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All the Cool Kids Are Doing It

Allison Hoffman on the young soldiers taking the lead on the IDF’s social media

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Unknown Author
November 20, 2012
Former Sgt. Talia Wissner-Levy of the New Media desk.(IDF)
Former Sgt. Talia Wissner-Levy of the New Media desk.(IDF)

Today on Tablet, our hip and cool senior writer Allison Hoffman reports on one of the more intriguing phenomenons of Operation Pillar of Defense: the efforts by the Israel Defense Forces to be an active presence on social media.

It’s not clear who’s running the Qassam Brigade’s twitter feed, but in Israel, the IDF’s social media operation is run by a 26-year-old immigrant from Belgium named Sacha Dratwa. In the past two years, Dratwa has taken a small operation initially created during Operation Cast Lead to streamline the IDF’s YouTube and Facebook presence and turned it into the most globally visible arm of the Israeli military. In the past year, the new media desk has rapidly expanded into new terrain, from commissioning content designed for viral sharing to creating a Foursquare-style game for the IDF blog that rewards frequent visitors to the site with badges. The IDF is also posting video of its drone strikes, starting with the Jabari assassination, as well as of Israelis taking cover during air raids and of Iron Dome units successfully thwarting rockets launched from Gaza.

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