The Cheesiest Terror Push on Facebook
It’s no surprise that in 2014, the war between Hamas and Israel is being fought on the Internet and social media front, as well as from the air (and possibly soon on the ground, as well). Both sides of the conflict are trying to get the world to understand and support their case for being embroiled in these hostilities.
The two sides are also trying to speak to —or rather, intimidate — one another. What is going on here is no joke. But some attempts by Hamas to scare Israelis that have resulted in far more laughter than panic.
First, there is the Hebrew language website of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing. Somehow, I can’t imagine that many – if any—Hebrew-speaking Israelis are interested in propagandistic updates on happenings in what the terror organization refers to as “Occupied Palestine” (ie. the entire State of Israel, not just the West Bank).
Maybe if the very basic Hebrew-language site were as rich as the original Arabic site, Israelis would pay more attention. Israelis are too busy running to bomb shelters to bother clicking on links that don’t work.
Then, there is this propaganda video titled, “Shake Israel’s Security,” showing fatigue wearing, masked Hamas fighters building, transporting and shooting rockets at Israel. http://youtu.be/HiUWgWjL24U
First of all, the production values are awful. The music is cheesy. Then there are the clunky lyrics about Israel, like, “A (nation) state of weakness and illusion can’t hold out during wars” and “They fall apart like spider webs when they meet knights” sung in heavily accented broken Hebrew that elicit nothing but a chuckle from Israelis.
Israelis have been sharing the video around on social media, but not for the reason that Hamas would like. Israeli posters quote the Hamas video’s lyric: “We prepare a generation of warriors who cling to death like the enemy clings to life” and ask how this could possibly make Israel look bad.
And finally, there was the computer savvy Hamas member who for whatever reason decided to hack in to the Facebook page of Domino’s Pizza in Israel. For an hour on Sunday, the page was filled with messages warning of the total destruction of Israel.
Not letting anything get in the way of a 30-minutes-or-less delivery, Israelis responded with comments like, “Hey, please reserve a missile for me with jalapenos, green olives, extra cheese, and mushrooms. You have my address. Tell the delivery boy to activate the alarm when it is arriving, so I know to put my pants on.”
Once Domino’s regained control of the page, it posted a message superimposed over a photo of a Hamas terrorist: “You will not succeed in defeating the Israeli hunger for pizza!”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
