Behind the scenes of Israel advocacy in the age of social media

The opportunity the Internet presents to poison minds against Israel is evident, and Israel detractors work to flood social sites like Facebook and Twitter with antisemitic and anti-Israel content.

By YAKIR FELDMAN
CELEBRITIES CONNECTED with Israellycool help boost the blog’s social media profile. Here actor Mark Pellegrino, left, raises a glass with David Lange at a 2017 celebrity event in Jerusalem called “America’s Voices in Israel.” (photo credit: ISRAELLYCOOL)
CELEBRITIES CONNECTED with Israellycool help boost the blog’s social media profile. Here actor Mark Pellegrino, left, raises a glass with David Lange at a 2017 celebrity event in Jerusalem called “America’s Voices in Israel.”
(photo credit: ISRAELLYCOOL)
Not that any of us need statistics to be convinced of the influence of social media, but according to research such as that in the Digital 2020 Global Overview, there are more than 3.8 billion social media users worldwide. The world’s Internet users will spend a cumulative 1.25 billion years online this year, with more than a third of that time spent using social media.
The rich opportunity the Internet presents to poison hearts and minds against Israel is evident, and Israel detractors work day and night to flood social sites like Facebook and Twitter with antisemitic and anti-Israel content that fosters animosity toward Jews and the Jewish state. Dominating the discourse by sheer force of numbers and sophisticated propaganda (truth, context and fairness are not among their highest values), their success is significant and the damage they inflict to Israel’s cause is inestimable.
With a global population approaching eight billion, there are nearly 1,000 people in the world for each Israeli. With many of them harboring and driven by strong antisemitic and anti-Israel prejudices – and wielding devastating weapons including fake news and disinformation – how can we, so hopelessly outnumbered, ever hope to fight back, even with truth on our side?
Although the task is great, there are those who take to social media in Israel’s defense. Some of Israel’s most notable defenders in the social media world are the Elder of Ziyon blog, Honest Reporting and Israellycool.
In April, an organization with extensive experience in political marketing, PR and branding, compiled a list of the “Top 50 Zionist Influencers of 2020.” The Social Lite Creative list, “based on over 600 nominations from communities around the world [and] chosen based on the number of followers as well as the impact these individuals have on their respective communities,” includes well-known luminaries who do pro-Israel work such as Gal Gadot, Mayim Bialik, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Ben Shapiro and Hillel Neuer.
Also in that spotlight on distinguished personalities was a name somewhat less well-known to many of us: David Lange. The organization that compiled the line-up explained its choice.
“As the guy behind Israellycool, one of the world’s largest pro-Israel blogs, David is known for his biting commentary, laconic humor and proactive approach in going after antisemites online. He’s also the guy behind some popular terms in pro-Israel circles, such as ‘BDS-hole,’ and ‘Shirley Temper’ [referring to teen anti-Israel agitator Ahed Tamimi].”
THOSE WHO follow Israellycool applaud the recognition the blog deserves. For the rest of us, here’s an introduction to some of what you’ve been missing.
The product of a family of Holocaust victims and survivors, Lange, who made aliyah from Australia in 2000 with a background in finance and law, founded Israellycool in 2003 when the idea of blogging was in its infancy. Now one of the largest and best-known English-language pro-Israel blogs Israellycool evolved over the years into a go-to source for thousands seeking the truth about Israel and the region in the face of the massive amount of deceptive Israel hatred circulating in the mainstream and social media.
The site’s reliable and effective reporting has earned notable mentions in The Jerusalem Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today and more. It has also been attacked by some of the most active and virulent anti-Israel sites and activists. Prominent followers include Danny Ayalon and Roseanne Barr; prominent detractors include the likes of Roger Waters, Lauren Booth and David Duke.

