Tapping on laptops, the group of high school students and adult mentors completed social media "missions" assigned out of a headquarters in Herzliya, Israel. Later, some planned the shooting of a pro-Israel video that weekend. At the end of the evening, adult mentors filled out a form to send a report back to the office in Herzliya.
Call it a pro-Israel human "botnet."
The Herzliya headquarters is the base of Act.il, a hybrid Israel advocacy effort and online information operation. A joint project of two Israeli not-for-profits, it is led by former Israeli intelligence officers and has close ties to Israel's intelligence services, its Ministry of Strategic Affairs and American Jewish casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Act.il's leaders frame the program as an effort to counterbalance anti-Israel attitudes online.
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Comment: What might really help the individuals involved in Act.il is working to see Israel's self-created problems much more objectively; problems that will probably mean Israel's own undoing and ultimate self-destruction at the hands of it's own pathological behavior and hubris. But that would be a very tall order for these strongly programmed and propagandized people.