Israel Trolls BDS

Stand for Israel | May 14, 2019

Protest in Toulouse against Trump's decision on Jerusalem as Israels capital — A protester shouts slogan. After U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital, a demonstration took place in Toulouse against this decision as other towns short before. They marched to the U.S. consulate in Toulouse. Toulouse. France. December 12th 2017. (Photo by Alain Pitton/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

This week, Israel is hosting the annual Eurovision international music competition. And as usual when Israel is in the news, the anti-Israel haters are out in full force. This time, however, those biased against the Jewish state were in for a surprise! Ynet News’ Itamar Eichner tells us how Israel’s Ministry for Strategic Affairs duped the BDS crowd by sending them to a website that shows just how Beautiful, Diverse, and Sensational Israel really is:

As the Eurovision song contest begins and BDS activists calling for a boycott of the event being held in Israel, the ministry of strategic affairs has launched a campaign against supporters of the boycott. Web users searching for information regarding BDS came upon a website seemingly supporting the boycott movement — only to discover that it is actually a cleverly designed Pro-Israeli website.

The website shows all that is beautiful about Israel by using the BDS initials: Beautiful, Diverse, Sensational. More than 30,000 internet users visited the website in less than a week and got the Israeli response to the misinformation and hypocrisy being spread by boycott organizations.

The Ministry for Strategic Affairs, headed by Gilad Erdan, looked for a creative way to contradict the narrative behind the boycott campaign of the BDS movement. In order not expand the BDS brand, the ministry launched a campaign aimed at internet users looking to support the boycott on Google, including banners and adds that “follow” the users to other, unrelated sites.

The website includes photos of Israel’s landscape and short publicity film clips about the diversity of Israeli society. “Israel — a country where openness, freedom of expression and the freedom to live and let live have become its main characteristics. A mixture of cultures and traditions that have made Israel an island of tolerance,” the website wrote. The website postcards photographed by participants of the Eurovision show the breathtaking landscape and colorful culture.

“After we exposed the anti-Semitism and terror ties of the BDS organizations and discovered dozens of internet bots and fake accounts aimed at pressuring musicians to boycott the contest, we have launched a website aimed at exposing their lies and presenting Israel as a truly: diverse, beautiful and astonishing country…”