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Last update - 22:29 22/04/2008 In the comfort of your own home By Ofri Ilani Tags: internet, Israel, protest  Had Health Minister Yacov Ben Yizri googled his name last week, he would have found a number of disturbing references on the first page of his search. The first three results, including a reference in Wikipedia and the official Knesset Web site, were followed by two derogatory posts from the Avoda Shehora blog (www.blacklabor.org). They were entitled, "Yacov Ben Yizri? What about medical care for refugees?" and "Ben Yizri: Illegal residents are not entitled to care." These posts were published following the closure of the Physician for Human Rights (PHR) non-profit's volunteer-run clinic for refugees in Tel Aviv. About 100 bloggers adopted PHR's demand that the government take responsibility for the medical care of refugees and foreign workers, and many of the most prominent among them came from the Israeli blogosphere. Because the protest appeared in a number of blogs, Google placed relevant references high on its list of search results. "I am writing to you in the name of another 98 bloggers," wrote blogger Shooky Galili in a letter to the minister. "We demand that the state of Israel take responsibility for the medical care of refugees and foreign workers." It is not clear whether bloggers' protests make an impression on decision makers at the Health Ministry, but Galili believes that their influence on search results has the power to effect change. "In my opinion, this is an efficient way to use the Internet to influence Israeli politicians," he wrote in his own blog. Advertisement Galili is not the only optimist who holds this opinion. Dozens of campaigns have recently popped up on Israeli Web sites that have attempted to address issues as diverse as releasing of kidnapped soldiers and restoring the use of the letter aleph at the beginning of first-person future Hebrew verbs. It appears that every frustration experienced by an Israeli public which in the past has been typically slumbering and apathetic, is now directed toward the arena of protest on the Internet. This does not even require leaving home. "In the information age, when a significant portion of public debate takes place online, just passing information is a very important act. Transferring a protest from one blog to another bears significance and may create a critical mass," says Betty Benveniste, a social activist and doctoral student in the communications department at Tel Aviv University, who is researching online political activity. Benveniste distinguishes between professional social activists who use the Internet for work, and bloggers who occasionally integrate protest in their posts. "Each of these groups has a completely different profile. There are activists who have blogs, and writing compliments their work in the field. And there are bloggers who have developed awareness and became activists as a result, but their activities focus solely on writing. They are also significant because they manage to bring positions previously considered radical to a broader public. For example, people talked about the misery caused by the Israel Economic Arrangements Law years ago, and wrote about it a lot on the Haokets [The Sting] blog, comprised of a number of social activists. But when the Lahatz Hevrati [Peer Pressure] blog took on this issue, it brought the information to broader sectors of the population." Facebook is guilty again Online protest first appeared in Israel a few years ago. In 2004, leftist activists who supported the Geneva Initiative organized a virtual demonstration, which gathered protesters into an online version of Rabin Square, the preferred site of live demonstrations in Israel. The decision to do so apparently derived from the realization that they stood little chance of drawing the desired masses of people to the actual square in Tel Aviv. But these organizers may have been ahead of their time, because participation was limited and the initiative was forgotten. However, things have changed since the establishment of the Facebook social network. The Causes application on Facebook makes it possible to create a group with a common objective of greater or lesser public import. Since its inception, Facebook has hosted thriving groups, which have attracted millions of members, supporting causes like halting genocide in Darfur or promoting American troop withdrawal from Iraq. Thousands of Israelis joined the Facebook protest against the plea bargain offered to Israel's former president Moshe Katsav, the ban against smoking in pubs, and censorship on the Internet. Less serious causes like "the movement to expunge the city of Petah Tikva" grew at the same time. Ever-growing local demand for online avenues of protest gave rise to the Atzuma (Petition) Web site, which presents itself as the provider of a service that permits every Internet surfer to "upload an online petition without any previous knowledge." Serious subjects like the closure of a library for the blind or increasing the number of hospital nurses are published on the site alongside petitions entitled, "A Second Season for 'When Shall We Kiss?'" and "An End to 'Survivor' Scheduling Changes," both references to local television programs, and "A Petition against a Merger Between Hapoel Ramat Gan and Hashikma Ramat-Chen" soccer leagues. This creates the impression of a gallery for complaints and colorful declarations that stand almost no chance of effecting social change. In a similar vein, the site features "The Petition to Fire Yair Lapid" from his roles in journalism, published by one anonymous "Frustrated Artist." That petition came in response to a statement in Lapid's column that maintained that most unsuccessful artists lack talent. About 900 people signed that petition. Most of their signatures were accompanied by invective and cursing. It's just a curiosity Two protest organizations that appeared recently illustrate the difficulty of surviving a move from the online world to the real world. One of them is the movement to cancel ostentatious celebrations of Israel's 60th Anniversary. The petition that appeared on the Atzuma site had attracted an impressive 95,000 signatures by the end of last week. But Israeli media described the protest movement as a "curiosity" rather than real social activism. Media responded similarly to the "secular boycott" of AM:PM in response to the grocery store chain's decision to surrender to ultra-Orthodox pressure to close on Shabbat. The impetus for the petition was first formulated in a post by Amit Neufeld on Cafe TheMarker social network, which is owned by Haaretz. In this case as well, the protest failed to gain any real steam. According to Benveniste, an online protest lacks significance unless it is combined with activities in other arenas. "That form of protest is now an integral part of a platform of social struggle, but it cannot stand alone. There must be complimentary activity in the streets, the Knesset and among other organizations. Social struggle requires a platform in which information is passed, but also an implementing body. It is a network of involved parties who must work in tandem," she says. Shooky Galili's blog: notes.co.il/shooky Haokets: www. Haokets.org Bookmark to del.icio.us   Double agent U.S. arrests American over suspected nuclear espionage for Israel. Conspiracy theory Al-Qaida: Hezbollah started rumor that Israel planned 9/11   1.   O well 03:00  |  jjvanka 23/04/08

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