My Israel

Don’t screw with the Jew, he kicks the butt!

Facebook

The conflict over land in the Middle East is fought out not only on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Now the pages of social networking site Facebook have become the latest scene of dispute.

Jewish settlers living inside the occupied Palestinian West Bank complained when they found their addresses identified them as living in Palestine, rather than Israel. More than 400,000 people live in settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, all of which are widely considered illegal under international law.

In true Facebook style, they set up groups to petition their cause. Channah Lerman, a Jewish settler, now has more than 1,730 members in her group: “Facebook – stop discriminating Yesha!” – which uses the Hebrew acronym for the West Bank and Gaza. Another group calling itself “It’s not Palestine, it’s Israel” numbers more than 13,800 members.

After a campaign of several days Facebook relented and now allows settlers in three of the largest settlements, Ma’ale Adumim, Beitar Illit and Ariel, and in the tense and divided city of Hebron, home to around 600 settlers, to choose either Israel or Palestine as their home country.

“We only support 18 cities in the West Bank at this point, so most settlements are not yet supported, though we certainly intend to add them,” said a spokesperson for Facebook.

For some this is a battle that is still being fought. In a post on her group’s discussion page Lerman wrote: “What I hope even more is that people keep on fighting against mentioning these towns in Palestine. That’s something that doesn’t exist and will never exist.”

Not surprisingly the campaign generated a swift response from Palestinians and their supporters, who set up groups such as “It’s not Israel, it’s Palestine”. On a page for the 8,800-strong “All Palestinians on Facebook”, one noted that Palestinians in East Jerusalem have their country listed as Israel, even though the Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem has not been recognised by the international community. The writer addressed the operators of Facebook: “For you to interfere in such a political issue and sideline with one party in the conflict is simply outrageous.”

Check out the Los Angeles Times article here.

[Religious]Tube

YouTube was one of those creations you thought, “I wish I’d thought of that”. And with good reason, its creators sold out to Google for a billion dollar sum last year. Soon after YouTube’s creation, smaller niche YouTube alternatives emerged, pornography being one of the largest and fastest growing distros of the video-sharing website’s format. And now, Religious groups, never to be outdone, have started up their own YouTube franchises. 

When I first heard this name, I thought it was a joke. But apparently JewTube is a unique video file sharing website that caters for the Jewish community, featuring acts such as Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G and Borat aswell as artists such as Matisyahu and Lenny Kravitz. Top tags include “anti-semetism”, “zionism” and “jewlicious“. Yeah, it’s jewlicious alright.

Check out JewTube here.

Though always outgunned but never outnumbered, the muslim response, YouTubeIslam, is sponsored by the highly successful preacher-man Yusuf Estes.  Howver, most of the videos currently on the site are Estes’ own. Top tags include “convert”, “Nasheed” and “Catholic”.

Actually, I was doing a bit of research on Estes, and it turns out that he had a sort of spiritual re-awakening and converting to Islam after a business associate did the same. Cool Runnings.

He’s got a bit of a fanclub now and can be seen regularly on The Islam Channel aswell as his own fansite.

The largest of all religious sites based on the YouTube format is GodTube, a site aimed at “helping people connect with Jesus Christ and experience the gift of eternal life”. Not doing much, then.

Check out GodTube here.