5 apr 2019
After giving their country their best years, Israel's elderly find they have no strength left to fight – with paltry pensions and meager healthcare, they believe that no one is looking out for them.
They came to Israel after long and exhausting experiences, to build a country from scratch: cities, infrastructure, a society and a state. They have worked their entire lives, raised families, paid their taxes and today are facing a different kind of battle. They are trying to support themselves with pitiful old age pensions, fighting to receive basic services such as health care and social services and are spending their final years feeling they are a burden on society, on the state and on their families.
According a poverty report conducted by the Latet (To Give) NGO, there are 1million elderly people in Israel, 175,000 of who are living below the poverty line. By 2035, they are expected to be 13.7% of the population and the burden will be much heavier.
Basic old age pensions in Israel are NIS1,035 ($426) per month per person and NIS 2307 ($640) per couple, an increase of only NIS 6 ($1.6) in the past year. The outgoing government proposed a law increasing old age pensions but the legislation was dropped.
The study, conducted among the recipients of aid from the Latet NGO who do not receive any retirement pensions at all, found 88% of them cannot afford home care, and two thirds of them cannot pay their medical bills. They cut down on food, eat less healthily, struggle to adapt their living conditions to their needs and rely entirely on the over-burdened public health sector. Almost 80% of those asked, describe themselves as lonely.
Their story will be ours one day. Our mission is to preserve their honor, if only so as to preserve our own.
They came to Israel after long and exhausting experiences, to build a country from scratch: cities, infrastructure, a society and a state. They have worked their entire lives, raised families, paid their taxes and today are facing a different kind of battle. They are trying to support themselves with pitiful old age pensions, fighting to receive basic services such as health care and social services and are spending their final years feeling they are a burden on society, on the state and on their families.
According a poverty report conducted by the Latet (To Give) NGO, there are 1million elderly people in Israel, 175,000 of who are living below the poverty line. By 2035, they are expected to be 13.7% of the population and the burden will be much heavier.
Basic old age pensions in Israel are NIS1,035 ($426) per month per person and NIS 2307 ($640) per couple, an increase of only NIS 6 ($1.6) in the past year. The outgoing government proposed a law increasing old age pensions but the legislation was dropped.
The study, conducted among the recipients of aid from the Latet NGO who do not receive any retirement pensions at all, found 88% of them cannot afford home care, and two thirds of them cannot pay their medical bills. They cut down on food, eat less healthily, struggle to adapt their living conditions to their needs and rely entirely on the over-burdened public health sector. Almost 80% of those asked, describe themselves as lonely.
Their story will be ours one day. Our mission is to preserve their honor, if only so as to preserve our own.
Hana Adar, aged 88:
Once a day I dress up, put on my make-up and jewels and go to the senior's day care center in Raanana to chat with my girlfriends. The rest of the time I am home, crying. Since my husband passed away I live alone. Anyone who comes in, jokes about the mess, the dirt. It is not funny.
Once a day I dress up, put on my make-up and jewels and go to the senior's day care center in Raanana to chat with my girlfriends. The rest of the time I am home, crying. Since my husband passed away I live alone. Anyone who comes in, jokes about the mess, the dirt. It is not funny.
Adela Chokler, 89:
I buy four pieces of meat, four tomatoes and four cucumbers. When the money runs out I don't buy anything and make do… I postpone crucial repairs at home. I had to fix the bathroom faucet which cost 1000 shekels ($277) which meant I had to forgo other things including food. When the hot water heater broke I could not shower for a month. I couldn't afford the cost of repair. I cannot sleep in my bedroom for the mold.
I buy four pieces of meat, four tomatoes and four cucumbers. When the money runs out I don't buy anything and make do… I postpone crucial repairs at home. I had to fix the bathroom faucet which cost 1000 shekels ($277) which meant I had to forgo other things including food. When the hot water heater broke I could not shower for a month. I couldn't afford the cost of repair. I cannot sleep in my bedroom for the mold.
Rivka Shmilowitz:
Every year I change, I get sicker. Age takes its toll. No one looks at us and there is no one to count on. This feeling that I am unimportant and people are just waiting for me to be gone is putting me in the ground. I am old but have feelings like the young.
