A new report by the Israel lobbyist org Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (with help from the Dershowitz Group) monitored Palestinians' use of the internet and found that Palestinians speak freely on internet forums, without "manipulation." And these Palestinians believe that the two-state solution is dead and are generally opposed to the peace negotiations that the Obama administration is conducting, to the point that the authors of the report recommend that the Obama administration should basically forget about the negotiations and... start manipulating the online forums!
Note the frank discussion in the report about the degree to which Palestinian P.M. Salam Fayyad is autocratic and does not represent the popular will. Isn't that the problem? This is a group that claims to favor democracy. Doesn't that mean honoring Palestinian political agency? But the report teems with contempt for Palestinian opinion, which has to be engaged for any just resolution of the conflict to occur. Here are some excerpts:
[T]he online environment grants social media users unprecedented levels of anonymity and freedom of expression, and this is particularly the case in Palestinian society, where internet access is largely free of manipulation.....
Regardless of the exact number, Palestinian internet users are generally educated, have the ability to read and write classical Arabic, and have the means to access a computer. Palestinian internet usage—like that in the rest of the Arab world—is on the rise. However, unlike the majority of the Arab world, web access in the Palestinian territories is remarkably open....
It should come as no surprise, then, that news that Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations were resuming prompted a flurry of discussion on paldf.net and other pro-Hamas sites. Users generally agreed that the return to peace talks did not reflect the will of the Palestinian people....
Fayyad is roundly revered in the West. Indeed, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman coined the term “Fayyadism” to describe his approach to Palestinian governance: basing legitimacy on transparent and efficient administration, rather than the rejectionism, personality cults, and security services that marked Arafat’s regime.20 Yet, online discussions indicate that Palestinians often regard Fayyad as a Western puppet. Newspaper articles appear to support the notion that this may also be the prevailing sentiment among the broader West Bank community.
...Moreover, the authoritarian context in which Fayyad operates robs his results of domestic legitimacy, and his successes are of “consolation only for those who mistake personalities for politics.” Fayyad’s efforts to halt corruption and improve security are a step forward, but the regular human rights abuses committed by the West Bank security forces are two steps backward. The promotion of security “is often synonymous with the attempt to suppress Hamas,” [Carnegie's Nathan Brown writes, and the West Bank government’s opponents are frequently detained without charges.31
Brown also rightly notes that under Fayyad’s leadership, the Palestinian legislative branch is simply nonexistent. Laws are drafted by unelected bureaucrats behind closed doors and with little to no oversight or separation of powers....The overall opinion of Israel across most of the forums was negative. This sentiment even extended to sites associated with Fatah, the faction engaging in diplomacy with Israel. For example, during one period, these forums propagated reports that Israel seeks to “separate Gaza from the West Bank” and thereby “liquidate the Palestinian national project.” Another popular posting in the online environment (re-posted on the Arabic blog aggregator amin.org and alhourriah.ps) asserted that Israel is incapable of “unilateral” peace due to a lack of political will, and that the two-state solution is “on its deathbed”—meaning that Palestinians need to seriously consider a one-state solution to the conflict.
In summary, despite the Obama administration’s recent push to bring an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and perhaps help the Palestinians declare a state, a sampling from the online environment indicates that the Palestinians are not on a peace footing. Rather, the language of rejectionism is prevalent.
Thus, despite Washington’s efforts to win the hearts and minds of Palestinians—both through new Obama administration policies and online engagement with Palestinians through a State Department initiative to explain those policies—the negative tone of Palestinian online forums suggests that those efforts may be failing....[T]he State Department’s efforts to influence the online discussions were largely ineffective. This may stem from the fact that the team is small in number, and cannot possibly challenge even a plurality of the views expressed on sites where sentiments run counter to U.S. objectives. However, it also may stem from a process whereby the engagement team has the odds stacked against it. Indeed, the Digital Outreach Team identified itself in every online interaction, which nearly always drew fire from users with a pre-existing bias against the United States.
To be effective, the outreach team must not advertise its presence. More importantly, it must launch a broader campaign to limit and discredit violent messages, expose Palestinian extremists on the Internet, and thwart their ability to gain credibility. This will require a more aggressive approach than the one currently employed. It may also require additional personnel.
The Digital Outreach Team should also be viewed as an important source of intelligence. Indeed, they regularly assess sentiments expressed online in the same way that Foreign Service Officers assess political sentiments on the ground. As such, they can add an additional window of understanding into the Palestinian political landscape. To this end, they could participate more actively in conversation threads and pose specific questions on a range of topics.
All of this after the Boston conference . Trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Not going to happen.
I hear one caller after the next on Cspans Washington Journal bringing up the I/P conflict and how it effects U.S. National security. You know when it hits Washington Journal the information is getting out there.
