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Israel hires army of bloggers to fight image war
As Israel withdraws its ground troops from Gaza it has deployed "an army of bloggers" fluent in several languages, recruiting an all-volunteer force to combat anti-Zionism in cyberspace and escalating its battle to control Israel's image abroad. Israeli press reported Monday.More than one million Israelis who speak a second language have been recruited to monitor blogs in English, French, German, and Spanish and more are to be recruited for Portuguese and Russian blogs, Erez Halfon, director general of the Immigrant Absorption Ministry, told the Israeli daily Haaretz Monday. The ministry media department directs volunteers to websites that are considered "problematic" in hopes of focusing attention on the positive aspects of Israeli life and the way Israelis suffer because of being under a constant threat of terrorism, the Jerusalem Post reported Monday. Within 30 minutes of announcing the hasbara, or public diplomacy, program five volunteers had applied, said Halfon. The first volunteer was 31-year-old Sandrine Pitousi from Kfar Maimon, a town five kilometers (3 miles) from Gaza, who said she decided to join the program right after she heard about it on the radio. "I decided to join because I'm living in the middle of the conflict," she told the paper. Posted by: Fred 2009-01-21 |
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