Jerusalem – In the midst of its Gaza operations, the IDF is entering yet another conflict zone: the Internet. The Israeli army announced yesterday the creation of its own YouTube channel, through which it will disseminate footage of precision bombing operations in the Gaza Strip, as well as aid distribution and other footage of interest to the international community.
A screen shot of an IDF video…
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“The blogosphere and new media are another war zone,” said IDF Foreign Press Branch head Maj. Avital Leibovich. “We have to be relevant there.”
Her sentiment reflects a growing awareness in the Israeli government that part of the failure of the 2006 Second Lebanon War was Israel’s lack of readiness for the intense media debate surrounding its operations.
Since the beginning of the Gaza air strikes, Israeli politicians have been appearing regularly on the largest international news networks to defend the IDF. Leibovich’s YouTube initiative is another piece of the new media offensive.
Some of the footage might be considered disturbing, such as one video that allegedly depicts men loading rockets onto a pickup truck, [The IDF has since this article was published removed this specific footage, unknown for what reasons] but can be viewed here provided by the Jpost website]to be driven to the border and launched into Israel. The grainy, silent, black-and-white video was transmitted from a plane flying overhead. Moments after the men finish loading their cargo, they are hit by an IAF air strike.
Leibovich was not overly concerned. “The intelligent audience watching the footage will know that people killed did not have peaceful intentions toward Israel,” she said. “I don’t believe they’ll be disturbed.”
“The important thing is to get the truth out there,” she added, noting that her office, in addition to curating the YouTube channel, had delivered multiple private briefings to bloggers around the world. She said that members of her department were also getting ready to start their own “vlogs,” a new media term for regularly posting videos of oneself speaking one’s mind in diary form.
Members of the IDF’s various foreign desks intend to use these vlogs to discuss a number of aspects of the conflict, in both English and Arabic, in a personal setting that they hope will overcome the stiffness of television news.
thats it. the media controls everything today. gotta play along!
Sounds like a plan.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. May the IDF match wits with the world’s Israel-hating media and expose the naked truth about Muslim savagery in Gaza.
Gazans publically shooting their own Muslim neighbors in the head for “collaboration with Jews” … Gazans fatally dressing their preschoolers in suicide grenades to carry out murderous attacks on Israeli busses … Gazans shouting hoarse bloodlust against Jews in their daily riots in the streets … Gazans loading Iranian weaponry onto trucks to fire murderous missles onto Israeli civilian centers. These are public ACTS OF WAR.
The truth is right there under the satelite cameras, under the sneering eyes of the world’s anti-Israel media. YouTube media film can prove to the world that the IDF’s counterrattacts are righteous acts of self-defense, carried out against savage Muslim militias engaging in acts of war. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!
I love the rocket view footage!
Absolutely Brilliant!
Finally, they did not realize all the years that a part of winning a war is propaganda, at least information of the truth, especially no one gave them an other option how to defend their country.
The video with the rockets is back on youtube. Maybe they reposted it and disabled comments as they did not want anti-semitic or pro-arab comments.