their country to the lands of others. and subjecting the legal population to ethnic cleansing and massacre.

Due to the disproportionate destruction in Israel and Gaza, the Israeli military is often reduced to tweets about air sirens, with helpful colorful maps: “All the red dots mark the sirens in Israel’s last 30 minutes: Israel is under attack.”

If the red dots weren’t traumatic enough, a tweet on May 11 encouraged Twitter users to listen to the audio clip of “SIRENS IN TEL AVIV” and “imagine listening to this sound and having a few seconds of your life”. On May 12, another tweet announced this: “It’s 3pm and more rockets are being fired in Tel Aviv. Families wake up and go to bomb shelters. ”

It doesn’t matter if there are no sirens or bomb shelters in Gaza’s airstrikes. Imagine, for example, that Suzy Eshkontana is a six-year-old boy who was taken out of the rubble of his home in Gaza City within seven hours of an Israeli air strike that killed his mother and four siblings. Or imagine Eman Basher, a professor at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, who tweeted on May 13: “Tonight we slept with children in our bedroom. That way, when we die we die together and no one will live crying for each other’s loss.”

It’s about “imagining” the Israeli army, but only from the point of view invented by Israel. Entitled “Imagine This Was Your Reality,” in another epic-sensitive video, he wants to show how “ALL ISRAEL IS FIRE ALSO” through people who fire rockets, flames, and run. The video encourages viewers to “imagine if it was Washington”; “Imagine if it were Paris”; “Imagine if it was London.”

Meanwhile, the army itself continues to cause an apocalypse of cinematic proportions on the Gaza Strip. Imagining Israel as a victim requires a great deal of imagination, in fact.

Occasionally, the army asks the Twittersphere to imagine the events through an alleged Palestinian perspective. The tweet from the May 18 video, “Hamas’s use of human shields, is explained,” begins: “Imagine your house surrounded by terrorism” – something supposedly unimaginable to Gaza’s neighbors when they see Israel leveling the floor of the surrounding buildings.

According to Israel’s tiring narrative, Palestinian “terrorists” are infiltrated into civilian areas and are therefore guilty when Israel eliminates civilians. In fact, the military regularly provides rigorous evidence in favor of this narrative – according to any organization with such technological capability.

For example, a deleted version of the video “Hamas’s Use of Human Shields, Explanation” included an image that contained Hamas rockets embedded in Israel’s civilian neighborhoods in Gaza. As Reuters journalist Raphael Satter pointed out, the images were about a “2018 Israeli training exercise” – guess where – Israel! (Satter warns that the Israeli military “has trouble distinguishing Hamas rockets from Israeli rockets and does not create confidence in the quality of their intelligence”).

A similar digital snafu happened to the state of Israel in May 2010 when the army killed eight Turkish and Turkish-American activists on the ship Mavi Marmara, the main flag of a flotilla that wanted to help Gaza. According to the Israeli official line, Israeli commandos who fired people from helicopters were the real victims of the episode, and were photographed uploading photos of “weapons” allegedly found by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, including marbles, keffiehs, the kitchen. knives, and tensions.

It was initially determined that the photo was taken in February 2006, when people who had violently attacked aircraft controls in the middle of the sea more than four years ago were taking people to a coastal enclave besieged by baby incubators and medicines. The truth is, when the whole story of the victims is a lie, what is needed about the details?

In the end, if you’re an Israeli army and have an internet connection, you can’t argue with anything. If the military were to tweet about a variety of other events, it would be likely that deer would attack hunting rifles, snorkel legs attack sharks, chainsaws would hit tree trunks, mice would eat cheese, and so on.

The role of journalists in the transmission of Israeli propaganda – the Western corporate media has long been deliberately to blame – is widely reported that the Israeli military deceived the foreign press on 13 May to report on the ground invasion of Gaza. to push Hamas fighters to the tunnels that are the target of mass attacks.

Of course, there are other options for contacting the media, such as the elimination of their offices in Gaza, as happened on 15 May. (Imagine if they were Washington, Paris or London).

The Israeli military’s Twitter account of the attack on the 11-story building, which destroyed Al Jazeera’s and The Associated Press’s offices and numerous civilian residences, said it was “an important operational base for Hamas military intelligence operations.”

The Onion had more information about The Onion’s remarkable satirical outburst, calling on Israel to reduce Theion’s international offices to “burn the waste as soon as possible” so that “Hamas agents would not be hidden there”. The article urged Israel “not to give prior warning to tenants in these buildings,” and concluded that “if the carpet bombing the entire city block where our offices are located eventually ends this cycle of violence, it has been worth the inconvenience.”

Now, as the Israeli army continues to wage a physical and digital war – destroying the truth in the process – it is time to turn its narrative into rubble.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the attitude of the Al Jazeera editorial.



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