Hamas has launched a new website, www.palutube.com, to highlight pro-Palestine videos from the war in Gaza and assorted other pro-Palestinian content including nationalist songs and spirited demonstrations. This is in response to Israel’s already strong Web 2.0 presence covering the war. Palutube is in Arabic by default but a drop down menu on the right side allows you to switch to English. Currently I am having a great deal of trouble loading the site so don’t be surprised if you have trouble as well. Nonetheless I will try to embed a video from Palutube below. It is worth noting that because Hamas has chosen to host their own website (though not host all of their own videos), they are not bound by any other web portal’s terms of service (like the IDF is bound to YouTube’s TOS and authority). Thus there is some powerful and controversial language on Palutube. Most notably a banner that reads “The Zionist Holocaust in Gaza of the Innocent People [sic]“.

We are now talking about a war in which Israel refuses to allow foreign journalists access into Gaza, and both sides are battling for global support and to shape the narrative of the conflict via Web 2.0 strategies. As the Gulf War was the first cable news war, the current Israel-Palestine conflict is the first YouTube war. The obvious question being: is this the future of wartime journalistic propaganda?

It is clear from watching just a few of the videos available on Palutube that there is a different tone here than on the IDF’s YouTube channel. The IDF’s content has focused on justifying their attacks, which have been widely criticized as a disproportionate response to Hamas’ aggression, through videos of Hamas’ rocket attacks and evidence of other Hamas wrongdoing. In contrast the new Hamas site is a mix of videos that either display the large scale suffering that is going on in Gaza or provide evidence that Palestinian morale in Gaza is not dead through songs and videos of demonstrations.

The latter videos are particularly of interest considering the character of the Israeli attacks. It is quite clear that Israel’s attacks are an act of aggression by the side with the upper hand. Hamas rocket fire into Israel, while indefensible from the perspective of someone who would like to see the conflict resolved through diplomacy, is essentially impotent in comparison to the Israeli response. The Israeli message is that Hamas is thoroughly out gunned and by continuing to fire into Israel Hamas is inviting Israel to respond tenfold simply because they can. In a recent New York Times Op-Ed piece Rashid Khalidi presented a particularly insightful quote from former IDF chief of staff Moshe Yaalon: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” Temporarily setting aside how disturbing that statement is, with Palutube Hamas appears intent on saying it is also not correct.

The IDF has released two new YouTube videos that are sure to add new sparks to a number of already contentious debates. In the video below IDF Captain Benjamin Rutland explains the IDF’s motivation behind controversial mortar fire on a UN school in Gaza.

Another video cited by Captain Rutland shows the alleged Hamas rocket fire from the UN school. Israel is correct that by housing their forces in a UN school Hamas is in violation of international law however Israel’s attacks on Gaza are also in violation of international law. Due to the density of the population in Gaza Israel’s attacks are in violation of Geneva Conventions. And here we violate international law to punish those who see it fit to violate international law…

UPDATE: The UN has issued a statement denying there were any Hamas militants in the attacked school.

We live in a truly absurd age, if you require evidence of this notice that the Israel Defense Forces media & PR wing has setup a YouTube channel to share videos of the IDF’s air attacks in Gaza. Anyone want to join me on a trip to Montparnasse Cemetery for a seance with the spirit of Jean Baudrillard?

In the last year we have seen a rise in “citizen based journalism,” but it is strange (though unsurprising) to see a nation’s military attempt to usurp media coverage of their tactics with video recorded during missions. It is even more strange that the IDF’s idea of justifying or explaining their actions is to provide the world with video of who they are blowing up as those people are being blown up. Yet I must admit, it worked. The first thought that came to mind when I saw what appeared to be Hamas operatives loading and transporting rockets was “Yeah, maybe someone should blow those guys up.” Allow me to say that I am not voicing support for Israel’s actions, just that on the shallowest cognitive level, maybe more visceral than cognitive (maybe visceral, then cognitive?), the IDF’s videos were effective.

Among the interesting ironies here: in a culture that has trended towards fantasy, digital existence and detachment from basic human experiences, here YouTube is allowing the violence in our world to be made more real rather than less. These videos are not the sort of images one would typically find in war coverage on the world news. And to further entangle things some of the IDF’s videos have been taken down, most likely due to graphic content but YouTube policy is not to offer comment on why particular videos were removed from the site. According to the IDF’s brief statement on their YouTube channel’s home page YouTube has allowed some of the censored videos to be accessible again.

I would also like to add that despite my claim about these videos enhancing the realness of military violence I am not wholly uncritically accepting these videos as the real of the Gaza attacks. If the IDF has say, videos of two different bombings. One video is clearly targeting Hamas operatives while the other is more ambiguous, targeting Palestinians believed to be Hamas operatives but not engaged in suspicious activity and possibly innocent civilians. I realize these two theoretical videos would not have an equal likelihood of making it to YouTube.