All those asked reported a sense of isolation. They spend most hours of the day at home. In a study conducted by Social Finance Israel, a non-profit organization advocating innovative social solutions, reveals the sense of isolation effects the health of senior citizens in Israel and proper treatment of it can significantly reduce direct and in-direct cost to different national institutions.
Seniors living alone seek medical care and are admitted to hospital more often. Diseases like diabetes, dementia and depression are directly linked to loneliness and elderly people living alone rely more heavily on care givers.
Of the population over 65, 27% suffer from chronic loneliness. That is nearly a third of seniors. Emanuel Buchbut of SFI says that as the population grows older it is also becoming more individualist and therefore lonelier. The UK for example has created a ministry for loneliness tasked with taking on this problem.
Every year I change, I get sicker. Age takes its toll. No one looks at us and there is no one to count on. This feeling that I am unimportant and people are just waiting for me to be gone is putting me in the ground. I am old but have feelings like the young.
All those asked reported a sense of isolation. They spend most hours of the day at home. In a study conducted by Social Finance Israel, a non-profit organization advocating innovative social solutions, reveals the sense of isolation effects the health of senior citizens in Israel and proper treatment of it can significantly reduce direct and in-direct cost to different national institutions.
Seniors living alone seek medical care and are admitted to hospital more often. Diseases like diabetes, dementia and depression are directly linked to loneliness and elderly people living alone rely more heavily on care givers.
Of the population over 65, 27% suffer from chronic loneliness. That is nearly a third of seniors. Emanuel Buchbut of SFI says that as the population grows older it is also becoming more individualist and therefore lonelier. The UK for example has created a ministry for loneliness tasked with taking on this problem.
4 apr 2019
by Asa Winstanley
In Israel’s elections later this month, a hard-right bloc, led by the incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, looks likely to be the victor.
This bloc of legislators now looks likely to include the Kahanists of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party.
Rabbi Meir Kahane was a fanatically anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian racist. He openly advocated for all Palestinians to be expelled from historic Palestine – what he termed the “Land of Israel”, from the river to the sea.
His 1981 book was a direct and to-the-point screed advocating for the openly racist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It was titled, “They Must Go”.
In Israel’s elections later this month, a hard-right bloc, led by the incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, looks likely to be the victor.
This bloc of legislators now looks likely to include the Kahanists of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party.
Rabbi Meir Kahane was a fanatically anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian racist. He openly advocated for all Palestinians to be expelled from historic Palestine – what he termed the “Land of Israel”, from the river to the sea.
His 1981 book was a direct and to-the-point screed advocating for the openly racist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It was titled, “They Must Go”.
Kahane, like many Zionists, was so racist that he usually refused to use the word “Palestinian”, claiming they did not really exist and were simply “Arabs” who had come to the “Land of Israel” in latter times – a common Zionist myth.
“The Jews and Arabs of the Land of Israel ultimately cannot coexist,” he wrote. “There is only one path for us to take: the immediate transfer of Arabs from Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, to their own lands.”
He had founded the so-called Jewish Defence League in New York in 1968. This extreme Zionist group was violently racist against African-Americans and against Palestinians and other Arabs alike.
For years it engaged in a domestic terror campaign against civilian targets – mostly Palestinians, other Arabs and Soviets – but also sometimes against other Jewish and even Zionist targets, when it had internecine scores to settle.
The offices of renowned Palestinian intellectual Edward Said were targeted. The office of Palestinian-American civil rights activist Alex Odeh were pipe-bombed, resulting in Odeh’s murder.
The FBI’s prime suspects fled to Israel, where some are still harboured.
In 1971, Kahane left for Israel, where he founded the Kach party and began to contest elections.
Kahane stated that Kach was the Israeli affiliate of the JDL. The JDL was eventually deemed a terrorist organisation by the FBI and Kach was outlawed even by Israel.
Kahane finally entered the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in 1984. It was thought likely his party would win more seats in the 1988 election but it was prevented from running after being outlawed.
Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990, but his political thought lives on today in many Israeli political parties. It is not only Otzma Yehudit, although they are bad enough.
Otzma Yehudit’s leaders are Michael Ben-Ari and Baruch Marzel.
