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Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

haaretz.com

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Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#161

Post by dragonwriter »

lenerdenator wrote: post #155
pphysch wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Israel seems to only extend that sort of courtesy to a part of its citizenry, but when you remember that the "stable" countries in the region are all more-or-less absolute monarchies, it becomes obvious why the US is willing to at least work with Israel. More directly: apartheid "democracy" > monarchy?

According to the wisdom of US foreign policy, yes. For what it's worth, the US has also tried to work a two-state solution over the last 30 years with various degrees of vigor. That became much harder to accomplish when the Gaza Strip decided to elect Hamas to lead its government in 2006-07.

> For what it's worth, the US has also tried to work a two-state solution over the last 30 years with various degrees of vigor. That became much harder to accomplish when the Gaza Strip decided to elect Hamas to lead its government in 2006-07.

It became much harder when the Israeli hard Right murdered Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and then took over the Israeli government with Netanyahu's election in 1996.

Both fairly explicitly in reaction against the idea of ever accepting a Palestinian State.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#162

Post by dfxm12 »

SkipperCat wrote: post #4

Not a comment about who's right or wrong in this war, but it is fascinating that we have entered the age of the Internet being a place where warfare is fought. There have always been people posting web content about conflicts but now with Gaza and Ukraine, it seems that the nations fighting are actively looking at the internet as the fourth field of battle. Just waiting for a random US future president to create an "…

"Manufacturing Consent" was written in the 80s mostly in response to newspapers, but the ideas have been adapted to the Internet for some time (and talk radio, and cable news, etc.). I'm old enough to remember this from the Iraq war. Yeah, we didn't have microblogging back then, but there were Email campaigns, blogs, message boards, chat rooms, etc.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#163

Post by nsguy »

cempaka wrote: post #130
nerdjon wrote: post #123

I find it quite concerning just how much propaganda the US seems to get from Israel. Where I live there are big billboards around, I regularly see ads on YouTube. I know propaganda is a thing, but it feels like we are getting more about a foreign government than our own. I feel like before what is going on now I was aware of some of the groups responsible for this being a thing, but was not fully aware just how much…

The best part is when it comes from our own "newspaper of record" i.e. with the extraordinarily dubious "mass rape" article the NYT published. They finally dismissed the one Israel-connected reporter who had liked tweets calling for a brutal response against Gaza, but that of course has seen about one billionth the attention that her original claims continue to receive. You also get stuff like the POTUS repeating lie…

[flagged]

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#164

Post by [deleted] »

cjk2 wrote: post #116
WhackyIdeas wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only good thing to come from Brexit is that for some people they woke up and smelt the more expensive coffee than it used to be and had some self reflection. I have spoke with a good few people now that were like ‘I was lied to’… well duh.

Unfortunately it was mostly "I was lied to, but I agree with it anyway because of X" where X is some loose justification to absolve themselves of the self-inflicted mess they got themselves into. My father was a fine one. His staff fucked off back to Europe, he couldn't hire anyone else and had to fold his company and retire. Then he found out he got cancer and that the NHS had staffing problems due to Brexit. Me, I…

[deleted]

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#165

Post by drpossum »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #149
cempaka wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best part is when it comes from our own "newspaper of record" i.e. with the extraordinarily dubious "mass rape" article the NYT published. They finally dismissed the one Israel-connected reporter who had liked tweets calling for a brutal response against Gaza, but that of course has seen about one billionth the attention that her original claims continue to receive. You also get stuff like the POTUS repeating lie…

[flagged]

"Getting stuff wrong" by not corroborating facts using reliable sources is not acceptable for a news organization.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#166

Post by gmarx »

kergonath wrote: post #127
michaeljhg wrote: post #102

Is there a country that doesn't do this?

So, enlighten us: is there? Any example of this sort of things between allies? Or is this just an extreme case of both-sides? Spying and keeping tabs on your friends is one thing. Influence campaigns among close allies are generally not the way it works.

before the US entered WWII the british had an office of propaganda with offices in New York that was dedicated to getting the US to enter the war.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#167

Post by justin66 »

nickff wrote: post #131
nextstep wrote: post #11

Also reported on by NY Times and posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40583068 but like most articles about Israeli hacking, US Big Tech involvement in the war, etc it was immediately flagged once it reached the front page. I don’t know how much of this is moderators removing posts, or if there is a pro-Israel brigade that is censoring HN’s front page.

I'm one of the people who flags some of these articles (though not this one), because they're generally uninteresting, and repetitive. I'm not Jewish, have never been to Israel, and am not part of any brigade.

Thank God you're protecting us from what you do not find interesting.

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#168

Post by invalidname »

lenerdenator wrote: post #148
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Israel seems to only extend that sort of courtesy to a part of its citizenry There have been over 100 Arabs in the Israeli parliament: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Kn...

Good for them. But if you're Arab Israeli, you don't have the same slate of rights and representation that Jewish Israelis have. See: freedom of movement to and from the Gaza Strip prior to October 7th.

[flagged]

Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers

#170

Post by 1shooner »

Retric wrote: post #143
nerdjon wrote: post #123

I find it quite concerning just how much propaganda the US seems to get from Israel. Where I live there are big billboards around, I regularly see ads on YouTube. I know propaganda is a thing, but it feels like we are getting more about a foreign government than our own. I feel like before what is going on now I was aware of some of the groups responsible for this being a thing, but was not fully aware just how much…

> I don't understand how this much power over the US was ever deemed acceptable? Free speech sometimes applies to things you don’t like. There’s pro and anti propaganda for just about any foreign interest. Some of it’s just more subtle such as recommendations on TikTok. Ukraine had really obvious pro Ukraine requests for military aid and images of destruction, but quite a bit of pro Russia propaganda was more subtle…

Speaking of free speech, can you name another foreign interest that has managed to make it illegal in the US to boycott it's companies?
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