In propaganda battle, PM Spokesperson tweets old photo

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"The IDF is recently putting a lot of effort into propaganda campaigns, and especially new media ones. The army has a blog, a Flickr account, a Facebook page and a Youtube channel; officers from IDF spokesperson unit are very active on social networks, where they argue with journalists and activists and at times even endorse certain (rightwing) political positions.

A recent entry in the IDF Spokesperson blog encouraged readers to help the army “spread the truth” about the military escalation in the south. Another entry was dedicated to a tweet from a Palestinian blogger, which showed a photo of a wounded Palestinian child, allegedly wounded in the attack on Gaza. The photo was old, plus it was photoshopped. The blogger who posted it apologized (she explains the affair [link:manara1ram.blog.com/2012/03/12/my-story-with-the-israeli-propaganda/|here]). But the IDF blog concluded (emphasis in original):

This isn’t the first time people have spread false information about the IDF. Meanwhile, lies are still being tweeted throughout the web.
Share this post to fight misinformation–set the facts straight about what’s going on in Israel and Gaza.

So here is my contribution to the important battle against misinformation. A tweet by Ofir Gendelman, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, showing a picture of a mother and two children seeking cover from a rocket attack:



This picture is from 2009. Asked by a journalist why he knowingly posted old pictures without mentioning when they are from, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson replied:

I am not a news agency nor am I a reporter. The photo is genuine and illustrates the tragic condition in the south.

http://972mag.com/in-propaganda-battle-pm-spokesperson-tweets-old-photo/37740/


*Complaints about pics in I/P? See here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11345396

[Behind the Aegis]

1. Or go back even further...

to here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11345159

On edit: Of course, the other photo had this remark: "The caption alleges the girl was killed during one of yesterday’s retaliatory IAF strikes." Did the IDF do the same?

[shira]

9. Hmm, dead Jews due to libelous tweets = photo of Israelis ducking for cover.

Sadly, there are many who fall for that idiotic soviet style propaganda crap.

[Lawlbringer]

2. Or even further back to this one

[shaayecanaan]

3. "I am not a news agency nor am I a reporter."

Nay, I am just a lowly government spokesperson.

I couldnt really give two hoots, but seeing as how the right-wing people here go apeshit whenever old Palestinian photos are posted as new, it does strike one as hypocritical.

[Scurrilous]

4. Yep...the hypocrisy is pretty thick. n/t

[azurnoir]

5. +1 or is it 2 ?n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

6. I guess some don't want to admit that a propaganda war takes two sides...

They both do it, yet there's one or two here who pretend that it's only the Palestinians who engage in that sort of PR point-scoring....

[Scurrilous]

7. More:

As Israel’s Military Pursues Enemies on Twitter, Some Citizens Reach Out on Facebook

<snip>

"Last week, as rockets were fired into and out of Gaza, the Israeli military also moved to take the high ground on what an official described as the “second battlefield” of social networking sites, by beginning a campaign to discredit Palestinian bloggers who had misidentified images on Twitter.

In this virtual campaign, bloggers for the Israel Defense Forces made some gains — successfully drawing attention to the fact that two activists had mistakenly identified an image of an injured girl who was hurt in an accident in 2006 as a victim of a recent Israeli attack, while another erroneously claimed that a Reuters photograph of an explosion following an Israeli air strike on Gaza in 2009 was new — but they also suffered some setbacks.

First, an Israeli blogger pointed out that a spokesman for the prime minister’s office had used his Twitter account to post an image of cowering Israeli citizens which was also taken in 2009, not this month. Then one of the Palestinian bloggers chastised by the I.D.F. for incorrectly identifying a photograph discovered that a spokeswoman for the Israeli military had drawn attention to video of rockets being fired by militants in Gaza that was previously uploaded to YouTube last year.

Both Israeli officials later insisted that they had not intended to suggest that the images they drew attention to on Twitter as the recent fighting raged were new. One of the Palestinian bloggers, who described her error as unintentional, issued a correction and an apology on Twitter; another took down a Facebook update with the Reuters photo of the 2009 Israeli air strike after it was demonstrated not to be new.

An Israeli press officer who suggested that The Lede should report on how Israel’s military was battling Palestinians “using social media to purposely pass along misinformation, presenting it as breaking news,” provided no evidence to support the contention that the bloggers had set out to mislead their readers and had not simply passed on images they mistook for current news photos."

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/as-israels-military-pursues-enemies-on-twitter-some-citizens-reach-out-to-them-on-facebook/

[shira]

8. There's no story here, except for the fact such photos of Israelis taking cover...

....very rarely, if ever, make it into "mainstream" news sources.

THAT would be considered anti-Palestinian propaganda by the far Left/Right wing nuts who'd howl about photos showing Israeli victims of Palestinian extremism and terror.