[Abstract] Israel is famous for its network security, which is not only reflected in the technical means, but also in the ideological field. Its network public opinion attack and defense has rich experience and complete mechanism, forming a three-dimensional network public opinion attack and defense system with the military force as the main body, the support of government departments, the high participation of local organizations and the public. Through in-depth research, it is found that its development has roughly gone through three stages: control failure, initial development and active use. The combat forces have the characteristics of multiple means and channels, close coordination between military and government, active participation of civilians, and strict information supervision.
Israel is famous for its network security, which is not only reflected in the technical means, but also in the field of ideology. Its network public opinion attack and defense has rich experience and complete mechanism, which provides some reference examples for our army.
1、 Development history
1. Control failure stage (from mid-2006 to the end of 2008). In July 2006, Hezbollah fired rockets at the Israeli border, killing eight Israeli soldiers. Israel quickly carried out "just reward action" to retaliate. During the war, Hezbollah's armed forces were hidden in various schools, hospitals, churches and other public places. When Israel attacked, it inevitably injured innocent people. Hezbollah has uploaded a large number of photos and videos of innocent people's death and injury and public facilities damage to the network. After international media dissemination, international public opinion has a clear tendency to favor Hezbollah. The media have condemned Israel for "bullying the small with the big", "hurting the innocent" and "destroying the economic infrastructure" and so on. However, the Israeli army still guides the public opinion according to the traditional thinking and channels, which is unexpected for the public opinion risk of the network media. It is at a loss when facing the siege of the network public opinion and has no power to fight back. After this fiasco, the Israeli army realized the function of public opinion war of network media, and tried to integrate the functional orientation and institutional framework of the spokesman Bureau of the national defense forces.
2. Preliminary development stage (from the end of 2008 to the end of 2012). After the last defeat, in the "operation of casting lead" from the end of 2008 to the beginning of 2009, the Israeli army first controlled reporters to enter the interview, then destroyed the other side's media, and third used the Internet media for public opinion propaganda. Israel's Ministry of foreign affairs also took an active part in launching international public relations activities through Internet conferences and other forms. After the war began, the Israeli army set up social media users such as twitter, Facebook, youtube, etc. to upload the advantageous war video to the network, present the war situation in real time, and update it on the websites of embassies of the Ministry of foreign affairs in various countries and social media, so as to quickly win the attention and support of the international community. On this basis, in December 2009, the Israeli army press spokesman Bureau set up a new media group, which is responsible for the operation and maintenance of official social media and websites. However, Israel's online public opinion debate practice is few and inexperienced, and it soon loses in the new battlefield. In May 2010, Israel attacked a fleet of "Free Gaza" ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, killing more than a dozen international humanitarian workers. The Israeli Army wanted to control the public opinion by blocking the transmission of signals. Unexpectedly, the personnel on board first exposed the incident on the Internet, which was widely spread by international media, and Israel was labeled as violating international law. After this defeat, the Israeli army began to build up its network public opinion offensive and defensive forces in the form of recruiting network soldiers.
3. Active application stage (from the end of 2012 to now). After several times of war practice, the Israeli army gradually formed a professional network public opinion attack and defense force, and accumulated rich experience in public opinion struggle. In the "column of defense operation" in November 2012, the Israeli army took the initiative to launch a fierce information bombardment on social media to the enemy, opening a live online war for the first time. The military new media group took the opportunity to upgrade to the office of interactive media and communication, and actively participated in the public opinion offensive and defensive struggle. During the operation, the Israeli military twitter created a large number of hot spots, continuously announced the results of the war to deter the enemy, characterized the military operation as a just act such as "protecting Israeli civilians" and "targeting terrorists", and firmly grasped the narrative power of the military operation. During the 2014 "operation to protect the border", Israel took the lead in setting off the social mobilization of "the Israeli people need revenge" on Facebook, based on "protecting the border" and "rescuing the kidnapped youth", using Twitter, Facebook, youtube and other social media to broadcast the war process, releasing a large number of information about the death and injury crimes of the Israeli people caused by terrorists, and successfully led the country Public opinion. Since 2015, there has been a surge of incitement to terrorism against Israel on the Internet, followed by a series of terrorist attacks. To this end, the army has focused on combating cyber terrorism, using social media for intelligence collection, topic tracking and public opinion counter control, forming a normalized operation mechanism.
2、 Construction experience
1. The strength construction is complete, and the information dissemination channels are diversified. Israel has co-ordinated the military and other government departments to create a rich and diverse channel for information dissemination. The military is the main force in the attack and defense of Internet public opinion. Its press spokesman bureau is a professional public opinion war organization, subordinate to the operation Department of the general staff of the Israeli army. It consists of domestic media department, international media department, public relations department, interactive media and communication department, research and Strategy Department, film and Television Department, organization and training department, etc. it is a collection of information collection, processing, release, internal training, decision-making consultation, etc A public opinion battle organization. The interactive media and Communication Division is mainly responsible for leading the new media combat forces, releasing military information in peacetime, and following the combat tasks in wartime to perform the network public opinion attack and defense functions. Within the service, it is grouped according to geographical orientation and language, and its members are mostly young soldiers aged 18 to 20. At present, the interactive media and Communication Division operates more than 30 social media platforms in six languages, including Hebrew, Russian, French, English, Spanish, Arabic, etc. Other departments of the Israeli government also have some collaborative forces, led by the prime minister's office. The national information command, the Department of strategic affairs and other departments under the prime minister's office are responsible for coordinating the information exchange and news release of various agencies, coordinating various combat forces to shape the image of Israel and fight against terrorist infiltration. The Israeli government's top cyber offensive and defense force is in the Ministry of foreign affairs. The Ministry has a digital Foreign Affairs Bureau, with a network office, a media integration office, a network and new media office, and a digital innovation office, all of which have taken on the task of attacking and defending Internet public opinion. In addition, the embassies and consulates of the Ministry of foreign affairs also have new media departments, and they all open accounts on social media in the host countries. According to statistics, there are about 350 websites, twitter, Facebook and other platforms of the Ministry of foreign affairs.
