The Twitter Conversation Between Hamas And IDF Is One Of The Most Revealing Aspects Of The Conflict
Beneath it all, on the individual Twitter accounts representing the Israeli Defense Force and Hamas (Al Qassam Brigades), the battle is still sharp and pitched — Israel even repurposed the #GazaUnderAttack hashtag to their own #IsraelUnderFire.
Yes, the battle for the hearts and minds of witnesses is still very much alive in cyber space.
The pictured exchanged above came at 7:29 a.m. EST.
Let's look at some more:
There have been some outright, direct jabs, like this one:
Then various leaders are quoted to the advantage of the quoter — numerous statements come out from each side's leaders, and it seems like each statement is more extreme than the next. While Hamas focuses on rousing their troops (the "Zionist enemy") so-to-speak, Israel focuses on steady assurance that diplomacy is possible (Netanyahu's offer of "the hand or the sword"), but not at the behest of their citizens' safety.
Messages are "sent" — Hamas sends several "messages," to mostly "military" sites in their Twitter feed's laundry list of strikes.
While the IDF, on the other hand, frames every one of Hamas' strikes as being on innocent civilians.
Rockets fired at Jerusalem — Again, this is a morale thing. Hamas fighters love to hear about rockets reaching Jerusalem, whereas Israel reassures its citizens that no such rockets exist.
Yes, there is a battle for the hearts and minds of the online audience. Both parties take great pains to paint the other as targeting civilians, and both take great pains to express that they are targeting only military.
Just a minor perusal of either side's Twitter feed shows that "military" and "civilian" are some of the most common words.
David Cole of the Daily Beast quips that Hamas' Twitter feed may be illegal, and that the owner of Twitter is possibly liable (though he goes on to say that that would make telephone companies liable as well):
Is Twitter guilty of aiding Hamas terrorism? That’s what a petition by the pro-Israel group Christians United for Israel (CUFI) claims. In a campaign launched—where else?—on Twitter, the group argues that providing “services” of any kind to a designated terrorist organization like Hamas is a federal crime.
There is a stark difference between the Twitter war and what the News tells us. Television and MSM was informing everyone that a peace deal was possible — yet here were the IDF and Hamas' tweets, sent concurrently with the media coverage, which made the "imminent" peace deals seem unlikely.