Marzel is one of the West Bank’s most violently radical Israeli settlers. He lives in the Tel Rumeida settlement, in occupied Hebron, and has been involved in the foundation of many such Jews-only colonies, violently expelling Palestinians and colonising Palestinian land.
“The Jews and Arabs of the Land of Israel ultimately cannot coexist,” he wrote. “There is only one path for us to take: the immediate transfer of Arabs from Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, to their own lands.”
He had founded the so-called Jewish Defence League in New York in 1968. This extreme Zionist group was violently racist against African-Americans and against Palestinians and other Arabs alike.
For years it engaged in a domestic terror campaign against civilian targets – mostly Palestinians, other Arabs and Soviets – but also sometimes against other Jewish and even Zionist targets, when it had internecine scores to settle.
The offices of renowned Palestinian intellectual Edward Said were targeted. The office of Palestinian-American civil rights activist Alex Odeh were pipe-bombed, resulting in Odeh’s murder.
The FBI’s prime suspects fled to Israel, where some are still harboured.
In 1971, Kahane left for Israel, where he founded the Kach party and began to contest elections.
Kahane stated that Kach was the Israeli affiliate of the JDL. The JDL was eventually deemed a terrorist organisation by the FBI and Kach was outlawed even by Israel.
Kahane finally entered the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in 1984. It was thought likely his party would win more seats in the 1988 election but it was prevented from running after being outlawed.
Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990, but his political thought lives on today in many Israeli political parties. It is not only Otzma Yehudit, although they are bad enough.
Otzma Yehudit’s leaders are Michael Ben-Ari and Baruch Marzel.
Marzel is one of the West Bank’s most violently radical Israeli settlers. He lives in the Tel Rumeida settlement, in occupied Hebron, and has been involved in the foundation of many such Jews-only colonies, violently expelling Palestinians and colonising Palestinian land.
Marzel’s supporters have written that he was, for 25 years, “the right-hand man of Rabbi Meir Kahane”, joining Kach when he was young, and acting as its spokesperson for a decade.
He also “led the militant front lines in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], to act with a firm and uncompromising hand against the Arab enemy,” a now-deleted “CV and highlights of public activities” once boasted.
Marzel has for decades held a celebration at the graveside of Baruch Goldstein – a notorious American follower of Kahane who massacred 29 Palestinian civilians in 1994 at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque.
These are the Zionist extremists that Netanyahu looks now likely to usher into government.
Netanyahu pushed for Otzma Yehudit to be integrated into a larger bloc of the far-right, making it far more likely they will enter his governing coalition.
Israel lobby groups in the US have uncharacteristically condemned Otzma Yehudit. The American Jewish Committee, for example stated that “the views of Otzma Yehudit are reprehensible. They do not reflect the core values that are the very foundation of the state of Israel.”
That last sentence is flatly untrue, however, considering the fact that the state of Israel was founded of the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians from Palestine.
Reportedly, only open anti-Palestinian racist Morton Klein’s Zionist Organisation of America (ZOA) has backed Netanyahu on the issue of Otzma Yehudit.
According to liberal Israeli daily Haaretz, this is because the ZOA has a more intimate and direct financial relationship with hard-right American Zionist and billionaire anti-Palestinian donor Sheldon Adelson.
Although the ZOA’s statement – which is openly racist in itself – should not be taken wholly seriously, one has to concede that ZOA President Morton Klein has a point when he states that the condemnation by AIPAC, the ADL, the AJC and the rest of the Israel lobby is “hypocritical”.
This is much like the condemnation in March of Netanyahu for saying that Israel is not a state of all its citizens but for Jews only. In both cases, the outrage is not over the substance of Israeli racism, but over the fact that hard-right Israeli leaders are dropping the pretence and lie that Israel is not a racist state and that Zionism is not racism.
Those are difficult pretenses to keep up when your politicians follow as their guru the man who advocated for Arabs that they must go.
One of the popular slogans of Israel settlers is “Today everybody knows that Kahane was right.”
There was no need for Netanyahu to un-ban the Kach party, because most of what Kahane advocated has been adopted wholesale by “mainstream” Israeli political parties.
Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist living in London who writes about Palestine and the Middle East. He writes for The Electronic Intifada where he is an associate editor and also a weekly column for the Middle East Monitor.
