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Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

Latest on Ameer Makhoul, Secret Arrest, Gag Order, and Silence of Israeli Press

Monday, May 10th, 2010

free ameer makhoulThose of you who followed this blog during the thick of the Anat Kamm-Uri Blau case, noted a critical juncture at which the weight of the secret gag order charade became too heavy.  After the Israeli media itself began obliquely ridiculing the Shin Bet for maintaining a secret that the whole world knew, including many Israelis among them, the gag collapsed like a house of cards.

We have come near to that in the case of Ameer Makhoul, director of the Israeli Palestinian community activist NGO, Ittijah, who was arrested in the dead of night at his Haifa apartment a few days ago after a team of 20 police and security agents ransacked his premises and stole cell phones, documents, computers and maps, including the research project of his teenage daughter.  The charge was…well, there was no charge: the police carried a warrant which they initially refused to show the victim in defiance of police procedure.  All it said was the Shin Bet had “secret information” justifying his arrest for “security reasons.”  That’s it.  And he was forbidden to consult his lawyer for two entire days.

The critical break in the assault on Makhoul may’ve come with an initial article in yesterday’s Haaretz (and one today in Ynet) which reported a mysterious rally held the day after Makhoul’s arrest by Israeli Palestinians in order to denounce the persecution meted out to community activists by the security services.  Seventh Eye, the blog specializing in media criticism, wrote an account of the Israeli media’s dereliction of duty in covering the Makhoul case:

Israeli Arab Groups: Israel Is Persecuting Us read a headline on page 10 of Haaretz facing the obituaries.  “Steps taken reminiscent of dark dictatorships,” read one prominent line quoted from the announcement of the meeting.  The story  itself speaks of an “emergency gathering” last Thursday night sponsored by tens of organizations from every part of the spectrum of the Arab community, despite the fact that the initiative for the meeting came only on the day of the event itself.

Why did the officials of these NGOs gather so urgently for such a meeting?  What united every facet of the Arab community?  Haaretz doesn’t say anything about this directly.  Because the control of the state over information reaching the public doesn’t include the internet itself, citizens interested in learning the details of what is done by the ruling authorities in their name, may surf websites not bound by gag orders.

Among newspapers that are not Haaretz, there isn’t even an indirect reference to this event.

This situation has now changed in that Ynet, as I noted above, today published a similar piece to Haaretz, though Yediot was more explicit in noting there was a reason it couldn’t publish all the facts of the case.  It also referred to this blog’s efforts to uncover the story and bring it to the attention of the Israeli and international audience:

Anat Kam II? Another affair freely discussed in blogs, websites around world, but in Israel press is muzzled. Arab rights groups: Gag order further evidence of police persecution of Arab community.

Again the whole world knows – but nobody tells us: A new security affair…has caused a storm in the Arab community of Israel. And just like in the Anat Kam case, in this case too the press is muzzled – even as the case gets extensive mention in blogs and website [sic] around the world.

Blogger Richard Silverstein in the website “Tikun Olam”, one of the first to write about the Anat Kam case, has already noted this new affair. In Facebook a protest group has already been set up…

Today, Haaretz also published a new story which reported on the protest planned for Haifa on Monday night and jointly sponsored by the left-wing political parties, Balad and Hadash.  Haaretz was even more timid than Ynet though in its refusal to use the “G” word or more explicitly refer to those sources which have broken the gag:

Members of Arab advocacy groups, including Adallah, Mossawa and I’lam Media Center, are angry that they can’t provide details about the circumstances or the reasons for the protest, even though some information has been reported by journalists and bloggers in the United States and Europe, as well as by the Arab press in countries including Israel.

