Internet is "new battleground for Israel's image"

From the Columbia Journalism Review Daily

Alarmed at what it perceives as a pro-Lebanese bias in the [mainstream media] and in cyberspace, the Israeli Foreign Ministry itself has called up a different sort of reserve force — Jewish activist and student groups — in an organized effort to win the PR war.

An appeal in the form of an emailed letter, signed by Amir Gissin, the Director for Public Affairs at the Israeli Ministry, identified the Internet as "the new battleground for Israel's image." He must have in part been referring to the almost overnight proliferation of blogs from Lebanon, which seem to be spontaneous and unsupported by any Lebanese ministry. The outpouring of first-person accounts coming out of Lebanon via newly constructed blogs and mass emails has managed to give a human and sometimes charismatic face to a country oft beleaguered by war but unable until now to disseminate with speed and savvy Lebanese narratives of what is happening in that country.