He also “led the militant front lines in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], to act with a firm and uncompromising hand against the Arab enemy,” a now-deleted “CV and highlights of public activities” once boasted.
Marzel has for decades held a celebration at the graveside of Baruch Goldstein – a notorious American follower of Kahane who massacred 29 Palestinian civilians in 1994 at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque.
These are the Zionist extremists that Netanyahu looks now likely to usher into government.
Netanyahu pushed for Otzma Yehudit to be integrated into a larger bloc of the far-right, making it far more likely they will enter his governing coalition.
Israel lobby groups in the US have uncharacteristically condemned Otzma Yehudit. The American Jewish Committee, for example stated that “the views of Otzma Yehudit are reprehensible. They do not reflect the core values that are the very foundation of the state of Israel.”
That last sentence is flatly untrue, however, considering the fact that the state of Israel was founded of the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians from Palestine.
Reportedly, only open anti-Palestinian racist Morton Klein’s Zionist Organisation of America (ZOA) has backed Netanyahu on the issue of Otzma Yehudit.
According to liberal Israeli daily Haaretz, this is because the ZOA has a more intimate and direct financial relationship with hard-right American Zionist and billionaire anti-Palestinian donor Sheldon Adelson.
Although the ZOA’s statement – which is openly racist in itself – should not be taken wholly seriously, one has to concede that ZOA President Morton Klein has a point when he states that the condemnation by AIPAC, the ADL, the AJC and the rest of the Israel lobby is “hypocritical”.
This is much like the condemnation in March of Netanyahu for saying that Israel is not a state of all its citizens but for Jews only. In both cases, the outrage is not over the substance of Israeli racism, but over the fact that hard-right Israeli leaders are dropping the pretence and lie that Israel is not a racist state and that Zionism is not racism.
Those are difficult pretenses to keep up when your politicians follow as their guru the man who advocated for Arabs that they must go.
One of the popular slogans of Israel settlers is “Today everybody knows that Kahane was right.”
There was no need for Netanyahu to un-ban the Kach party, because most of what Kahane advocated has been adopted wholesale by “mainstream” Israeli political parties.
Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist living in London who writes about Palestine and the Middle East. He writes for The Electronic Intifada where he is an associate editor and also a weekly column for the Middle East Monitor.
Itamar Ben-Gvir
'100 dead terrorists, but not a single hair will fall from the heads of IDF soldiers,' says a campaign by far-right party Otzma Yehudit that got Itamar Ben-Gvir banned from social network for a week; would-be MK hits backs, says Facebook has 'extreme-leftist agenda'
With five days to go until Israel's elections, Facebook has temporarily blocked the account of Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) Party member Itamar Ben-Gvir, claiming he had repeatedly violated the social network’s terms and conditions.
One of the reasons for Ben-Gvir's ban apparently was a photo showing portraits of Otzma Yehudit leaders with a slogan reading, "100 dead terrorists, but not a single hair will fall from the heads of IDF soldiers.” However, several other posts by Ben-Gvir were also reported, and an unnamed source said that the far-right politician was warned by Facebook before he was actually blocked.
Ben-Gvir slammed Facebook for the move, and filed a petition to the Central Elections Committee over the ban. “Elections are less than a week away, and the dictatorship of Facebook kicks up a notch and tries to silence a Knesset nominee,” said Ben- Gvir.
“This is obviously because I’m an ideological rightist, since Facebook is a social media network with an extreme-leftist agenda,” said Ben-Gvir.
“We won’t let this situation continue,” said Ben-Gvir. “Facebook will not silence rightists while they do nothing about terrorists (on their network).”
“I’ve filed an urgent petition to the Central Election Committee… Facebook will be notified before I sue them for millions,” he said.
The Otzma Yehudit Party is the latest incarnation of the Jewish National Front, a party that was established ahead of the 2006 elections, but its roots are in the Kach movement, which Rabbi Meir Kahane established in the 1970s.
Kach was a radical and racist right-wing movement with fascist characteristics; it called to expel Arab citizens from Israeli territory and promoted racist legislation against all non-Jews. It also believed in making Israel a Halachic state (ruled by Jewish law) and in annexing all parts of Greater Israel, which includes Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria.