Where has democracy disappeared? (Tom Blog)

As I noted earlier, I learned another lesson from the Kamm-Blau affair, which featured a Facebook group that disseminated information rapidly and efficiently to its members.  I created a group on behalf of Makhoul which after three days has nearly 2,000 members.  I’ve learned an enormous amount from the links posted on the Wall there.  I’ve also discovered valuable news sources including this one, which mourns the death of Israeli democracy through sharp satire.  The post, by well-known Israeli political blogger, “Tom,” features three black and white outlines of images which it asks children to color in as if it was a drawing contest.  Here are the sets of text accompanying each image:

Where Has the Arab Disappeared? Where Has Ameer Disappeared?

Weekly Child’s Drawing

Ameer Makhoul went to sleep in his home with his wife and children.  Suddenly he disappeared.  Along with him documents, maps, computers, his and his children’s cell phones disappeared as well.  Can you help Ameer’s family find him?

Children: color in the drawing, leave just the disappeared for handling by the authorities who protect us.  Send your drawings to:

Tom
Blog
Life is Here, Arabs are There

Where Has Democracy Disappeared?

Citizens of the Only Democracy in the Middle East went to sleep smug and blind, when suddenly Democracy disappeared.  Some of them claimed it never existed.  Can you help the citizens find Democracy?  Or at least the remains of her dismembered body?  Children, color in the drawing, leaving just Democracy for handling by the security forces.

During the Kamm-Blau affair I noted the power of social networking sites like Facebook to draw together hundreds and thousands of people in support of Israeli political activism and social justice.  This was aided by the fact that Facebook is even more popular in Israel than here.  Not only is the same the case in our new cause, I’ve noticed a new wrinkle which should alarm the Israeli security services: we’ve managed to bring together people speaking Hebrew, English and Arabic and representing Israeli Jews, Palestinians, and English speakers throughout the world, in a broad campaign to free Makhoul and end the persecution of Israel Jewish and Palestinian human rights and peace activists.  This truly is an era in which security forces find it next to impossible to control the democratic impulses of the internet.  We may not be able to bring Israeli-Palestinian peace, but we can do our best to fight back against some of the worst excesses of Israel’s security apparatus.

I invite you to join the Free Ameer Makhoul Facebook group and contribute the information, ideas, and thoughts you have to the movement.

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Why Does the Shin Bet Hate and Fear Ameer Makhoul?

Saturday, May 8th, 2010
ameer Makhoul's ransacked apartment

Ameer Makhoul's Haifa apartment after Shin Bet ransacking

To my great delight, Israeli bloggers, unlike their journalistic counterparts, are defying the Shin Bet’s gag order on reporting the secret arrest of Ameer Makhoul, director of the Israeli Palestinian human rights NGO, Ittijah.  Kol hakavod to friends and allies Uri Breitman, Yossi Gurvitz, Idan Landau for their bravery in the face of the machinery of the secret police.  Now, if only the Israeli mainstream media would follow suit.  But it will be just like Anat Kamm.  It will take days for the satirists will begin whispering word of the event with oblique jokes and derision directed at the Shin Bet for prohibiting Israelis from knowing what half the rest of the world already knows.

I particularly liked Uri’s blog post which satirically claims that the Shin Bet’s is Google’s best friend since whenever it bans someone as it did Kamm and Makhoul, it sends every Israeli to Google to find out what’s going on.  Breitman, with savage wit, predicts that in time there will no longer be any need for Israeli newspapers or TV news at all, since Israelis will turn en masse to Google to find out what’s going on inside their country, whether the news be secret or otherwise.  I await an attempt by the security apparatus to do a China and begin censoring Google results from Israeli searches.  Could it come to that?

Gurvitz speculates why Makhoul may’ve run afoul of the security services.  This past Wednesday, Makhoul announced his support for the campaign to boycott Israeli products from the settlements.  He notes that former IDF spokesperson and current Knesset member Nachman Shai claims that such support for boycott coming from Israeli Palestinians raises doubts about their loyalty to the State.  If true, what this means is that the Israeli secret police have decided that even legal means of democratic protest should be criminalized.  There is not yet a law in Israel forbidding citizens from boycotting settler products.  Yet it appears the Shin Bet is establishing such a ruling for Palestinian citizens of the State.  Which means that the agency is in effect creating pro forma laws for Arabs and thereby bypassing the Knesset.

