MENA: Rage after Israel Attacks Gaza-bound Flotilla
Emotions are running high across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), after Israel attacked a peaceful flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza – and the Twittersphere is ablaze.
According to Reuters:
The violent end to a Turkish-backed attempt to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip by six ships carrying some 600 people and 10,000 tonnes of supplies raised an outcry across the Middle East and far
beyond.
And no where is this rage more obvious than on Twitter - where thousands of tweets with the hashtag #flotilla, #Freedomflotilla, #Israel, #Gaza and the Turkish word for Israel #Israil – many of which have now been disabled – mushroomed in a few hours.
Reactions across MENA included sarcasm, anger and shame.
From Dubai, UAE, Mariam writes:
Bahraini Esra'a Al Shafei sarcastically notes:
Israel has just announced the world's most dangerous weapons: Wheelchairs and elderly people. #Flotilla #FreedomFlotilla
Rami Boraie, who tweets as Ramsville, follows the same stream of thought, saying:
Nothing will happen because it will be called “self-defense” because water purifiers are just bombs waiting to be made.
Lebanese Jamal Ghosn tweets:
If you let someone get away with murder every time, you can't act surprised when it kills again. #flotillamassacre #flotilla
Bahraini Yacoub Slaise adds:
Israelis have never respected borders, they've existed for 60 years on that basis, never expect them to respect intl waters #freedomflotilla
Again from Ramsville:
It's obvious the
flotilla was a peaceful operation. To see israeli soldiers board with machine guns should show the ridiculousness of it all
And there was also action on the ground:
From Egypt, Bothania Kamel reports:
Palfest posts a photograph from the demonstration here:
A scene from the Cairo demonstration by PalFest
Ali Dahmash, from Jordan, also tweets:
The only demonstration I managed to see now was at the Prime Ministry and it's building up #flotilla http://tweetphoto.com/24880069
And here‘s Dahmash's photograph:
Activists gather in Jordan in protest against the flotilla attack
Meanwhile, after a few celebratory tweets that #flotilla is becoming a trending topic on Twitter, accusations surfaced that Twitter is ‘censoring’ the entry.
Dowza tries an explanation here:
There isn’t much available as to what happened but it’s not really surprising. Israel showed its distaste for international law once again and attacked an aid vessel outside of their jurisdiction. This was in international waters and the equivalent of piracy. There are reports as to as many as 12-15 people being killed and steadily rising. It’s hard to get any sort of correct number because well… the israeli press is introducing all sorts of unsourced factors. One claims soldiers were attacked with knives. Can we believe this? I’ll elaborate later but for now I am interested in why #flotilla is not trending. Sure it may not be super important but Twitter was used with great success during the Iranian elections for people to speak out. It was even kept up so people could communicate. So obviously it is anti-Iran. But can we establish something else?
As said I’m more interested in why #flotilla is not trending worldwide on Twitter. If you look on trendistic which tracks tweets #flotilla is number 1.
He continues:
WHY is #flotilla not trending? This is obviously interference on Twitters part. There is no other rational explanation.
(…)It is frightening to think that anyone is purposefully blocking words from being discussed by a greater audience so lets hope this is all some sort of coincidence. Given pro-israeli propaganda that is prevalent in almost every mainstream media outlet it wouldn’t surprise me.
Lets hope it’s an ‘error’.
This is what I got when I tried looking up #israil
And as the ‘errors’ continue, Twitter users are becoming more vocal.
SuadAK, from Bahrain, screams:
From Bucharest, Romania, Florin Cosac appeals to Twitter:
@twitter: Stop censoring #israel, #gaza and #flotilla from trending topics NOW! #FreedomFlotilla
On the Guardian's Technology Blog, Charles Arthur attempts another explanation:
But at around 11am, as #flotilla began “trending” – rising to the topmost-used hashtags on the service – it seemed to vanish.
Was this censorship by Twitter? Quite a few asked the question.
Certainly if you went to the standard URL for such a search – http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23flotilla – you briefly got a result saying “Twitter error”.
However if you used the advanced search, you get the results as you'd expect.
What also happened was that people started using a new hashtag: #freedomflotilla. That rapidly trended.
The error in #flotilla search results quickly fixed itself, though. Possibly the rapid rise in the hashtag's visibility tripped an anti-spam filter at Twitter headquarters (where it was 3am in the morning, so we might assume that it's the machines, rather than the people, who are on duty – though then again, knowing the nocturnal habits of programmers, perhaps not).