'100 dead terrorists, but not a single hair will fall from the heads of IDF soldiers,' says a campaign by far-right party Otzma Yehudit that got Itamar Ben-Gvir banned from social network for a week; would-be MK hits backs, says Facebook has 'extreme-leftist agenda'
With five days to go until Israel's elections, Facebook has temporarily blocked the account of Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) Party member Itamar Ben-Gvir, claiming he had repeatedly violated the social network’s terms and conditions.
One of the reasons for Ben-Gvir's ban apparently was a photo showing portraits of Otzma Yehudit leaders with a slogan reading, "100 dead terrorists, but not a single hair will fall from the heads of IDF soldiers.” However, several other posts by Ben-Gvir were also reported, and an unnamed source said that the far-right politician was warned by Facebook before he was actually blocked.
Ben-Gvir slammed Facebook for the move, and filed a petition to the Central Elections Committee over the ban. “Elections are less than a week away, and the dictatorship of Facebook kicks up a notch and tries to silence a Knesset nominee,” said Ben- Gvir.
“This is obviously because I’m an ideological rightist, since Facebook is a social media network with an extreme-leftist agenda,” said Ben-Gvir.
“We won’t let this situation continue,” said Ben-Gvir. “Facebook will not silence rightists while they do nothing about terrorists (on their network).”
“I’ve filed an urgent petition to the Central Election Committee… Facebook will be notified before I sue them for millions,” he said.
The Otzma Yehudit Party is the latest incarnation of the Jewish National Front, a party that was established ahead of the 2006 elections, but its roots are in the Kach movement, which Rabbi Meir Kahane established in the 1970s.
Kach was a radical and racist right-wing movement with fascist characteristics; it called to expel Arab citizens from Israeli territory and promoted racist legislation against all non-Jews. It also believed in making Israel a Halachic state (ruled by Jewish law) and in annexing all parts of Greater Israel, which includes Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria.
1 apr 2019
Blue and White leader lashes out after report says fake Facebook, Twitter network operating to promote prime minister's reelection on April 9; party says it has filed complaint with police
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, following a joint Yedioth Ahronoth-New York Times report on a network of fake social media accounts dedicated to promoting the prime minister and his Likud party ahead of the April 9 elections.
"Netanyahu is going to lose, Netanyahu is stressed," Gantz said at a press conference in Tel Aviv, flanked by his political partners Gabi Ashkenazi, Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya'alon. "The report published this morning reveals that Netanyahu is leading campaign of terror on the consciousness of the citizens of Israel."
Gantz, Ya'alon and Ashkenazi are all former heads of the Israel Defense Forces.
According to research by internet watchdog Big Bots Project, a covert and complex army of fake social media accounts has been disseminating posts in support of Netanyahu and his Likud party ahead of the elections.
The watchdog found that this network has posted more than 130,000 times in Hebrew on Facebook and Twitter - posts that have had 2.5 million hits in Israel. These posts have the sole purpose of praising Netanyahu and spreading false information about his rivals, primarily Gantz.
The report does not identify a direct link between the network and the Likud or any of its staff. It says, however, that the network's activity raises suspicions of serious criminal offenses, including violations of the Election Law, campaign financing, privacy laws, income tax and more.
The former IDF chief also alleged that Netanyahu was behind leaks of his private conversations that have appeared in the media in recent weeks.
"Israeli citizens have been inundated in recent months with messages and fake news on the digital network," Gantz said.
"Netanyahu does not balk at lies, does not balk at manipulations. This is not happenstance. The various security leaks (of Gantz's private comments) combine with today's news into one big lie," he said.
"Anyone who deals in leaks will not hesitate to establish a system of fake news, of which only the tip of the iceberg was revealed today. There is an entire system using large sums of money in order to win the election, and that needs to be investigated," he said.
Gantz added: "I am not worried about myself, I have managed under pressure, I have made difficult decisions; I am less worried. It is interesting what will come at me next, Netanyahu can throw as much dirt at me as he wants. I am determined, I am going to win."
The Blue and White officials said that they have filed a complaint with the police about the social media network.