And as it did with the Anat Kamm story, Israel Broadcasting Authority’s Arabic service is first among mainstream media to break the gag and report the story (in Arabic).  The Shin Bet seems much less threatened by reporting in Arabic or English than it is by reporting in Hebrew.

One effective way of fighting the Kamm gag was through Facebook, since so many Israelis use it to communicate with each other in normal circumstances.  That’s why I’ve created a Free Ameer Makhoul Facebook group (there is also a separate Arabic-language group).  Please consider joining and tell those you know about it.

And tell the foreign press in Israel to get off their tushes and do their job.  Yes, their licenses may be placed in jeopardy.  But do you want to continue being scooped by bloggers on stories like this?  Do you want to acquiesce in the security services running roughshod over not just Israeli citizens but the foreign press and its right to report the news?

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Next Israel Military Order: Earth to Cease Rotating Around Sun

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Can we next expect an IDF expulsion order for Galileo?

Israel’s odd concept of the gag order has received great prominence–and derision– in the case of Anat Kam.  Via a Facebook group established to protest her case, a member has devised a hilarious new Israeli order: apparently the top military brass find it inconvenient that the earth revolves around the sun.  To stop this malarkey, they’ve issued a military order that it cease and desist from doing so.  Judge Einat Ron has even signed the order.  Henceforward (Galileo was wrong!), the sun will revolve around the earth.  Until, that is, the order is removed, of course at the convenience of the IDF.

To protect the ass of the brilliant general who conceived of this, a gag order has also been imposed to prevent reporting it inside Israel.  Oops, I guess we broke the gag again!

My sources tell me the next step in this plan is to expel Galileo from Israel as a thorn in the side of the most moral and geo-physically advanced army in the world.

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Kamm Case: Sorry State of MSM, Critical Role of Blogs in Breaking Controversial Stories

Sunday, April 4th, 2010

In a discussion with Avner Cohen earlier today I learned that Facebook is hugely popular in Israel and that many Israelis are getting their knowledge of the Anat Kam from Facebook because they can’t find it in the Israeli MSM.  I confirmed this via my site stats which show that almost half my visitors are from Israel (normally the percentage is about 3-4%) and many are referred by Facebook.

I found a new Facebook page, We Want the Truth about Anat Kam.  Reading down the group’s Wall I discovered something fascinating.  Avner is right.  Facebook is Israel’s town square.  There are now tens (if not more) of Hebrew language posts about Anat Kam.  And until then, I had no idea.  In a day or so, there will likely be hundreds.  I did know initially about a few bloggers who’d written on this like Aryeh Amihai and Idan Landau, but they all took their posts down at Kam’s request.

In this case, as so many others these days, Israelis are not getting their news from the MSM.  The major papers and media outlets are disgracefully honoring the government’s gag order against publishing details of the story.  Even when the MSM publishes something about the story the report must tip-toe around the facts and essentially ignore them or speak about them in code.  Perhaps in the past some societies had more patience for this.  Nowadays, they don’t.  That’s what’s leaving the MSM in the dust.

Way back in the day when old line media was king, if a story didn’t break there it didn’t exist like the proverbial tree falling in the forest.  But something has changed.  Nowadays, for whatever reason, the MSM often doesn’t break big stories, especially not ones involving a potential cost to them like this one.  As I’ve written here, I first wrote about this on March 15th and could get no one in the MSM interested in it.  Almost two weeks later, JTA and the Independent broke the English-language publishing barrier.  But a blog got there first.

I predict the same thing will happen in Israel.  The Israeli MSM will honor the gag until blogs will embarrass them into publishing.  If they continue to refuse, it will threaten to render them even more irrelevant than they already are.  If virtually every citizen in Israel knows about this case via Facebook and the blogs before the MSM publishes, it will make the latter into a laughingstock.

