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Even as outrage mounts over Israel’s bombing of a UN-school in Gaza, the Israeli government is busy doing damage control – not on the battlefield, but in cyber-space. Israeli Defense Forces have launched their own website, YouTube channel, and Twitter feed to tell their version of the news. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has made the concerted decision to use female spokespeople to project a “feminine and softer image” of its campaign. Israel has also continued to bar foreign journalists from entering Gaza to report on the crisis. Hamas was barred from launching their own YouTube channel because of being designated as a “terrorist organization” by the US State Department, and have instead posted their news sources on a parallel site called AqsaTube. The propaganda battle is in fierce overdrive even as the fatalities continue to mount in Gaza, with Israeli forces surrounding and bombarding it from land, sea, and air. But Israel clearly has the upper hand, having at its disposal major US networks and papers. As has been the long-standing tradition, US mainstream media are dutifully reporting Israeli talking points which include maximizing Hamas’ culpability and Israel’s victimization, and minimizing the suffering of Gazans.

GUESTS: Hussein Ibish, Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, and Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, Yosefa Loshitzky, Professor of Film, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of East London

Read Loshitzky’s article about Israeli Propaganda on ElectronicIntifada.net at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10119.shtml

Visit the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership online at www.halafoundation.org.