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, following a joint Yedioth Ahronoth-New York Times report on a network of fake social media accounts dedicated to promoting the prime minister and his Likud party ahead of the April 9 elections.
"Netanyahu is going to lose, Netanyahu is stressed," Gantz said at a press conference in Tel Aviv, flanked by his political partners Gabi Ashkenazi, Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya'alon. "The report published this morning reveals that Netanyahu is leading campaign of terror on the consciousness of the citizens of Israel."
Gantz, Ya'alon and Ashkenazi are all former heads of the Israel Defense Forces.
According to research by internet watchdog Big Bots Project, a covert and complex army of fake social media accounts has been disseminating posts in support of Netanyahu and his Likud party ahead of the elections.
The watchdog found that this network has posted more than 130,000 times in Hebrew on Facebook and Twitter - posts that have had 2.5 million hits in Israel. These posts have the sole purpose of praising Netanyahu and spreading false information about his rivals, primarily Gantz.
The report does not identify a direct link between the network and the Likud or any of its staff. It says, however, that the network's activity raises suspicions of serious criminal offenses, including violations of the Election Law, campaign financing, privacy laws, income tax and more.
The former IDF chief also alleged that Netanyahu was behind leaks of his private conversations that have appeared in the media in recent weeks.
"Israeli citizens have been inundated in recent months with messages and fake news on the digital network," Gantz said.
"Netanyahu does not balk at lies, does not balk at manipulations. This is not happenstance. The various security leaks (of Gantz's private comments) combine with today's news into one big lie," he said.
"Anyone who deals in leaks will not hesitate to establish a system of fake news, of which only the tip of the iceberg was revealed today. There is an entire system using large sums of money in order to win the election, and that needs to be investigated," he said.
Gantz added: "I am not worried about myself, I have managed under pressure, I have made difficult decisions; I am less worried. It is interesting what will come at me next, Netanyahu can throw as much dirt at me as he wants. I am determined, I am going to win."
The Blue and White officials said that they have filed a complaint with the police about the social media network.
New report finds synchronized system of Facebook and Twitter users aimed at reelecting Likud leader, discrediting his opponents; Likud denies any connection to network in which 'a lot of money has been invested'
A covert and complex army of fake social media accounts has been disseminating posts in support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party ahead of the April 9 elections in Israel, according to a new report by an internet watchdog due for release Monday.
According to the findings of the Big Bots Project, this network has posted more than 130,000 times in Hebrew on Facebook and Twitter - posts that have had 2.5 million hits in Israel. These posts have the sole purpose of praising Netanyahu and spreading false information about his rivals, primarily his main challenger Benny Gantz, the former IDF chief who leads the Blue and White Party.
One of these Twitter accounts is operated by "Moshe", whose online activity went from 16 tweets in the first three months of 2018 to 2,856 tweets in the same period of 2019, at the height of the election campaign. The photo of the handsome young man that accompanies the "Moshe" account actually belongs to a Greek model named Theo Theodoridis.
"Moshe" is just one of hundreds that form a network of fake accounts, operating in synchronicity, echoing the Likud's political messaging and on more than one occasion spreading malicious propaganda, lies and slander against the media and those perceived to be enemies of Netanyahu.
For example, one of the accounts posted a fake claim that Gantz was a rapist, a post that was then shared online by numerous others in the network.
The report does not identify a direct link between the network and the Likud or any of its staff. It says, however, that the network's activity raises suspicions of serious criminal offenses, including violations of the Election Law, campaign financing, privacy laws, income tax and more.
Prof. Karine Nahon, president of the Israel Internet Association, says that the network of fictitious users is aimed at swaying public opinion and influence voters.
"Fake news has a far more rapid, wide and varied potential for dissemination than the news that contradicts it and seeks to present reality. As such, there is a fear that this will adversely impact the fair democratic process. "
According to the study's researchers, at the heart of the network is a single Twitter account operated under the user name "Bond." The account, which is linked to all of the other accounts in the network, uses the photo, email and personal information of one Yitzhak Haddad - a self-described "undercover activist" from Ashdod in southern Israel.
Haddad told a private investigator that he was "making videos and all sorts of beautiful things that are going up." When asked whether this work was funded, Haddad said yes.