I don’t want to overstate things.  The MSM still plays a major role in reporting many stories.  It even reports important ones.  The work of Uri Blau, for which he sits in London in self-imposed exile, is a case in point.  But there are times, and they will come more and more often, when the MSM can’t or won’t cover important stories like this one.  When they fail as they have here, it will be more and more clear to the average citizen that blogs play a critical role in social and political discourse.

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Im Tirtzu Threatens Lawsuit Against Facebook Group

Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Im Tirtzu is fascist facebook group

Im Tirtzu: a Fascist Movement

The leader of the nationalist pro-Israel advocacy group, Im Tirtzu, threatened the founder of a mocking Facebook group with libel and court action.  Ronen Shoval is the founder of the Israeli NGO, which smeared New Israel Fund chair, Naomi Hazan, depicting her with a rhinoceros horn in demeaning newspaper advertisements.  Im Tirtzu’s intent was the assault NIF for it’s alleged role in coordinating Israeli human right testimony that buttressed the Goldstone Report.

Shoval wrote an intimidating e mail to Roy Yellin, who created the Facebook group, Im Tirtzu is Fascist warning that if he didn’t close the Facebook group in 72 hours he would haul him to court.  Yellin, a former spokesperson for the Meretz party, mocked Shoval’s threat and responded that he’d meet him in court and prove the charges true.  This is the type of penny ante harrassment for which the Israeli far-right is well known.  In fact it’s astonishing that Shoval would waste his time with this, all the while proving how little respect he has for freedom of speech, a supposed hallmark of Israeli democracy.  Not to mention drawing attention to Im Tirtzu is Fascist.

I invite you to join 2,000 2,300 other members of Im Tirtzu is Fascist and tell Shoval where he can take himself.  The founder of Im Tirtzu was at one time leader of the pro-settler student group, Orange Cell, but now claims he is a man of the “center.”  Considering there no longer is a viable left in Israeli politics, he may not be far wrong.

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Twitter and Winning the Online War for Israel

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Those valiant hasbara honchos in the Israeli foreign ministry are fighting the good fight on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people.  First, Danny Ayalon stood up to the Turkish ambassador by seating him on a kiddie chair and showing how to humiliate a true enemy of Israel.  Then Danny stiffed a U.S. Congress delegation, making clear that he’d have nothing to do with those anti-Israel, so-called Jews in J Street.  Next, to show Israel in a truly constructive light as a center of hot sex in the Middle East–the MFA, Canadian Jewish pro-Israel donors, and the Israel lobby funded a thrilling video that proffered oral sex in return for traveling to the land of hot beaches and bronzed bodies that is Israel.

Yuli Edelstein, settler, and minister of the newly created Hasbara (I kid you not) Ministry, created a devilishly witty website which makes fun of foreign journalists telling their audiences back home that the IDF uses camels to haul their ammunition and that standards of civilization are somewhere in the late 19th century.  He’s also deputized Israeli tourists and, why the hell not, the entire Jewish people to be ambassadors of hasbarist good will on Israel’s behalf.  I tell you, as a good Zionist, it just makes my heart pound and my body tingle.  We’re finally getting out the message.  With this, it won’t be long before we win this damn propaganda war with the dark Arab hordes.  Then Israel will stand with its foot atop the neck of those damn Palestinians, as it should be.

Now, Danny and his friends in the Australian Zionist Federation have discovered a truly nefarious enemy within our very own Jewish people.  These are those Jewish-born individuals who should be ashamed to call themselves Jews (we certainly don’t), because they hate, I say HATE, Israel and all it stands for.  People like those nasty Twitterers who mock magnificent specimens of Jewish manhood like Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor, and deputy minister Ayalon himself.  And how do these so-called Jews disseminate their hate?  Not through the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  No they’re far too crafty and hip for that.  They seek ever newer ways to promote their bile.  They do it using the tools of the young people on whom they prey: YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.  Yes, I said Twitter.  Is nothing sacred?

