ToC: Israel Affairs, 23.2 (2017)

Israel Affairs 23.2 (2017)

Table of Contents

Articles

• The rise and decline of ‘optional control’ in the IDF / Eitan Shamir (205-230)
•  ‘Spokesman-ship is a weapon’: Israeli army news management during the October 1973 war / Giora Goodman (231-252)
• The erosion of US‒Israeli relations during Obama’s second term / Robert O. Freedman (253-272)
• A ruling party in the making: Mapai in the 1948 war / Avi Bareli (273-302)
• Politics vs. trade: a Realist view on Turkish‒Israeli economic relations / Cenap Çakmak & Murat Ustaoğlu (303-323)
• Israel is too expensive for us? Political consumerism, public policy and entrepreneurship: the case of the cottage cheese boycott / Omri Shamir (324-341)
• Banking and philanthropy in pre-state Jewish Palestine: particularist Sephardic philanthropy disguised as support for the general Zionist cause / Riki Galia (342-360)
• ‘Digital soap opera’ online radio listening patterns and the digital divide / Mira Moshe, Tal Laor & Shimon Friedkin (361-384)
• The Palestinian Authority: the dangerous transition from failing entity to failing state / Kobi Michael (385-410)
• The Holocaust paradox: Holocaust denial and its use in the Arab world / Nitza Davidovitch & Nissim Dana (411-426)
• Cultural change in a kibbutz factory as an outcome of the privatization process: an Israeli case study / Yaffa Moskovich & Yuval Achouch (427-446)

Book Reviews

• Divine service? Judaism and Israel’s armed forces (447-448)
• Crossing: Suez, 1973 (448-449)
• Eye to eye (450-451)
• Defensive Shield: An Israeli Special Forces Commander on the Front Line of Counterterrorism (451-452)

Conference: Israel and the Media (Brandeis, April 3-4, 2016)

Israel and the Media

A public conference

 

Sunday, April 3 – Monday, April 4, 2016

Brandeis University

Sunday, April 3rd – Olin-Sang Auditorium

Monday, April 4th – Sherman Hall, Hassenfeld Conference Center

Keynote speaker Ethan Bronner, senior editor at Bloomberg News and former Jerusalem bureau chief at The New York Times, will deliver the inaugural Ilan Troen Lecture on Contemporary Israel Affairs.  The program includes a roundtable discussion with leading journalists and panels on “The Changing Landscape of the Media,” “Israeli Media and Portrayal of the Conflict,” and “Coverage of Israel by Jewish Newspapers.”  Click here for Program and registration.

 

Cosponsored by the Israel Institute.

PROGRAM

SUNDAY APRIL 3: Olin-Sang Auditorium, Mandel Quad

3:00 PM Coffee

3:30 PM Welcome
Lisa M. Lynch, Interim President, Brandeis University

3:35 PM Introduction and Inauguration of the Ilan Troen Lecture on Contemporary Israel Affairs
David Ellenson, director of the Schusterman Center and visiting professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University

3:40 PM The Ilan Troen Lecture on Contemporary Israel Affairs
Inaugural Speaker: Ethan Bronner, senior editor at Bloomberg News and former Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times

5:00 PM Coffee Break

5:15 PM Roundtable discussion: Israel and the Media
Ethan Bronner, senior editor at Bloomberg News
Jodi Rudoren, deputy international editor, The New York Times
Jeff Jacoby, Op-Ed columnist, The Boston Globe

6:45 PM End of Sunday’s program

MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2016: Sherman Hall, Hassenfeld Conference Center

8:30 AM Breakfast

9:00 AM Changing Landscape of the Media
Joshua Benton, director, Nieman Journalism Lab, Harvard University
Aliza Landes, Captain (Reserve), IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, and a dual MBA/MPA student at Harvard and MIT Universities
Anne Herzberg, legal advisor to the NGO Monitor

10:30 AM Coffee Break

10:45 AM Israeli Media and Portrayal of the Conflict

Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi, founding director, Wasatia Academic Graduate Institute, Jerusalem; Visiting Weston Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Yoram Peri, Jack Kay Professor of Israel Studies and director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies, University of Maryland
Shlomi Eldar, columnist for Al-Monitor’s “The Pulse of the Middle East” and research fellow at the Taub Center for Israel Studies, New York University

Menahem Milson, professor emeritus of Arabic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and co-founder and academic adviser of MEMRI

12:15 PM Lunch

1:30 PM Coverage of Israel by Jewish Newspapers
Jane Eisner, editor-in-chief of the Forward
Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of The Jewish Week of New York
Rob Eshman, publisher and editor-in-chief, Tribe Media Corporation – producer of The Jewish Journal and Jewish Insider
Liel Leibovitz, senior writer for Tablet Magazine and co-host of the podcast Unorthodox

3:00 PM Conference Conclusion
Rachel Fish, associate director of the Schusterman Center

3:30 PM End of Program

New Article: Kohn, Instagram as a Naturalized Propaganda Tool

Kohn, Ayelet. “Instagram as a Naturalized Propaganda Tool. The Israel Defense Forces Web Site and the Phenomenon of Shared Values.” Convergence (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354856515592505

 

Abstract

This article examines the methods through which the formal and emotional components, embedded in the photo sharing and social networking application Instagram, are utilized as a propaganda tool to cultivate solidarity with promoted agendas. The test case is Instagram photos posted on the official Web site of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The article juxtaposes two conceptual systems, the one shared by the members of Instagram and a system based on presuppositions regarding the ideologies, values, and emotional attitudes shared by Israeli Instagram users toward the IDF. This juxtaposition is made possible, thanks to the resemblance found between the aesthetic and emotional aspects of Instagram and the ideological and emotional aspects emphasized by IDF. Three main interrelated motifs demonstrate the article’s argument: soldiers as civilians/photographers in momentary disguise, army and nature, and admiration for appearances of weapons.

 

 

New Article: Heemsbergen & Lindgren, Air Strikes and Social Media Feeds in the 2012 Israel–Hamas Conflict

Heemsbergen, Luke Justin and Simon Lindgren. “The Power of Precision Air Strikes and Social Media Feeds in the 2012 Israel–Hamas Conflict: ‘Targeting Transparency’.” Australian Journal of International Affairs 68.5 (2014): 569-91.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10357718.2014.922526

 

 

Abstract

This article analyses the evolving uses of social media during wartime through the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Spokesperson Facebook and Twitter accounts. The conflict between Israel and Hamas-affiliated groups in November 2012 has generated interesting data about social media use by a sovereign power in wartime and the resultant networked discourse. Facebook data is examined for effective patterns of dissemination through both content analysis and discourse analysis. Twitter data is explored through connected concept analysis to map the construction of meaning in social media texts shared by the IDF. The systematic examination of this social media data allows the authors’ analysis to comment on the evolving modes, methods and expectations for state public diplomacy, propaganda and transparency during wartime.