More than eight months after the war, Israel is still struggling on the global public diplomacy front, although more and more initiatives have succeeded in infiltrating the international consciousness. Among these initiatives is the Slingshot advocacy project, which targets anti-Semitic or pro-Palestinian audiences – such as students and lecturers at Columbia University, staff at the United Nations Headquarters and the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and surfers of Iranian websites and Arab TV channels – and offers them supportive campaigns. For Israel.
Slingshot tools identify potential target audiences and tailor messages to them specifically. Originally designed for commercial propaganda purposes, the tool was modified at the start of the war to depict the horrors of October 7th.
Since the project was launched at the beginning of the war, NIS 500 million have been invested in the initiative. A large part of the sum comes from customers who purchase advertising space on relevant sites. In addition, the project has been supported and adopted by the Diaspora Ministry, which has transferred funds to it in recent months, both to advertise the campaign and to support content creators who produce promotional materials.
Since its launch, the campaign has been viewed 70 million times on major global sites from the BBC and CNN to Al Jazeera, where it has featured images of the kidnapped Bibas family, as well as an ad explaining that 500,000 Israelis are refugees – and behavioral targeting has found that even people who consider Hamas a legitimate entity actually identify with the refugee cause. On the website of the Saudi state TV channel Al Arabiya, a photo of the hostages and Hamas terrorists was posted, with the caption “About 20 armed monsters attacking five helpless girls.”
“Careful Public Diplomacy Versus Lies
“The project is designed to solve the main problem in Israeli public diplomacy abroad. It’s all done through social media and relies on an algorithm that prioritizes massive amounts of likes and pro-Palestinian views around the world,” said Hadar Ashwach, founder and CEO of Slingshot.
“The campaign is our way for the few to overcome the many, when the main problem is not that the whole world hates us, but that many don’t know the Israeli side of the story. The other problems are general and not focused on the target audiences, an algorithm that favors violence and emotion over truth and even messages that are not appropriate for those target audiences.
“Through the technology we use, it is possible to produce high-quality and accurate public diplomacy in the face of the spread of lies and hatred against Israel.”
Published by Globes, Israel Business News – en.globes.co.il – on June 26, 2024.
© Copyright Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.