Israel to pay students for social media propaganda

Posted on: Thu, 08/15/2013 - 13:15 By: Tom Swiss

As more and more people wake up to what's been going on in Palestine the past few decades, the powers-that-be in Israel are getting desperate.

Israel to pay students to defend it online

Israel is looking to hire university students to post pro-Israel messages on social media networks—without needing to identify themselves as government-linked, officials said Wednesday.

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The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz identified the official heading the project as Danny Seaman, a public diplomacy official who has written posts on his personal Facebook page which Haaretz described as being incendiary and anti-Muslim.

Haaretz posted what it said were four screen shots of his recent posts. In one of them, Seaman wrote: "Does the commencement of the fast of the Ramadan mean that Muslims will stop eating each other during the daytime?" In another, he uses profanity in a comment about the chief Palestinian peace negotiator.

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Public image is a paramount concern to Israeli officials. The prime minister's office oversees a national initiative for "hasbara"—a Hebrew term that officials translate as public diplomacy and critics call propaganda.