--- From: =?windows-1255?Q?=E2=EC_=EE=E5=F8?= <GAL-MO@y-i.co.il> To: "'declanat_private'" <declanat_private> Subject: Pro Israeli sites masquerade Palestinian organizations and towns on line Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 19:14:46 +0200 Hi Declan, Thought you might be interested. <http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-1961275,00.html>http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-1961275,00.html (Ynet news site, in Hebrew) Pro Israeli sites masquerade Palestinian organizations and towns on line By Gal Mor, Computer and Internet correspondent, ynet A group of Israeli citizens launched a network of websites operating from url’s carrying Palestinian names, in order to reach surfers who might pass by a site with an obvious pro-Israel name. These sites are jenin.org, tulkarem.org and beitjalla.com (named after the Palestinian towns of Jenin, Tul Karem and Beit Jalla), fatah.org.uk (named after the major organization in the PLO) and force17.org (named after Arafat’s personal brigade). Other sites in the network include sabrashatila.com (named after the Palestinian refuge camps Sabra and Shatila) and alaqsabrigade.org (after the Palestinian terror squad that launched several suicide attacks) and more. These websites are quite similar in content and quality. To the unsuspecting eye, they seem as authentic Palestinian sites. “Beit Jalla is a Christian Arab village bordering the Israeli City of Gilo with a population of 40,000 Israelis. The predominantly Muslim Arab militias have chosen Beit Jalla as a launching point for their attacks in a deliberate attempt to draw the Christian world into conflict by provoking Israeli reprisals“, says the “Who are we” section at Beitjalla.com. Other sections in these sites as the “Pictures of our work” section in Beitjalla.com give an impression of your average small village online but instead of viewing pictures of beautiful Beit Jalla, the unsuspecting visitor sees pics from terror attacks. The network operators aim to change Israel’s Public relations in the media. “Israel's level of PR is as good as Madeline Albright's attempt to hide the fact that she is Jewish”, says one of the network operators interviewed by Ynet. “We wanted to accomplish 2 things, “One: to prevent terror groups or other political groups from using these domain names as a launching pad for their propaganda war where they spread hate and lies. Two: to try and re-educate the masses-give them hardcore facts on what these terror groups are about, where they are really from, who funds them, who are their leaders, which attacks they take responsibility for. In the case of a city like jenin or tul karem our aim is to try to explain to the masses why Israel keeps on going into these towns”. The operators of these sites explain some Internet users will not even click on a link unless it seems to agree with their preconceived ideas. These surfers might not click on a link that sounds pro-Israel and might pass by a site with an obvious pro-Israel name. Nevertheless, most of these URL’s belong to those of Israel's enemies, in what seems as a new trend of “political cybersquatting”. Other elements included in these sites, as links from respected news sources as AP or New York Times and the Food court section, that reefers to Islamic Food recipes online or the Bazaar section, that show e-commerce links to books as “The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization” by <outbind://78/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Becker%2C%20Jillian/104-1588618-4360752>Jillian Becker at Amasom.com or “Know Islam - Know Peace” a Board Game for Children at islamicity.org, contribute to these sites reliability. “We try and keep our sources reliable and mainstream. We reference sites including Reuters, Associated Press, Washington Post and NYTimes”, says the operator. They get mixed responses. “What is interesting to us is that when people write about the sites in forums such as palestine.indymedia.org or www.indymedia.org.il they call us either the mossad or c. propaganda artists. I find the propaganda artists title quite interesting…”. Regards, Gal Mor Computers and Internet correspondent Ynet www.ynet.co.il ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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