StandWithUs Also Opens “Web Situation Room” Fully Staffed, Operating Around the Clock

June 2-Los Angeles and Jerusalem – StandWithUs, the international Israel education organization has mobilized a team of multi-lingual, web-savvy student volunteers around the globe to take Israel’s case to the world, just as they organized a successful Internet response during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in December 2008.  www.standwithus.com and www.standwithus.co.il.

The portal for this social media battle is www.flotillafacts.com. On the first day of its operation, over 2,000 activists had enlisted to participate. The site is filled with flotilla facts, tweets that can be copied and pasted into twitter accounts, videos, StandWithUs Facebook, images, articles and signs.

The goal is to fight the web war against Israel by blogging and using social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and posting talkbacks on a range of media sites. The volunteer teams are identifying and sharing videos, images, and relevant messages with their social networks. The video of a British officer describing the attempted lynching of Israeli personnel had 6,000 viewers within hours of its posting. Click here to see the video.

The Social Media Task Force is centralized in a special “Web Situation Room” located at the StandWithUs Jerusalem office. Its efforts are coordinated with StandWithUs offices in Los Angeles, New York, and other chapters around the world. Information has been uploaded in ten languages, including Arabic, to reach a global audience. Leading figures in the art of social media are advising the effort.

The Task Force is working around the clock to respond in real time to online criticism of Israel, and to get the facts about the Flotilla’s hostile purpose, the peace activists’ violence, Gaza, and Hamas’ genocidal goals against Jews.

Concurrently, StandWithUs launched a new website, www.shameonturkey.com, to direct world attention to the real guilty party in the Flotilla incident: Turkey. Turkey approved the Flotilla which rejected Israel’s offer to deliver the humanitarian goods through official Israeli channels so they could be checked for weapons and dual use materials that add to Hamas’ infrastructure. Three ships sailed under the Turkish flag. Turkey knew that some of the “peace activists” were members of IHH, a jihadist-affiliated group that supports Hamas and has worked with jihadists across the globe. Turkey also led the assault against Israel at the UN.

Turkey has blood on its hands. It could have cooperated with Israel and made the ships under its flag follow international law. It chose not to. Turkey is betraying its own secular, democratic values. Turkey should be held accountable, and tried in the court of world opinion,” stated Roz Rothstein, co-founder and CEO.

StandWithUs helped organize rallies in support of Israel in front of the Turkish and Israeli Consulates in Los Angeles, New York (Times Square) and San Francisco. A Demonstration will take place in Chicago on Thursday. There will be other rallies across the country, using SWU signs available on its website.

StandWithUs will continue to be on the front line fighting this propaganda war against Israel. Too many people simply don’t have the facts, and are misled by the misinformation. We want people to have easy access to the facts. The facts speak for themselves. The world should be thanking Israel for courageously standing alone in a heroic defense against the terrorism and extremist ideology that threaten liberal democracies everywhere, “emphasized Rothstein.