Inside Israel’s social media campaign to build the Middle East

Its mission: to use social media to persuade Arabs to accept the Jewish state.

The team is leading an Arabic language campaign through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as part of a multi-faceted diplomatic effort to win over adoption in the Middle East.

But decades of hostility are not easy to overcome, despite Israel in recent months having secured prestigious Washington treaties with the governments of the United Arab Emiratos, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

The scale of the work was confirmed by an online backdrop recently after pictures of Egyptian actor and rapper Mohamed Ramadan partying with Israeli celebrities at a bar in Dubai on social media in November, along with a video showing party guests as the Jewish song “Hava Nagila” was played.

Israeli Arab social media team posted the photos from their main Facebook and Twitter accounts, including one of Ramadan hanging an arm around the neck of Israeli pop star Omer Adam with the caption “art will be very always brings us together. “

Israeli officials acknowledge the challenges of the operation in an area where there is widespread support for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation or as refugees throughout the Middle East.

Yonatan Gonen, who heads the Arabic social media unit, said in an interview that he posted the pictures of Ramadan with Israeli celebrities to show “normalization” between Israelis and Arabs. He acknowledged the fur was disappointing but said there were also positive responses and “it takes time, people change their minds over generations.”

Ofir Gendelman, a thinker for the Israeli prime minister, said that more and more Arabs see Israel as an ally and that many are showing their support on social media. “As regional peace extends further, speaking to neighbors in their own language is becoming more important,” Gendelman said, adding that Israel intends to expand it. in Arabic.

Ramadan did not respond to requests for comment. He said on social media at the time that he did not ask people to take pictures of where they came from. “I welcome the Palestinian brothers and sisters,” he said.

Dr Ala’a Shehabi, a London-based academic researcher with dual Bahraini and British nationalism, said public sentiment in Arab countries is still pro-Palestinian. Of the Israeli social media campaign, she said: “It is not successful unless it changes popular opinion.”

Israel wants wider Arab support for the new treaties than they have with formal peace treaties he signed with Egypt and Jordan, in 1979 and 1994, respectively. The leaders of the nations abide by these treaties but many Egyptians and Jordanians feel less committed.

An October report by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs found that more than 90% of Arabic social media reporting on “normalization” contracts was negative in August and September.

“Israel needs to prepare to launch a long-running online campaign to win hearts and minds to forge stronger ties with Israel,” according to a detailed summary of the report shared by Reuters with the ministry. ministry official said the rate of negative reporting had dropped to 75% by January.

The ten-member Arab team of foreign ministry includes both humans and Arabs.

With messages like “Salam, Shalom” the Arabic and Hebrew words for peace – the campaign is very much a reflection of what Gonen refers to as “soft content,” such as music, food and sports. The team will also post about Israeli enemies such as Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Founded in 2011, the Arabic-language unit has grown significantly since the end of the summer when news of the first agreement was made public. The team currently publishes up to 700 or so social media posts per month, about 15% to 20% more than the previous contracts, Gonen said.

During her recent visit to Dubai, team member Lorena Khateeb posted a photo to Twitter outside with the Israeli flag fluttered over her back. “I never thought I would raise the Israeli flag in an Arab country,” she said in November. 21 posts in both Arabic and English. Days later, one official Israeli account – known as @IsraelintheGulf and she works – printed a similar image with a flag on it.

Khateeb told Reuters that responses to her posts are mostly positive but some are negative.

Gonen says the goal is to create “communication, interaction and dialogue” with an Arab audience. He said his team reaches 100 million people every month through their social media accounts, which is twice what it was a year ago.

It has more than 425,000 followers as its main Twitter account, which uses the @IsraelArabic hand and posted Ramadan photos.

However, the Jewish state remains strongly opposed to reconciliation efforts across the region, which is home to more than 400 million Arabic speakers.

Michael Robbins of the Arab Barometer, a non-partisan research network that studies ideas throughout the Arab world, said a post-normalization study by his group in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Jordan and Lebanon The efforts of Israel and its allied regional alliances “have had little to no effect on the views of ordinary citizens.”

He said they did not have data from the Gulf countries, which did not allow them to ask questions naming Israel, but that opinions in the countries they surveyed had not changed much from previous years.

“Overall, these results show that Israel’s strategy of winning hearts and minds is failing. Very few Arab citizens regardless of age or geography have ideas. positive towards Israel, “Robbins said.