OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – At a time when battles rage on the Gaza front, and tension is escalating on the border with Lebanon, Israel launched the "Awareness Front" through the virtual space, to launch what is called the "Israeli Electronic Army" a battle through various social networks, to fight what the occupation called the "Palestinian narrative" and promote its narrative in order to influence world public opinion.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the "awareness front" is no less important than the battlefields, describing it as a "battle for awareness" for its role in penetrating the virtual space and communicating its resonance to the whole world.
Analysts and journalists have acknowledged that in the shadow of the war on Gaza, Israel and civilian initiatives for Jews in Israel and around the world are waging behind the scenes a war on narrative, propaganda and awareness-raising through hundreds of cyber army personnel.
Yedioth Ahronoth: The Awareness Front is as Important as the Battlefields (Al Jazeera)
Mobilization and recruitment
According to analysts, Israel has been equipped for years by mobilizing and recruiting hundreds of cadres who have been trained in Israeli centers and universities, and have fought many virtual maneuvers and hidden wars to spread the Israeli narrative, even by fabricating and falsifying content and content.
Reichmann University at the Center for National Security Research Herzliya specializes in training these cadres through courses in international media, content production, electronic media, law and governance, political science, and sociology.
Hundreds of students enroll in these courses annually who are equipped with the mechanisms to enlist in the Israeli Electronic Army or any Israeli security and military institution, and in various government ministries, including the diplomatic corps and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Herzliya Center also provides training courses for hundreds of employees from various Israeli government ministries and officers and workers in security, military and intelligence institutions, including the Mossad and Shin Bet.
falsification
The training courses aim to provide those concerned with skills that help them address local and international public opinion, promote the Israeli narrative, or confront the Palestinian, Arab, or anti-Israeli narrative. It also aims to enable them to specialize in falsifying facts and creating new narratives that have nothing to do with reality.
In the first week of the war on Gaza, Israeli Foreign Ministry diplomatic staff briefed 250 foreign correspondents and more than 640 interviews with international media in various languages to distort and combat the Palestinian narrative.
About a thousand posts and tweets were published in English, Spanish, Arabic, Persian and Russian, which received more than 320 million views, through the activity of the digital department of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. More than 80 official statements were issued condemning Hamas and supporting Israel from various countries, according to the Israeli newspaper Globes.
Israeli Foreign Ministry Conducted More Than 640 Media Interviews in Various Languages to Distort Palestinian Narrative (Getty Images)
Virtual battle
Israeli citizens and Jewish volunteers around the world are active in the creation of dozens of groups and projects to help with international outreach, one of which is known as the "Civic Propaganda Headquarters" established by former journalist Elav Patito, who recruits volunteers to distribute content.
Commenting on the "Awareness Front", Navo Terbilsi, technology and internet correspondent for the newspaper "Globes", said, "This is the second war of independence, this is how the battle is conducted on world public opinion."
He added that Israel has been fighting a war for several days on several fronts, the most important of which is the battle to influence world public opinion, as it is considered a key arena in broadcasting messages, content and content in line with the Israeli narrative.
"Awareness and understanding of the difficult situation that Israel has been experiencing since Black Saturday has a clear impact on providing international cover and legitimacy for Israeli military operations, in addition to exerting pressure on various parties in the world and ensuring their alignment with Israel and adopting its narrative of war," he said.
He believes that public opinion today is affected by "the hard work carried out by various state institutions, cadres and civil authorities," noting that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is active in the transmission of information and content and recruits all its diplomatic staff around the world to interact within the arenas of the "awareness front".
Filling
So far, Eliaf Patito has recruited more than 400 active volunteers to translate, visually edit and plan content, with hundreds more posting content on social media.
According to the messages sent within the communication groups of the "Civil Propaganda Headquarters", the content produced by the headquarters reaches millions of people around the world.
One of the content that Patito distributed in cooperation with the Civilian Propaganda Headquarters at the beginning of the war on the Gaza front, and which helped set the tone in favor of the Israeli narrative, was a video that the newspaper described as "successful" and produced at the advertising office of the Uman Bar Rivnai.
Everyone at the civilian propaganda headquarters felt the need to mobilize in favor of Israel's propaganda information war, with the video garnering millions of views thanks to its participation by famous and familiar scientific figures, such as singer Madonna.
In the office of Rovinj Friedan, they collected media materials for stories and correspondence of what they described as the "hell" experienced by the residents of the "Gaza envelope" during the battle of the "Al-Aqsa flood", which was translated into many languages by dozens of volunteer translators.
In addition, Israel focuses on providing tools and knowledge for young Jews to help and positively influence Israel's image globally and regionally by establishing a round-the-clock virtual emergency room.
marketing
The association holds webinars providing guidance, practical tools and reliable information sources when providing information to users of digital media and social networks.
According to Professor Moran Yerahai, head of the Department of Digital Awareness and Influence at the School of Communications and head of the Public Diplomacy Program at Reichmann University, "In previous rounds of fighting it was difficult for Israel to present itself as a natural victim, because we are the strong side."
In the war on image, Yarhai says, "Whoever has the strongest and most famous story has the upper hand. In the current situation, it would have been easy for the world to empathize with the armed events and operations that children, youth, the elderly and women were subjected to in the Gaza envelope, as well as the armed operations that targeted the music festival as well."
The narrative of empathy resonates very strongly, Yarhai said, "Even the comparisons made to ISIS or the September 11 attacks are something that the public can understand. "In this war, our ability to deliver victims at the most shocking level makes people understand the political and security context of the conflict."