So: shock as Twitter not being used to censor news. But it does show the enormous sensitivity there now is about Twitter's impartiality that any suggestion that a world event might be pushed out of its “trending topics” (displayed on the right-hand column of every Twitter user's home page) can create such frustration.
It doesn't, of course, help anyone on the convoy that was attacked. But getting information into public hands is a public good. Twitter is coming closer and closer to being viewed as a utility – certainly by those who use it. Perhaps we'd all feel more comfortable if it had a business model that had real, declared profits.
Stay tuned for more reactions as the day progresses.
22 comments
Israel continues to declare to the world that they are the victims. Hogwash! They have come through their ordeal more than 60 years ago and the time has come that the world recognize that they are the agressors. They are not interested in peace. They have occupied the land that belonged to the Palestineans and must allow Palestine to retain the remaining land they now occupy. Israel must stop building settlements, they must stop their aggressive tactics. Netanyahu is a butcher and will remain one. The Israelis should wake up to the call of peace and oust the present leaders and move forward. They continue to destroy the homes on the Gaza strip and yet will not allow the people to rebuild them. They continue to kill thousands in Gaza and will not allow them to receive humanitarian aid. Stop the blockade and wall off Israel with ALL the Jews INSIDE the walls
There has been no condemnation of this by US government. The nobel piece prize winner Obama has not yet come out in public critisicing Israel for this act of violence.
I think we made a big mistake here. What was the hurry in giving him the nobel piece prize. This is the real test of Omaba. If he really deserves this then he need to come out in public and openly criticise the violent act of Isreal. If this does not happen then the people in all countires should come out on the street demanding Obama to return back the Nobel Peice prize award.
nothing will happen again, israel is involved in these kind of activities for a long time and never be accountable for that. We thd world did not forget Sabra and Shateela camps, attack on Hizbollah and all other terrorist activities israel soldiers committed in last sixty years. It is the classical example of Israel State Terrorism and nothing is done yet.
Hope this time some thing good will happen.
Someone above mentioned Wikipedia and its comments that these humanitarians trying to deliver aid to Gaza had guns; why am I not surprised by the asinine tripe propagated by Wikipedia, whoever runs it clearly has no concept of truth and never will, I know – I’ve been on the receiving end of Wikipedia myself; these morons have a perverse and unintelligent mindset that’s viciously biased and anything or anyone that doesn’t fit their mindset is fair game for them. Do what I do and ignore them and sooner rather than later they’ll descend back into the sewers from when they came.
Meanwhile I’ll like to publicly air a letter that I’ve sent to the Turkish government and particularly it’s courageous, noble and dignified Prime Minister Mr Erdogan.
Dear sir,
I would like to express my condolences and deepest admiration to the families, friends and fellow citizens of those brave and moral Turkish citizens who paid with their lives for the brutal massacre of themselves by the corrupt, apartheid and western backed zionist entity called Israel.
I would especially like to commend you Mr Prime Minister for your courageous and principled stance in denouncing these acts by this rogue state which enjoys immunity for all its murderous acts from former colonial states like my own, the UK, and the dying empire we know as the United States.
Please continue your excellent work Mr Prime Minister and please convey my deepest thanks to the Turkish people for all you’re doing and your principles support for the oppressed people of Palestine.
Thank you!
Prof. Dr. Stanley Collymore.
Slight correction to the above as I just detected a typo error. The last line in the final paragraph should have read: PRINCIPLED SUPPORT, which I’ve corrected in this partial submission.
Please continue your excellent work Mr Prime Minister and please convey my deepest thanks to the Turkish people for all you’re doing and your principled support for the oppressed people of Palestine.
Thank you!
Prof. Dr. Stanley Collymore.
THIS INCIDENT PROVE THAT israel IS THE TERRORIST. JUST LIKE THEY BEHIND WTC TRAGEDY, USS LIBERTY AND OPERATION SAVANNAH. THEY KILLING AMERICAN, YET I CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY AMERICA KEEP DEFEND israel. WHAT, IS USA ANYWAY? JUST A ISRAEL DOG SLAVE?
http://www.flix.co.il/tapuz/showVideo.asp?m=3423928
Here is proof that the aid ships were carrying not aid but military weapons!