And who do we have to thank for this Paul Revere-like early warning of the impending peril to Israel?  Something called the Community Internet Engagement Project of the Australian Zionist Federation.  You see, many of our leaders are the white-haired Old Guard.  They’re used to dictating to cute secretaries a la Mad Men.  They barely know how to type, let alone tweet or “friend” someone on Facebook.  They’re the dinosaurs.  But the future belongs to the CIEP which aims to teach Australian Zionists how to fight for Israel in the perpetual online war waged by Islamofascists and their anti-Zionist fellow travelers.  All I can say is thank God for this veritable firewall, or should I say mechitza, on behalf of all that is good about the Jewish people.

We should thank them for all they do on our behalf (cut out that sniggering you in the back, this is serious work we’re engaged in):

Israel has been attached [sic] in Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr. Eventually it had to happen… and in messages of 140 characters of [sic] less, now Twitter too is being used in public diplomacy against the Jewish state….In Israel MKs, such as Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, are also making use of Twitter. So is the IDF’s spokesperson and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. What’s new…are efforts to use Twitter to attack, satirise or demonise. Two fake profiles demonstrate the potential. The first, is a FakeDannyAyalon profile on twitter, [sic] is an example of political attacks. Using his real picture and a string of 79 posts, the profile spreads over-the-top messages in the Deputy Foreign Minister’s name. One expounds the rights of protestors to express themselves in Iran, going on to say those who do so in Israel should be shot. Another suggests a Palestinian Mandela must be found… so that he can be locked up. The second fake profile of interest is for NGO Monitor. NGO Monitor is the watchdog organisation that reports on human rights NGOs active in the Arab Israeli conflict.  This profile likewise makes over the top and self defeating statements. “‘Telling the truth is less important than defending Israel.’ Yes, EXACTLY! When will you learn?!” it reads. Another comment says “Remember: Everything we say = democratic debate, legitimate criticism. Everything they say = exploiting democracy for a political agenda”.

Ashley Perry and advisor to Danny Ayalon responded to our enquiries saying they were aware of FakeDannyAyalon on Twitter and that “imitation is the highest form of flattery”…Despite the interest from imitators, Danny Ayalon apparently soon launch a blog and an interactive website. One wonders if FakeDannyAyalon will be left by the wayside.

The fake profile for NGO Monitor is less blatant than that for Danny Ayalon. IT differs from NGO Monitor’s real account by only an under score. The posts also link to articles that debate and respond to NGO Monitor reports. The profile itself lists the Palestinian Propaganda [!] site Electronic Intifada as its home page. Electronic Intifada was previously exposed as being behind efforts to manipulate the Wikipedia community after they infiltrated and exposed efforts by CAMERA to encourage more people to become Wikipedia editors.

It’s taken a while, but finally twitter too has become a tool of online warfare. While Facebook bans the use of fake names, Twitter only prohibits Impersonation and Trademark violations. It remains to be seen how far satire can be used as a cover, and how good the satire must be to qualify. One this [sic] is certain, the online world is only growing in impact when it comes to politics and the international reputation of countries. Israel is starting to get online, but there is a long way still to go.

And with starke Yidn like Prof. Dr. Oboler on our side, we’ll get there in no time.  Who is this fellow, you ask?

Dr. Andre Oboler is a social media expert and Director of the Community Internet Engagement Project. He…spent a year as a Post Doctoral Fellow focusing on Online Public Diplomacy at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

Phew, I feel better already.  One thing you should know, by the way, is that that wonderful sounding name “public diplomacy” is another phrase for hasbara when it comes to Israel.  It’s selling Israel, selling its story (as conceived by the pro-Israel right), selling the good, and dismissing the bad with the wave of a hand.

Psst, Dr. Oboler, use that PhD in computer science to buy yourself a good grammar check program, lest the anti-Semit’n out there start thinking all of us Jews are semi-literate.

