FC: Israelis shun .il, create sites with faux Palestianian names

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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From: =?windows-1255?Q?=E2=EC_=EE=E5=F8?= <GAL-MO () y-i co il>
To: "'declan () well com'" <declan () well com>
Subject: Pro Israeli sites masquerade Palestinian organizations and towns
        on line
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 19:14:46 +0200

Hi Declan,
Thought you might be interested.
<http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-1961275,00.html>http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-1961275,00.html
(Ynet news site, in Hebrew)


Pro Israeli sites masquerade Palestinian organizations and towns on line

By Gal Mor,

Computer and Internet correspondent, ynet



A group of Israeli citizens launched a network of websites operating from 
url’s carrying Palestinian names, in order to reach surfers who might pass 
by a site with an obvious pro-Israel name.

These sites are jenin.org, tulkarem.org and beitjalla.com (named after the 
Palestinian towns of Jenin, Tul Karem and Beit Jalla), fatah.org.uk (named 
after the major organization in the PLO) and force17.org (named after 
Arafat’s personal brigade).

Other sites in the network include sabrashatila.com (named after the 
Palestinian refuge camps Sabra and Shatila) and alaqsabrigade.org (after 
the Palestinian terror squad that launched several suicide attacks) and 
more. These websites are quite similar in content and quality. To the 
unsuspecting eye, they seem as authentic Palestinian sites.

“Beit Jalla is a Christian Arab village bordering the Israeli City of Gilo 
with a population of 40,000 Israelis. The predominantly Muslim Arab 
militias have chosen   Beit Jalla as a launching point for their attacks in 
a deliberate attempt to draw the Christian world into conflict by provoking 
Israeli reprisals“, says the “Who are we” section at Beitjalla.com.

Other sections in these sites as the “Pictures of our work” section in 
Beitjalla.com give an impression of your average small village online but 
instead of viewing pictures of beautiful Beit Jalla, the unsuspecting 
visitor sees pics from terror attacks.

The network operators aim to change Israel’s Public relations in the media. 
“Israel's level of PR is as good as Madeline Albright's attempt to hide the 
fact that she is Jewish”, says one of the network operators interviewed by 
Ynet.

“We wanted to accomplish 2 things, “One: to prevent terror groups or other 
political groups from using these domain names as a launching pad for their 
propaganda war where they spread hate and lies. Two: to try and re-educate 
the masses-give them hardcore facts on what these terror groups are about, 
where they are really from, who funds them, who are their leaders, which 
attacks they take responsibility for. In the case of a city like jenin or 
tul karem our aim is to try to explain to the masses why Israel keeps on 
going into these towns”.

The operators of these sites explain some Internet users will not even 
click on a link unless it seems to agree with their preconceived ideas. 
These surfers might not click on a link that sounds pro-Israel and might 
pass by a site with an obvious pro-Israel name.

Nevertheless, most of these URL’s belong to those of Israel's enemies, in 
what seems as a new trend of “political cybersquatting”.

Other elements included in these sites, as links from respected news 
sources as AP or New York Times and the Food court section, that reefers to 
Islamic Food recipes online or the Bazaar section, that show e-commerce 
links to books as “The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation 
Organization” by 
<outbind://78/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-author=Becker%2C%20Jillian/104-1588618-4360752>Jillian 
Becker at Amasom.com or “Know Islam - Know Peace” a Board Game for Children 
at islamicity.org, contribute to these sites reliability.

“We try and keep our sources reliable and mainstream. We reference sites 
including Reuters, Associated Press, Washington Post and NYTimes”, says the 
operator.

They get mixed responses. “What is interesting to us is that when people 
write about the sites in forums such as palestine.indymedia.org or 
www.indymedia.org.il they call us either the mossad or c. propaganda 
artists. I find the propaganda artists title quite interesting…”.



Regards,

Gal Mor

Computers and Internet correspondent

Ynet

www.ynet.co.il






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