In order to counter anti-Israel narratives, everyone should take it upon themselves to speak up on social media, or at least amplify Zionist voices, two activists said while speaking at The Jerusalem Post’s Israel Summit on Tuesday.
Emily Austin, an American TV personality who boasts several million followers on different platforms, and Majed El Shafie, the founder and president of the human rights organization One Free World International, discussed Israel advocacy, antisemitism, and anti-Israel protests in the Western world.
According to Austin, even on the web, people cannot just be silent bystanders in front of evil.“I know that we are being outnumbered, I know that there are a lot of bots from Qatar and Turkey, but when someone is posting about Israel, it is really not that hard to drop some Israeli flags in the comments or share the post and help us break the algorithm,” she said.
“Let’s do what we can do: Amplify Zionist voices, spread awareness, share truthful messages,” she added. “If you’re not comfortable being behind the camera, the least you can do is amplify the voices who are putting themselves out there. Those simple tasks can make the biggest change online.”
El Shafie, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity and fled his native Egypt, also emphasized the importance of not shying away from the truth.
“We have to shoot the facts. We have to be honest. We have to be clear. We have to be aggressive, not by false accusations, not by propaganda as our enemy does, but we have to show the truth,” he said.According to El Shafie, the Israeli authorities are making a mistake in not distributing the compilation of videos of Hamas atrocities to the general public, and just streaming the film for selected groups of journalists, diplomats or similar.
“As horrible as it is, videos like this must be presented to the general public,” he stressed.
The ignorance and bad faith of anti-Israel protests
The president of Free World International also denounced the hypocrisy and bad faith of anti-Israel protesters.
“These people just have to answer one simple question: Where have they been before this,” El Shafie said. “Where were you when Bashar al-Assad of Syria was killing his own people? Where were you when Iran was killing their own women and children just because the women did not put their hijabs on properly, when Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen and killed more than 400,000 civilians, when the Taliban took over Afghanistan and refused to let women receive an education, when the Chinese started killing the Uyghurs? Where have you been?” he forcefully asked.
Asked about whether Israel or anyone could do something about the protests, Austin expressed little hope, due to the extreme ignorance displayed by the people taking to the streets.
“I’ve encountered many of these protesters, I tried to ask them questions and encouraged them to discuss the history of the region together and they just continued screaming ‘Free Palestine’,” she said.
The influencer said that knowledge remains the most powerful tool against anti-Israel propaganda.“You can outsmart them, and this is the best ammunition you will ever have,” Austin noted.
El Shafie also emphasized that the fact that no Muslim country is willing to take in Palestinian refugees is significant.“Arab Muslim countries are not accepting Palestinian refugees, because they simply cannot trust their integrity and that they are not going to interfere in the political arena within their own governments and within their own people,” he said. “It is very important that the whole world knows it.”