Tag Archives: Terror

17Apr/22

New Tensions in Israel – an Update 

For several years now, Israel’s domestic security situation was considered relatively good, with long periods of quiet occasionally punctured by few incidents and frequent reports of air strikes against hostile targets in neighboring countries.
Military Intelligence nevertheless continued to issue strategic alerts regarding an outbreak of violence emanating from the West Bank, due either to internal Palestinian tensions or individual frustrations. Whatever the cause, the warnings were proved correct with a series of deadly attacks on civilians in major urban centers.
With fear turning to panic, Israel’s political and security leaders tried to go on the offensive, responding to the series of terror attacks with “Operation Waves Breaker,” particularly focused on the Palestinian Authority district of Jenin.
How effective can such missions be and what are the possible repercussions?
Panel:
– Amir Oren, Host; Editor at Large, Host of Watchmen Talk and Powers in Play.
– Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, Project Director on Middle East Developments, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
– Dr. Nir Boms, Research Fellow, Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.
– Col. (Res.) Reuven Ben-Shalom, TV7 Powers-in-Play Panelist, Cross-Cultural Strategist and Associate at ICT, Reichman University.

22Sep/20

Hybrid Conflicts and Information Warfare: New Labels, Old Politics

Edited by Ofer Fridman, Vitaly Kabernik, and James C. Pearce (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2019), 271 pages. Book Review

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Nir Boms (2020) Hybrid Conflicts and Information Warfare: New Labels, Old Politics, Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs,  DOI: 10.1080/23739770.2020.1815959


Hybrid Conflicts and Information Warfare, edited by Ofer Freidman (Kings College, London), Vitaly Kabernik (Moscow State Institute for International Relations), and James C. Pearce (Angila Ruskin University), focuses on an especially timely aspect of the nature of modern-day war and conflict. There are more than forty active conflicts around the world today involving sixty-four countries and, according to one source, no less than 576 militias and separatist groups.

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23Jul/18

The Internet Hate Paradox

 

 

 

The advent of the internet was groundbreaking, allowing half the planet—from students to scientists—access to an unparalleled amount of information and resources acquired throughout the history of time. It has become an integral part of our lives, revolutionizing trade, finance, shopping, and banking, while changing the structure of communication and furthering globalization. Today, it is estimated that over4billion people have access to the internet. There are reportedly 6,000 tweets posted every second on Twitter, totaling a whopping 500 million tweets per day. YouTube claims that 400 hours of video are added to its site per minute.  Every hour, Facebook’s roughly 2.07 billion users world wide post around 30 million messages.

The internet has given a voice to those who previously had no means of expressing themselves to a wider audience. This phenomenon was first observed in 2009, when a Moldovan student protest was organized after cell phone coverage was halted by the government. This was considered the first “Twitter revolution.”3 After the disputed 2009 Iranian presidential elections, civilians took to the streets and were able to freely post hundreds of accounts, videos, and photos of clashes that were taking place. In 2011, Egyptians were able to organize, and garner public support, via Twitter in order to bring down the government. However, despite all of these positive uses, there are inherent dangers in the flow of information. This powerful engine of communication has also become a weapon of choice for extremist groups, crime networks, and terrorists, who use it to preach hate, spread dangerous ideologies and propaganda, and incite violence.

Full article here 

02Jun/08

Slavery and Freedom on the Internet

By Nir Boms, The Jerusalem Post

Aug. 21, 2007

The Internet – the free and open Web of ideas – has become the new symbol of freedom, or at least one of its more visible prophets. Howard Rheingold, a scholar of the early Internet era, predicted a utopian vision where the “electronic agora” would change the public space and create a free, global society, or an “Athens without slaves.”

But Rheingold’s vision remains utopian. Research shows that outside the Western hemisphere, it is the terrorist groups that have gained the upper hand on the Internet as they use its free virtual space to support radicalism and extremism rather than democracy and freedom. Today, there are more than 5,000 Internet sites affiliated with terrorist groups. Continue reading