Andre Oboler, A Zionism On The Web Special Report
The Jew Watch conspiracy page is now on page one for a google search on Zionism in both Google.com and Google.co.uk - we predicted this last December.
If you have a website or blog and have NOT yet done something about this problem, PLEASE read this article and do your part to help. Please also share this information with others.
We have tracked the JewWatch Zionist conspiracy page since December, and unfortunatly need to report that the drop to page 8 mentioned in the article below has revered and the page over the last month has again been climbing steadily. Today for the first time it hit page 2 of the Google results for a search on Zionism. This gives both JewWatch and their antisemitic conspiracy theories significant exposure.
Action is required NOW to stop JewWatch becoming fixture that people see when researching Zionism. The article below describes the dangers and what you can do to help if you host a website or blog. If you don't have a blog or website please help by directing others to this page.
Reminder: please do NOT link to JewWatch when talking about them, rather use:
http://www.zionismontheweb.org/antizionism/jewwatch.htm
linking to the actual JewWatch site increases their exposure and search engine ranking.
Antisemites are using Zionism to make hate more acceptable. The result is an increase in the popularity of online antisemitic content and a new acceptance of far right antisemitic content even by those who consider themselves on the left and completely opposed to racism.
The site "Jew Watch" has remade itself to be more in tune with today's antisemitism and now focuses on Israel and Zionism in it's attack on the Jewish Community. It's page on "Zionist Conspiracies" (aka the Protocols of The Elders of Zion) was in December rising rapidly in Google. It has now falled back to page eight, though the rise has us worried about a repeate of the disaster of 2004 when Jew Watch first became number for searches on the word Jew in Google. (It is currently 3rd, and 4th for Jews... Jews for Jesus out ranking it).
The success of Jew Watch at manipulating Google, combined with the success of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" at causing the death of Jews in large numbers was last month giving us cause for alarm. Our concern however was not only for the short term. This vile libel could gain acceptance by the internet generation... today's children and tomorrows opinion makers.
This article not only explains the problem, but also how you can help. Please read it in full before blogging about this. Else you may do more harm than good.
Since early 2005 Zionism On The Web has been monitoring the use of the web as a tool to misinform the public about Zionism and Israel. We have focused on those whose motivation appears to be antisemitic rather than political or philosophical disagreement. To date findings have been confidentially reported to those Jewish representative groups (including the World Zionist Organization, World Jewish Congress and the Jewish Agency) who monitor and respond to antisemitism. Our findings have also been shared with local and national groups based in Israel, the UK, the USA, Australia and Canada, and presented to the Israeli government through the foreign ministry. Our work has also received mention in the Knesset. Until now we have felt an overt warning about the web would cause more harm than good. This article signals a change in our attitude which we hope needs to be only short, as with your help the situation can be corrected.
We monitor the search engines, blogs and popular content sharing sites and note the change in the number and relative importance given to antisemitic material masquerading as "anti-Zionist" or "anti-Israel". We also seek to correct misconceptions as best we can (given our lack of budget for this). Towards the end of 2006 we noticed the situation deteriorating rapidly as Google again changed its algorithms. This compounded a sharp negative trend resulting from the Hezbollah-Israel war in July.
We are facing a problem that results from the far right adapting their propaganda in a way that aligns with antisemitic tendencies of the far left. Seeing arguments from a well respected "leftist" source, young activists are spreading the far right's hate through their own networks. This can be seen in the use of cartoons, prepared arguments and a position of defending free speech absolutely (including hate speech and incitement) as the ideal of the left.
At the same time, Islamist groups are picking up the new messages of the far right, as well as some of their older message. They are actively working with the left (and the left with them) in a way that is entirely illogical except for their desire to unite against a common enemy. As so often in history this perceived enemy is the Jew.
To relieve their uneasiness, the "drifting left" attack any criticism or discussion of the racist nature of their comments and action as a conspiracy to attack their freedom of speech. This is a trick picked up from the far right. The danger is, that if this concept gains acceptance, antisemitism will somehow be seen as a lesser form of racism, or perhaps not as racism at all. This was, after all, the Nazi approach. If Jews have no rights, attacking, killing and subjecting the entire Jewish people to genocide is publicly acceptable.
Material online is not always credible, and with today's tendency to distrust authority, people are wrongly putting more trust in unsourced documents than in credible, official, sources. The anonymous nature of the internet and easy reproduction means that inaccurate propagandistic material can reach an audience through obscure channels, gradually drifting into the main stream. This is what we're seeing. The efforts by the far right to accelerate this move away from credible official sources are alarming.
In December the "Jew Watch" Zionist conspiracy page rose to half way up page 2. As other sites moved up and down, this page demonstrated a constant rise, while high value, credible, authoritative sites like Jewish Virtual Library were losing position.
Sites like Jews against Zionism were also gaining ground as the left, the right and many Muslim sites link to them to justify their position as being "only anti-Zionist" and not antisemitic.
Another problem is the fundamentalist Jewish group Neturei Karta who have been in Iran desecrate the memory of the holocaust. They too are linked to by left and Islamist groups to justify the hate of all Jews outside the tiny sect as being the Jews fault, and not a result of Antisemitism.
The first thing you can do is NOT link to Jew Watch, Neturei Karta or other site with Antisemitic or misleading content while discussing this problem on your blogs, forums or in the media. Each link exacerbates the problem. If you want to provide a link on the text Jew Watch , link it to http://www.zionismontheweb.org/antizionism/jewwatch.htm or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew_Watch or to this article.
The second thing you can do is introduce people to Expert Search, a Google Based search engine we have set up in response to this problem. The Expert Search has been manually fine tuned to exlude racist sites and make hard to find valuable sources show up more easily. You can join us in adding sites to expert search if you wish.
The third thing you can do is update your website / blog to include links to sites that explain Zionism without the use of antisemitism. I would recommend linking to at least following both because they are good sites and because it will be effective:
Finally, please do comment on this problem on your blogs, websites and via e-mail so others can join the effort. In the end these negative sites are doing nothing more than spreading racism and discredited lies.
Racism can not win for the simple reason that that decent people abhor a racist. All it costs is a few links and you can make a difference not only now, but more importantly, to children who are still learning and may not yet know the difference between facts and inciteful fiction.
If you wish to reproduce this page, please feel free provided the content is produced in full (with working links) and a link is provided back to here as the source.
Thank you for your assistance in combating racism online,
Andre Oboler
Zionism On The Web, CEO
Enquires to: zionistguys [-A-T-] zionismontheweb.org
Requests and offers of assistance to: scopus [-A-T-] zionismontheweb.org
Discussion at the forum please
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