The IDF has launched new interaction media websites on the Hezbollah terrorist network in a pre-emptive strike to expose the rapidly expanding empire for what it is.
The vastly researched sites provide media outlets and, more importantly, the general public with a wealth of information that is designed to help Israel overcome the worldwide media bias in favor its enemies,
Operation Cast Lead in Gaza four years ago and the war in Lebanon proved how much foreign media were hell-bent to serve up reportage with a strongly pro-Hezbollah and pro-Hamas viewpoint.
Hezbollah’s move into Syria creates a gigantic threat to Israel, much more than Hamas or even Iran at this point. Hezbollah crippled northern Israel and surprised the IDF with advanced weapons and guerilla tactics in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and it has a huge stockpile of missiles ready for launching to strike again.
Lt. Col. Avital Leibovitz, the IDF’s director of the new Interactive Branch, told the Jewish Press and a select number of other media outlets Thursday that in last year’s Pillar of Defense counterterrorist operation against a barrage of hundreds of missiles on southern Israel, “mainstream media” did not accurately report the massive attacks on Israel.
Now the military is striking back with its new Interactive Media Branch, which is using 30 platforms for websites in several languages – Hebrew, English, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, French and Russian.
“I am not trying to change the media,” Lt. Col. Leibovitz said. In effect, the IDF is carrying the banner of social protest groups, from the Arab world to Europe and the United States, and getting its message across on a new website while counting on a growing following on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
“The idea is similar in its concept of the military adapting to new war zones,” she explained. “This is a new media war zone of interactive media.”
As of midnight tonight, the IDF has made available nine Hezbollah websites that are stocked with data and researched intelligence information exposing Hezbollah for what it is.
Although Leibovitz said she is not trying to write an encyclopedia, the websites in fact provide a vast amount of information, with photographs, interactive maps, videos, and documented research, exposing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and not just a political party. One website covers its illicit drugs and money laundering operations that bring in the funds to finance terror.
Other sites deal with Nasrallah, the Hezbollah media empire and its army of terror.
It is difficult to believe that foreign media all of a sudden will be nice to Israel, but the availability of the new websites for the general public may generate an even larger following on social media sites that will make it more problematic for media to portray Israel in an unfairly negative tone while treating organizations such as Hezbollah as a “militants” and “resistance fighters” trying to eliminate a supposed threat from Israel.
The IDF’s YouTube postings have received 35 million views. It has 340,000 followers in English on Facebook and 130,000 followers on Twitter, according to Leibovitz.
The new websites have been in the works for six months, staffed by approximately 30 regular soldiers and officers and with the cooperation of intelligence units and the Northern Command.
One of the leaders in developing the sites is 25-year-old Gabriel Freund, an immigrant from Australia, “I have been working for several months to get the site ready to tell the story of Hezbollah in a way that will be easy to share and understand,” he explained.”
Click here to reach the overall IDF site on Hezbollah, which provides link for nine others.