Asked how much money had been invested in the operation of the network, Haddad said: "I don't want to say tens of millions (of shekels), but a lot of money has been invested."
Hadad also admitted that he was connected to "very senior people" in the Likud.
In a telephone conversation Sunday afternoon, the private investigator asked Yonatan Orich, one of the Likud campaign managers and Netanyahu advisor, if he knew and worked with Haddad, and Orich said yes. He later said that he knew Haddad "only from Facebook" and had never met him.
The Likud said in response: "The Likud is not connected in any way to the network to which you refer. The Likud does not operate any network of bots, avatars, fake profiles and so on. The Likud is almost the only party that does not use such methods."
A covert and complex army of fake social media accounts has been disseminating posts in support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party ahead of the April 9 elections in Israel, according to a new report by an internet watchdog due for release Monday.
According to the findings of the Big Bots Project, this network has posted more than 130,000 times in Hebrew on Facebook and Twitter - posts that have had 2.5 million hits in Israel. These posts have the sole purpose of praising Netanyahu and spreading false information about his rivals, primarily his main challenger Benny Gantz, the former IDF chief who leads the Blue and White Party.
One of these Twitter accounts is operated by "Moshe", whose online activity went from 16 tweets in the first three months of 2018 to 2,856 tweets in the same period of 2019, at the height of the election campaign. The photo of the handsome young man that accompanies the "Moshe" account actually belongs to a Greek model named Theo Theodoridis.
"Moshe" is just one of hundreds that form a network of fake accounts, operating in synchronicity, echoing the Likud's political messaging and on more than one occasion spreading malicious propaganda, lies and slander against the media and those perceived to be enemies of Netanyahu.
For example, one of the accounts posted a fake claim that Gantz was a rapist, a post that was then shared online by numerous others in the network.
The report does not identify a direct link between the network and the Likud or any of its staff. It says, however, that the network's activity raises suspicions of serious criminal offenses, including violations of the Election Law, campaign financing, privacy laws, income tax and more.
Prof. Karine Nahon, president of the Israel Internet Association, says that the network of fictitious users is aimed at swaying public opinion and influence voters.
"Fake news has a far more rapid, wide and varied potential for dissemination than the news that contradicts it and seeks to present reality. As such, there is a fear that this will adversely impact the fair democratic process. "
According to the study's researchers, at the heart of the network is a single Twitter account operated under the user name "Bond." The account, which is linked to all of the other accounts in the network, uses the photo, email and personal information of one Yitzhak Haddad - a self-described "undercover activist" from Ashdod in southern Israel.
Haddad told a private investigator that he was "making videos and all sorts of beautiful things that are going up." When asked whether this work was funded, Haddad said yes.
Asked how much money had been invested in the operation of the network, Haddad said: "I don't want to say tens of millions (of shekels), but a lot of money has been invested."
Hadad also admitted that he was connected to "very senior people" in the Likud.
In a telephone conversation Sunday afternoon, the private investigator asked Yonatan Orich, one of the Likud campaign managers and Netanyahu advisor, if he knew and worked with Haddad, and Orich said yes. He later said that he knew Haddad "only from Facebook" and had never met him.
The Likud said in response: "The Likud is not connected in any way to the network to which you refer. The Likud does not operate any network of bots, avatars, fake profiles and so on. The Likud is almost the only party that does not use such methods."
24 mar 2019
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Knesset member (MK) Jamal Zahalka, the chairman of the Arab-majority Balad party, filed a complaint with the police on Tuesday against MK Oren Hazan (Likud) for incitement to murder, according to Haaretz Israeli daily.
Zahalka, who is currently still a member of the Joint List, will also file a separate complaint with the Central Elections Committee, requesting a ban on a video clip posted on Facebook by Hazan’s Tzomet, the new party he launched ahead of the general election on April 9. The clip features a scene from the Western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” with Hazan and Zahalka’s heads replacing those of two of the movie’s |
characters, in which Hazan shoots and kills Zahalka. Zahalka also asked Facebook to remove the clip, citing its racist, violent and inciteful content.
Another election video: Aaron Hazan threatens to kill Palestinian prisoners’
Another election video: Aaron Hazan threatens to kill Palestinian prisoners’