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What does Israellycool do that wins it so many passionate followers and enemies? Its activities include:
Debunking libels
The flames of anti-Israel hatred are stoked by incendiary false propaganda designed to defame and delegitimize Israel, such as blaming the Jewish state for deaths and other behavior totally unrelated to soldiers. The scope of these defamatory efforts – ranging from cunningly sophisticated to utterly ridiculous – is breathtaking.
The blog has a “Libels” category that gives you organized access to a fascinating (and chilling) overview of anti-Israel libels throughout the past decade with Lange’s rapid responses: definitive and thoroughly documented refutations.
One recent example is the lie widely circulated in the social media that Israel sent a doctor diagnosed with coronavirus to a prison to spread the coronavirus among Palestinian inmates. Lange revealed the source of the rumor and proved it to be a fabrication.
“The assertion was baseless, but that doesn’t matter to the people who invent lies like this. They know exactly what they are doing,” says Lange. “We have to do the best we can to set the record straight.”
Exposing fauxtography
Because of the highly visual nature of social media, fauxtography (digital manipulation of images, deceptive labeling of photos, etc.) is a key weapon brandished by haters in their demonization of Israel.
Photographic fakery – such as falsely passing off Holocaust photos as evidence of alleged Israeli massacres of Arabs – has garnered many millions of gleeful hits, shares and hate-fueled comments on social networks. The Israellycool “Fauxtography” tab is a portal to a sickening gallery of such forgeries.
Through research and digital tools such as reverse image searches, Lange exposes the lies in each case and documents the truth. His collection would make an excellent exhibit in a Museum of Truth Abuse, if there were such a thing.
“If things were as bad as these propagandists claim, it should be easy to find authentic photos as evidence. The fact that they can’t and that so much time and energy is invested in concocting fake anti-Israel propaganda images underscores the lack of actual damaging material,” notes Lange.
Documenting the past
Because actual history undermines many of their claims, anti-Israel activists frequently resort to falsifying and fabricating history to promote their narrative, for example, claiming that there is no archaeological evidence of Jews in the Holy Land. Unfortunately, their efforts to rewrite history fool many, winning hearts and minds of those exposed to their untruths.
Lange counters fake history with sources refuting the lies, noting, “There is significant value in using well-researched historical facts to debunk common misconceptions about the Middle East conflict.”
Outing BDS-mongers and other antisemites
Another key focus of the blog is Lange’s series exposing “Jew haters” – obscure individuals as well as notorious well-known personalities – who hide their antisemitism behind the cloak of “anti-Zionism.” Through meticulous research in their social media history, Lange shares examples of their hate-drenched antisemitic and anti-Israel postings. In some cases, merchants of hatred that he exposes remove their outrageous posts and modify their subsequent online behavior; in other cases, the exposure leads to real-life consequences (just ask antisemitic Rutgers Prof. Michael Chikindas, for example).
Not surprisingly, some exposed antisemites try to take vengeance on Lange, including spreading libels about him, making fun of his wife, who recently passed away after a seven-year battle with cancer (and a popular blogger herself), accusing him of hacking and other illegal activities and, of course, threatening to sue him (no one ever has actually ever taken legal action against him, despite the fact that he dares them to try).
“My goal with these posts is to show how prevalent antisemitism is among those claiming they are only critics of Israel,” says Lange.
Highlighting pro-Israeli voices
Lange brings to a wider audience a number of surprising non-Jewish pro-Israel voices – Arabs and others. One example is Ryan Bellerose, an articulate Metis (Native North American) who finds commonality with the Jews as the indigenous people of this region, suffering from hostile colonizers in our homeland.
“Balancing out some of the hatred directed at us, the sane voices I bring to readers are a reminder that non-Jews are sometimes the source of some of the most powerful, insightful and convincing truths about us.”
Accentuating the positive
Lange also puts the spotlight on positive news about Israel – often, surprisingly, from Arab sources.
One recent example is from the United Arab Emirates Khaleej Times, which reported on an emergency operation done on a two-year-old Palestinian boy from Ramallah suffering from a life-threatening congenital heart disease. As his parents couldn’t be on hand due to coronavirus restrictions, “the whole medical team… became his parents,” the Arab paper reported. Surgery was supported by Israeli-based volunteer organization Save a Child’s Heart.
“Fair and accurate positive news reports like this one fly in the face of anti-Israel propagandists.” They constantly claim, for instance, that Israel “targets children” for harm, comments Lange, “when in fact articles like this prove that the opposite is true.”
Celebrity outreach
That the blog is well connected, as evidenced by insightful interviews and friendships with pro-Israel celebrities like Hollywood actor Mark Pellegrino and comedian Elon Gold. Musician Alan Parsons trolled Roger Waters with a post of Lange’s in response to Waters’s calls for Parsons to boycott Israel.
LANGE’S APPEARANCE on the list of 50 top Zionist influencers was lauded by many. For example, Aboud Dandachi, a former Syrian refugee living in Toronto who is now a vocal Israel advocate and was also named on the list, speaks for many of us on this matter, tweeting, “In my humble opinion, Israellycool deserves much, much more recognition. I have benefited enormously from his tireless research and work. It is said that we stand on the shoulders of giants and Israellycool is truly a giant for Israel and Jewish advocacy.”
Fortunately, there are several pro-Israel sites on the Web fighting the good fight, but Lange’s combination of snarky humor, earnestness, disciplined scholarship and heartfelt emotion have won him a significant following – his site registers millions of hits a year, a testament to his reach and effectiveness.
Maybe one day peace will come to our region and hatred of Jews will play itself out, but until this happens, we need and appreciate social media activists like David Lange.
For a taste of Israel advocacy, you can explore the blog at www.israellycool.com as well as on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.


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