NY Times gives props to PeoplesWorld on Twitter/Gaza Qs

The following is the full article in Sunday's Week in Review section on the press conference the Israeli Consulate had re: Gaza. Peace organizations were encouraged to send in questions. So the People's Weekly World (PeoplesWorld on Twitter) being a newspaper that advocates peace and justice sent in a question. It was on the top of the New York Times list. List of questions follows the short article below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/weekinreview/04cohen.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

January 4, 2009

The Toughest Q’s Answered in the Briefest Tweets

By NOAM COHEN

The Israel Defense Forces, recognizing that success in neutralizing the Hamas movement in Gaza is as much a public relations challenge as a military one, has enlisted an arsenal of Internet tools to take their message directly to a global audience. There is a military channel on the video-sharing site YouTube where you can watch suspected Hamas sites being obliterated by ordnance; blogs that spread the message of the foreign affairs ministry; and in the newest wrinkle, a news conference conducted through the microblogging service Twitter.

"Since the definition of war has changed, the definition of public diplomacy has to change as well," said David Saranga, the head of media relations for the Israeli consulate in New York, which conducted the Twitter news conference on Tuesday. Some, including the MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow, mocked the idea of a government spokesman addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in tweets barely a sentence long. "The Israeli government is trying to explain a conflict that people write books about, a conflict that newspaper writers struggle to explain in 2,000 words, in 140 characters at a time," she marveled.

Mr. Saranga said Tuesday's online dialogue, which was open for questions from anyone with a Twitter account, was "the first governmental press conference ever held on Twitter." And he made no apologies for using common text-messaging abbreviations — 2 for to, 4 for for, and r for are, and other shorthand like civ for civilian — in his answers. "I speak to every demographic in a language he understands," he said. "If someone only speaks Spanish, I speak in Spanish; if someone is using a platform like Twitter, I want to tweet."

Still, it is a long way from the courtly Abba Eban, the public face of Israel in its earliest days. For example, when he was Israel's ambassador to the United States in 1958, Mr. Eban was asked by Mike Wallace in a TV interview to assess Israel's relationship with Egypt's leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Here is how he put it: "Well, at present, Nasser's policy is one of acquiescence towards us, and there has been a relative tranquility on our frontier with him. Perhaps the memories of the Sinai expedition have had a salutary effect in causing him to avoid his previous belligerent provocations …"

What follows are some of the questions and responses on Twitter, many in text-messaging dialect.

Question from peoplesworld: 40 years of military confrontation hasn't brought security to Israel, why is this different?

Answer from israelconsulate: We hav 2 prtct R ctzens 2, only way fwd through neogtiations, & left Gaza in 05. y Hamas launch missiles not peace?

EhsanAhmad: you didn't get my point that Hammas is an elected govt and if u keep attacking them they got right to attack you

israelconsulate: if hamas's goal were 2 btr the lives of its cit. they wouldn't target IL. they would invest in edu/hlth not in bombs

explore4corners: How many attacks have there been against IS in the last 6 months? How many casualties? The MSM doesn't report that here.

israelconsulate: ovr 500 rockts Hit IL in the 6 mts of CF. per the last 72 hrs mre thn 300 hit IL. kiling 4 ppl & injuring hndrds

carrotderek: On what conditions would Israel consider a ceasefire?

israelconsulate: CF must ensure no more rockets on IL+ no arms smuggling. btw crossings for Human Aid r open and trucks are entering

backlotops: 1 side has to stop. Why continue what hasn't worked (mass arial/grnd retaliation)? Arab Peace Initiative?

israelconsulate: we R pro nego. crntly tlks r held w the PA + tlks on the 2 state soln. we talk only w/ ppl who accept R rt 2 live.

shahidkamal: Your nation has been disgraced on Twitter. This inverted Nuremberg Trial will not rescue your image.

israelconsulate: the point of this was to hear what ppl say and to share our POV with fellow twitters.

