Recently, an Israeli law firm threatened to sue Twitter for allowing ‘foreign terrorist organisations’ to use their platform. According to Al Jazeera, the Electronic Intifada (EI) has found out about a program that pays Israeli university students for combating anti-Semitism on the Internet on various social networking sites. The National Union of Israeli Students (NUIS) has established the Shacham Scholarship that pays students $2,000 for working 5 hours a week from their homes writing positive messages about Israeli and Jews in cyberspace.
Since there is a heated debate that goes on both for and against Israel, the NUIS expects their own people to defend their own country online. The scholarships allow students to track down those websites that have anti-Semitic content. This social media marketing by NUIS is being interpreted as media propaganda where internet and social media is being used as just another means to forward their version of the story rigorously.
However, the Israeli government has not created this programme on their own and hence it does not operate under them, but they have helped it being established. Such use of the internet and social media is making it touch the controversial realm, which it should not if it is to remain a place where all people can connect regardless of their political outlook. Already there is a cyber-war that has started between the Arab and the Israeli hackers who are troubling one another’s websites back and forth.
Israeli warfare through social media