To enjoy the wonderful satire of NGO_Monitor and FakeDanny Ayalon, visit their profiles and be ready to laugh your head off.  Some of this has to be written by writers for Eretz Nehederet, it’s that good.  By the way, Prof. Dr. Oboler missed a few other hilarious ones as well that would throw him into fits of righteous indignation: Fake_Bibi, FakeShimonPeres, DanHalutz, M_Ahmadinejad, SalamFayyad and MohammadDahlan.  Please let us know about others in the comment thread below.

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Dan Halutz, Facebook Phenom

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Dan Halutz's Facebook page

Psst, are you ready for some fun?  I’ll let you in on it on one condition: don’t blow the secret.  This is too good and funny to be true and I don’t want to spoil it by having anyone squeal.

I was looking through my Facebook profile and noticed one of my Friends had linked to a new page seemingly created by Dan Halutz.  He’s the former chief of staff of the IDF who commanded the ignominious Lebanon war while he wheeled and dealed with his stock broker over his investment portfolio.  Perhaps his distraction contributed to the IDF’s lackluster performance in the war.  I say lackluster not because the Israelis didn’t kill enough Lebanese.  They did that–somewhere around 1,200 died during the month of that war.  But the performance was lackluster in that over 100 Israelis were killed, all of northern Israel was a barren wasteland for a month, and Hezbollah was neither dislodged nor vanquished–all of which was promised by Halutz before and during the war.

Some Israeli jokester has created a spoof website that is deliciously ironic.  Not to mention that fabulous real photo of Halutz looking like George Clooney in a tank and yukking it up.  Here are some of the more hilarious Wall segments:

Personal Information

Activities:
Fighter jet pilot, soldier and general.
love extreme sports. modern weapons.
I also love jogging in the early morning, and play the African game of Homboh.
Interests:
exploding bodies
long range bombing, financial portfolio
Favorite Music:
the sound of napalm in the morning
Favorite Quotations:
What do you feel when you drop a 1-ton bomb on a residential building? “A slight bump to the (airplane’s) wing” – D. Halutz
About Me:
I have a Wikipage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Halutz

Some of the comments by Dan’s Friends are pretty funny:

Dan Halutz Going off-line untill monday. happy new year!

December 30, 2009 at 9:08pm ·

Mary Woodward

Mary Woodward

What? You putting extrajudicial murders on hold till then, Generalissimo??
PS Happy New Year to you, also, Sir.
December 30, 2009 at 11:12pm

Tom Vee

Tom Vee

Happy New Year! Maybe your New Year’s resolution should be not to kill as many children, yes?
And this thread:

Dan Halutz I am Mr. Halutz and Dr. King

December 29, 2009 at 7:13am ·

Mary Woodward

Mary Woodward

And I am…confused, Generalissimo?
December 29, 2009 at 8:01am

Dan Halutz

Dan Halutz

On one hand, I am a war-machine, nothing but a bump in the wing. On the other hand, lately I started felling this pain, or a twitch, somewhere in my chest every time I blow a kid to smithereens.
Dr. Jakyl & Mr Hyde…
December 29, 2009 at 8:10am

Mary Woodward

Mary Woodward

Don’t break my heart, Generalissimo!
December 29, 2009 at 8:14am

What makes all of this even more delicious is the fact that real live right wing Israeli politicians have been hoodwinked by the satirical page and have “friended” Dan, including Likud MK Danny Dannon and settler extremist Moshe Feiglin. It’s all too funny for words: enjoy. But let’s keep this our little secret.

Facebook=$10-Billion+, Profit=$0

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

From the NY Times:

Microsoft, Google and several funds are considering investments in the fast-growing site, according to people with knowledge of the talks, that could give the start-up a value of more than $10 billion…

Facebook is seeking a minimum valuation of $10 billion but interested bidders have expressed a willingness to value it as high as $13 billion.

…Earlier this year, a Pali Research analyst, Richard Greenfield, estimated that the company brought in $60 million to $96 million in annual revenue, with no real profit.

Do I hear ‘irrantional exuberance,’ anyone??