Jerusalem 15th August 2013 : The Israeli government puts out a national call for university students to post pro-Israel messages on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.
The Israeli government has set aside three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth of scholarships to combat anti-Semitism and calls to boycott Israel online.
“This is a groundbreaking project aimed at strengthening Israeli national diplomacy and adapting it to changes in information consumption,” the statement from Israel’s prime minister’s office said.
“Everyone who believes in the cause, and wants to join, can join,” an Israeli official told on Wednesday.
Students selected to be part of the program will get full or partial university scholarships from a $778,000 budget- won’t have to reveal that they’d been sponsored. Their only prerogative would be to advance the Israeli and Jewish causes via their social-media.
The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz identified the official heading the project as Danny Seaman, a public diplomacy, whom it said had written posts on his personal Facebook page that were described as anti-Muslim. But another government official called those posts “unacceptable,” and would not say whether Mr. Seaman would be the project’s director.