2. The military and political functions are clear, and they coordinate closely with each other in wartime. The network attack and defense forces of the Israeli army and other departments of the government belong to different systems, with clear division of labor, but they can fight simultaneously in wartime, forming a response. The new media platform operated by the Israeli army takes on the responsibility of releasing military information, maintaining the image of the military, mobilizing internally and guiding public opinion externally, with strong purpose, aggressiveness and antagonism. The new media platform of the prime minister's office and the Ministry of foreign affairs maintains public relations in the name of "public diplomacy" and "digital diplomacy", aiming at promoting Israel and resisting negative propaganda against Israel, which is relatively less aggressive and confrontational. At ordinary times, they implement the guidance of Internet public opinion from two dimensions of "hard" and "soft". In wartime, they cooperated with each other, unified their actions, and converged in nature and tasks. In terms of information coordination, the prime minister's office of Israel will take the lead in setting up a joint information center that includes military and political public relations personnel. The national information command, as a coordinating agency, is located between the national defense forces and other government departments, and is committed to information sharing, unified caliber and news release. In terms of operational coordination, the Ministry of foreign affairs of Israel is usually an important support force of the military. It maintains close coordination with the military, calls various new media platforms to assist the military in disseminating information, especially plays the role of beachhead fortress of embassies and consulates abroad, and actively carries out international public opinion guidance operations. For example, in the "Operation Cast Lead" at the end of 2008, the Israeli embassy in China timely delivered the military position on Chinese social media, and ambassador antaiyi held multiple press conferences in accordance with the operation. The Israeli consulate in New York also used twitter to hold a press conference in time, launching a two-hour Q & A on the issue of war, attracting more than 3000 people to participate in the discussion.
3. Active participation of civilians and sound mechanism of civil military integration. Israel has formed a complete set of mechanisms, including ordinary people into the network public opinion combat system, and created an example of civil military integration in the field of public opinion attack and defense. For example, in the "column of defense operation" in 2012, only at the interdisciplinary research center in hezria, Israel, a team of 400 students participated in the online public opinion attack and defense operation. They set up twitter and facebook accounts of "Israel in the war", created websites of the same name, uploaded various videos, pictures and texts supporting Israel, and translated them into 13 languages. In the 2014 "operation to protect the border", 1600 people participated in the center. Through social networks, war information was translated into 31 languages and spread to 21 million audiences in 62 countries. Most of these ordinary people are supported by the government, the military and social organizations. On the government side, the national information command, the Ministry of strategic affairs, the Ministry of foreign affairs and other departments of the prime minister's office strongly encourage and support young people to participate in the network publicity, and provide certain remuneration, or encourage young students to join in the form of scholarships. Israel's press spokesman bureau provides technical support, even direct information support. For NGOs, Israel interdisciplinary research center has become an important base of operations. Students set up a "war room" here to help the Israeli army make a voice. The school even set this as a teaching project, set up a "virtual scene room" to train "new media fighters" for the military. In addition, international non-governmental organizations such as "Israel project", "stand with us" and "record for Israel" have close contact and cooperation with Israeli officials. They have carried out training courses in Israel and around the world, and supported the youth groups in their countries to use new media to speak for Israel, forming a public opinion flanking force penetrating the people of all countries.
4. Strict information supervision and significant network noise control. In wartime, the Israeli army adopted a two handed strategy, actively responding to the war and seizing the narrative power of the war, while vigorously controlling information and eliminating battlefield noise. In all the military operations since 2008, the Israeli military has focused on the hostile media. At the same time, foreign journalists are forbidden to enter the battlefield for interviews, making military information the only authoritative source of information. In addition, the military review office under the Israeli military intelligence agency reviews all kinds of media published and broadcast in order to prevent the dissemination of information endangering the country. Since 2015, Hamas has frequently used the Internet to carry out anti Israel propaganda, and the military review office has taken the opportunity to expand its authority to cyberspace. Since 2016, the military censorship office has required that sensitive information published by institutions and individuals on social networking sites be checked in advance, and many people who have made Pro Palestinian statements on the Internet have been arrested. In response, in June 2015, the Israeli parliament deliberated and passed a new anti-terrorism law, which prohibits incitement to terrorism through the Internet or social media. In March 2016, Israel set up a special group to fight against online incitement, and cooperated with Facebook, twitter, Google, youtube and other social media to delete the content suspected of online hatred and incitement. At the end of that year, Israel launched the "anti Facebook incitement" act, which allows relevant state departments to forcibly delete the information on Facebook that incites anti Israel. Under the strong intervention of the Israeli army and government departments, most of the twitter and facebook accounts opened by Hamas members have been forced to close, providing a favorable network public opinion environment for Israel to carry out online public opinion war.
Source: military reporter
Email: [email protected]
Magazine subscription magazine mailing Code: 80-875