American Jewish and Arab statements on Gaza

Statement on Gaza from Brit Tzedek v'Shalom (Jewish peace group) Share Yesterday at 11:36pm Sunday, December 28, 2008 http://www.btvshalom.org/ Who among us has not watched in alarm and anguish as the crisis has unfolded in Gaza and southern Israel over the past two days? Close to 300 Palestinians have died and hundreds more are wounded -- both Hamas militants and ordinary citizens. More than 120 rockets have been launched into Israel, with one man killed. Though some Israeli action is an understandable response to continued rocket fire from Hamas, and the idea of contained surgical strikes may be compelling, these airstrikes represent a huge escalation of the conflict -- a crisis that may end in a wider war in which many more Palestinians and Israelis die in the weeks to come. The now familiar sequence of escalating mutual hostility, invasion, and withdrawal without security arrangements has never worked -- in Lebanon, the West Bank, or in Gaza itself. The United States and the entire world community must intercede to help reestablish a ceasefire, put an end to rocket attacks on Israel, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Brit Tzedek calls on President Bush to initiate an international effort aimed at negotiating an immediate ceasefire. Such a ceasefire must halt all attacks from both sides and allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza. Further, we call on President-elect Obama to make clear that he will, as President, urgently assert US leadership to achieve a comprehensive diplomatic resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts. Today, black smoke spirals over Gaza as the hospitals fill with the wounded. Israelis stay close to bomb shelters and 7000 reservists get ready for a possible ground assault. If the international community fails to swiftly establish a durable peace, the consequences will be dire. The current hostilities in Gaza may be only the beginning. There is no doubt that Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens. But Israel's only hope for survival as a secure and democratic Jewish homeland lies in a diplomatic -- rather than military -- solution, and in a negotiated peace agreement with the Palestinians. Steve Masters, President, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom Diane Balser, Executive Director, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom National Office 11 E. Adams St. Suite 707 Chicago, IL 60603 Ph: (312) 341-1205 Fax: (312) 341-1206 http://www.btvshalom.org/ ADC Condemns Gaza Attacks

Advocacy group calls on US to play its proper role as an honest broker to the humanitarian disaster in Gaza Washington, DC | December 29, 2008 | www.adc.org | The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) today strongly condemned the continuing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. Reports indicate that the Israeli air strikes over the past two days have killed 330 people in Gaza and have left over 1450 more injured, almost 300 of which are in critical condition. The UN estimates that %5 of those killed are children under the age of 18. These strikes come after several weeks of a tight blockade which left many of Gaza's 1.5-million inhabitants without sufficient food, water, fuel or medicine. The population of Gaza is 2/3 refugee and more than half are under the age of 16. The UN has listed Gaza as the most densely populated area in the world with a population density that is higher than that of Manhattan in New York City. Numerous studies have indicated that similar attacks in the past have failed to make Israeli citizens any safer and resulted in increased support of Hamas extremists. During the cease-fire brokered by Egypt this past summer, rocket attacks by Hamas extremists had greatly diminished. The blockade of Gaza was relaxed slightly by Israel however it never ended completely. Israel escalated the situation in early November by killing 4 Palestinians in Gaza in the bloodiest violation of the cease-fire during the Egyptian-brokered agreement. The month that followed brought a return of a suffocating siege on the civilians of Gaza and rocket attacks against southern Israel. Prior to the current Israeli attacks, over 850 Palestinians had been killed by Israel since the Annapolis summit in late 2007. These numbers are compared to less than 20 Israelis killed by rocket fire from Gaza since 2000. The disproportionate nature of this latest round of violence is representative of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in general and continues to fan the flames of discontent in the Arab and Muslim worlds. On Saturday, ADC called upon Americans to contact their legislators and representatives to express thier outrage at the attacks in Gaza. That action alert can be found here : http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=3396 Today, ADC sent letters to President Bush, President-Elect Obama, Secretary of State Rice, and the Ambassador of Israel in Washington calling for an immediate end of hostilities on all sides. Further, the letters criticized the American response to the attacks which placed all blame on Hamas with no mention of Israel's disproportionate and continuing bombardment of Gaza. While Hamas is guilty of rocket fire, which indiscriminately targets civilians in Israel, this falls within the context of a prolonged siege in which Israel too is indiscriminately targeting 1.5 million civilians in Gaza. The official response from the White House and State Department was irresponsible and ignored American national and economic interests in addition to international humanitarian law and the laws of war. ADC Calls on: 1) All parties directly involved to immediately work to end hostilities on all sides and arrive at a new cease-fire agreement; 2) The United States to exert immediate pressure on its ally Israel to halt attacks on Gaza's population; 3) The Arab world to work to alleviate the suffering and hunger in the Gaza Strip; 4) The American media to fairly portray the situation in Gaza and to recall the disproportion, context of occupation, and siege when mentioning the indiscriminate rocket attacks by Hamas on southern Israel Throughout the history of Arab-Israeli peace negotiations only cease-fires and agreements have brought peace and security for both Arabs and Israelis.