Does Social Media Give Israel An Advantage in Public Diplomacy?

One of the last speakers to address the Jewish New Media Summit 2 weeks ago was Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He spoke on the topic of "Israel and the Media: Challenges and Opportunities."

Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Image cropped from video

The New Media

Nahshon noted that there are between 250 and 300 foreign journalists posted in Israel on a permanent basis, even while the nature of media in the 21st century is changing. "Classical" media is in a battle with social media, and losing its importance.

This change impacts on how the Foreign Ministry now does business. As Nahshon puts it:

The Middle East Media Sampler 11/22/2012: Social Media and Operation Pillar of Defense

1) The New media and Amud Anan

The other day Yaacov Lozowick sifted through his Twitter threads and discerned three different ways people are against Israel. There are the obvious says and then there's Lozowick's third category:

Finally, in an entire different category, there are the well intentioned rationally-minded observers. These tend to be liberal in the American meaning, or left-leaning in the European political vocabulary. Their problem is not a deficiency of moral thinking, nor a disability to apply it to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their problem is the inability to accept the degree to which people can be immoral. They cannot accept that some people are so different from them as to be unrecognizable. The implication being, that if only everyone seeks hard enough it will be possible to resolve most differences. As a number of them have said to me in recent days: if your pessimism were to be justified, Yaacov, then there's no hope. There needs to be a resolution to the conflict. There must be a resolution to the conflict. If you're not seeing it it's because you're not truly seeking it – and this laziness is unacceptable; ultimately, it’s a moral weakness, since you're willing to remain in a state of war when it's possible to leave it.

This is where much of the media is. Though I think a lot of people in this category end up moving to his second category.

Raheem Kassam sees Twitter as a way that Israel has gotten its message out effectively. (via Yaacov Lozowick)