The National Union of Israeli Students (NUIS) has become a full-time partner in the Israeli government’s efforts to spread its propaganda online and on college campuses around the world.
NUIS has launched a program to pay Israeli university students $2,000 to spread pro-Israel propaganda online for 5 hours per week from the “comfort of home.”
The union is also partnering with Israel’s Jewish Agency to send Israeli students as missionaries to spread propaganda in other countries, for which they will also receive a stipend.
This active recruitment of Israeli students is part of Israel’s orchestrated effort to suppress the Palestinian solidarity movement under the guise of combating “delegitimization” of Israel and anti-Semitism.
The involvement of the official Israeli student union as well as Haifa University, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University and Sapir College in these state propaganda programs will likely bolster Palestinian calls for the international boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
Paying students to spread Israeli propaganda online
This is our opportunity, as Israeli students, to provide hasbara [state propaganda] that is correct and balanced, to help in the struggle against the delegitimization of the State of Israel and against hatred of Jews in the world.
That is one of the exhortations in a Hebrew document issued by NUIS, and translated by The Electronic Intifada, inviting Israeli students to apply for a program to help spread Israel’s message.
The project seeks to take advantage of the fact that “Many students in Israel master the Internet and are proficient at using the Internet and social networking and various sites and are required to write and express themselves in English.”
The paid scholarship will allow them to get training and then work from home for five hours per week for a year to “refute” what it calls “misinformation” about Israel on social networking sites.
Among the stated goals of the scholarships is “to deepen and expand hasbara activities of students in the State of Israel.” The document explains:
The Internet allows uncontrolled access to content from marginal groups and therefore can influence many audiences who are exposed to such information, particularly young people who are more easily influenced.The Internet, then, is used as a major tool for the dissemination of anti-Semitism, hatred of Israel and of Jews and thus the Internet is also the place to battle against such sites, pull the ground from under them and to provide reliable and balanced information.
Work from the “comfort of home”
The NUIS program document explains:
After training, the student will begin his activities. The student will do the activities in the comfort of his home, where every week he will be obligated to about 5 hours of activities for a period of one calendar year (not academic year). Students will be paid a total of NIS 7,500 [$2,000] to perform the tasks of the project, at least 5 hours weekly for a total of 240 hours of activities under the project umbrella.
What is completely missing from the program is any indication that criticism of Israel could be valid. Rather the National Union of Israeli Students apparently seeks to indoctrinate Israeli students that every criticism of Israel is “hate” and “anti-Semitism” and that the Internet should be seen as a battlefield on which they are foot soldiers.
Using e-learning tools for government propaganda
An interesting aspect of the NUIS program is that it uses the common open source virtual learning environment Moodle as its interface with program participants. This interface can be found at students.digitalchange.co.il.
Whereas Moodle was designed for education – to spread mind-opening learning beyond the constraints of geography – the Israeli innovation here is to use it for mind-narrowing propaganda: getting students to be uncritical, to not think for themselves, but rather to spread Israel’s state-sponsored propaganda.
See the world, spread more propaganda
NUIS has also partnered with the Jewish Agency, the Israeli state body that encourages Jews from around the world to settle on stolen Palestinian land, to spread propaganda on college campuses around the world.
The Jewish Agency website announces, as translated from Hebrew by Dena Shunra for The Electronic Intifada:
For the first time in Israel – a unique, world-encompassing scholarship, in cooperation between the Student Union and the Jewish Agency.Every year the Jewish Agency of Israel sends approximately 150 emissaries to various places around the world - North America, England, South Africa, Australia, Germany, Italy and South America, who engage in Jewish education and hasbara in three main streams - Hillel emissaries (to campuses around North America), community emissaries and youth movement emissaries.
Training for these overseas missions for successful applicants will take place at Haifa University, Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University and Sapir College, after which the would-be missionaries “will set off for a one-year mission in the various Jewish communities around the world, and will also receive a scholarship of up to NIS 5,000 [$1300].”
Applications are open to Israeli citizens who have lived in the country for three years, those who have completed service in the Israeli army, and those who speak foreign languages, among other criteria.
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So according to your opinions, persecuted countries cannot stand up for themselves and try to show the world that they are being terrorized "in the comfort of their own homes" by the terrorist groups surrounding them and infiltrating their cities, communities, and neighborhoods? They should let the world believe in the propaganda that the UN and anti-semetic groups spread about the suffering Palestinians- who are only suffering from the hands of their own terrorist rulers? and NOT from the hands of the Israelis who are only protecting their innocent civilians and are giving aid, in food, medical help, and other materials by the truckload free of cost- to those that are NOT being taken care of by their own rulers in their own Gaza. Rulers who are using innocent Palestinian civilian housing to launch military attacks on Israel's civilian housing, and expect Israel not to retaliate?! Israel is protecting itself and trying to show the world that they are not living in a normal reality- that constant fear from terrorist is not something that any American would ever put up with. That releasing murderers convicted of acts of terror to appease Obama and the UN is NOT A NORMAL THING TO DO. (Look in the news- this is in the process of happening.) This is equivalent to America releasing (if we had them all in custody):
ReplyDeleteKhalid Sheikh Mohammed
Ahmed Ghailani
Nawaf al-Hazmi
Mohamed Atta
Marwan al-Shehhi
Ziad Jarrah
Please let the small country surrounded by hostile nations on every side live and let live. Allow them to protect themselves, and to attempt even in this small way to show the world to stop believing the Anti-Israel propaganda. And if they want to be able to really have a valid opinion on the Middle East debate- pick yourself up from the comfort of your own home and get your ass out their to see what is really going on before writing big important "wake up call" articles on a subject they obviously know nothing about.