But who knows those who do not want the truth about the I/P conflict to keep getting out there may try to shut that outlet down too
A proposed Israeli loyalty oath has infuriated Arabs, horrified liberal Israeli Jews and now threatens imperiled negotiations.
link to thedailybeast.com
Indeed, talks are on the edge of collapse—if not over it. “Netanyahu knows in advance that the Palestinians won’t accept this demand,” a Fatah spokesman told the Jerusalem Post. “This new condition is aimed at abolishing the right of return for the refugees and expelling the more than one million Palestinians living in Israel.” Even if one accepts that Israel can never allow a mass return of Palestinian refugees, the concern about Palestinians living in Israel is clearly legitimate. Meanwhile, Moshe Ya’alon, the Minister of Strategic Affairs, told Army Radio, “There is no chance in the coming years for a peace agreement with the Palestinians.”
Naturally, the loyalty oath is an outrage to Israel’s Arab minority. One Arab Knesset member called it “a missile intended to blow up the negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.” And at a breakfast meeting Tuesday, Herzog said the new law “seems to be kind of shunning [Arabs] out of the consensus.” Israeli Arabs, after all, know that Lieberman wants to expel them. Now they’re watching the government begin the process of implementing his redefinition of Israeli citizenship.
Israeli liberals find the oath alarming for two reasons. First, it would reify the country’s discrimination against its non-Jewish citizens. Second, many liberals and centrists see it as a blow against secularism. There’s a subtle but immensely important division between the idea of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, and Israel as a Jewish state in the religious sense. The loyalty oath is seen as evidence that Israel is becoming the latter.
I want the State Department to investigate funding of Elad and all monies directly supporting the expansion and building of illegal settlements. Oh that would mean investigating U.S. foreign aid to Israel.
Hey Phil do you think Stahl’s 60 minutes special on Silwan, City of David will end up being a money maker for Elad? A fund raiser on 60 minutes for Elad.
LOL, to which efforts are these suit and tie-wearing yokels referring?
Wow, you mean they aren’t all compliant frier, letting themselves be suckered by yet another round of empty promises and sham negotiations? I’m shocked.
I wonder if they considered the possibility that convincing Palestinians to give up and accept being ethnically cleansed from their land might be a more plausible reason for failure than the paucity of propagandists.
Sentiments run contrary to ZIONIST interests, not those of the United States, the primary one of which is to reduce global animosity directed at us due to our political, financial, military, and diplomatic subsidization of Israeli ethnic cleansing and Jewish colonization of Palestinian land.
Israeli spy Steve Rosen: “A lobby is like a night flower. It thrives in the dark and withers in the light.” Shocker! Steve Rosen (That Steve Rosen) Backs Bibi, Not POTUS
Great.
I was reading last week about an event held in late September by the UK neo-con think tank, the Henry Jackson Society. The speakers were the author of this report, Jonathan Schanzer and Mark Dubowitz from, FDD, and the topic was the same:
“The Palestinian Pulse: What Policymakers Can Learn From Palestinian Social Media”.
I wonder if there is any videos of these events, the HSJ talk in September and the FDD talk yesterday. Would make interesting viewing. In the meantime that report has landed in our laps..
It’s clear that these policymakers don’t want anyone to learn from Palestinian social media.
Quick! There’s freedom in Palestine! Stamp it out!
Dershowitz has a following?
Guess they didn’t use protection.
>> Quick! There’s freedom in Palestine! Stamp it out!
Freedom in Palestine is very destabilizing. You need to stamp it out, bust some heads, steal some land, build some colonies and call it “justice”. That’s the way “humanists” do it.
The overall opinion of Israel across most of the forums was negative. This sentiment even extended to sites associated with Fatah, the faction engaging in diplomacy with Israel. For example, during one period, these forums propagated reports that Israel seeks to “separate Gaza from the West Bank” and thereby “liquidate the Palestinian national project.”
oh gee, really. i wonder where they got that idea. reut institute circa 6/07
maybe instead of trying to influence the palestinian reactions to those policies the state department should consider a different approach to formulating policy, one that does not include feeding israel so many carrots. there’s only so much lipstick you can put on a pig, it’s still going to look like a pig.
This foundation report is absolutely amazing. I don’t think you could have a clearer example of a group accurately reporting the basic data, then using twisted logic to concoct a preferred conclusion. When rationality comes in conflict with the logic of ideology, the logic of ideology usually prevails.
In addition to the great comments already posted above, I would like to add that Israel has for several years now had ‘cyber warriors’, if you like, trolling Palestinian websites. This latest initiative by the FDD seeks to double the efforts to squelch Palestinian freedom of speech, freedom of association (To exchange ideas) and the freedom to decide their own destiny.
No nation, much in the same way that no individual, has a right to impose on another nation its will. This is coded into the most basic of Human Rights laws.
Too right. Also, I’m glad you’re still posting here, Avi. We need you. More then ever, currently, considering.
Thank you, Chaos.
I would like to add that Israel has for several years now had ‘cyber warriors’, if you like, trolling Palestinian websites.
that’s not all they troll.
Very true, annie. Very true.