(Ilana Messika/TPS) Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan launched a website Sunday aimed at combating the boycott, divestments and sanctions (BDS) movement and incitement against the State of Israel. The 4IL website will provide multimedia content that will be available to millions of pro-Israel activists around the world.
“The enemies of Israel are using cell phones and social media to spread lies, incitement and hatred against our country, and also against Western civilization,” Erdan said from New York where he was attending the annual Celebrate Israel Parade. “This initiative will allow Israel advocates to spread the truth about the country and to expose the true face of the delegitimization activists,” he added.
Erdan said he chose the annual pro-Israel fête to launch the app both because it fell this year on the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem and in order to promote the message that “our strength is in our collective unity.”
BDS is a loose collection of anti-Israel groups seeking to delegitimize the State of Israel and to destabilize it via economic, cultural and academic boycott.
Ethiopian-born model and former Miss Israel, Yityish Titi Aynaw, and Israeli-American actress Ariel Mortman, who stars in the Israeli-scripted Netflix series “Greenhouse Academy,” star in a video titled “The Truth About Israel” that accompanies the campaign launch and encourages people to use the site.
“Israel is a country that receives false and biased coverage online and in the media […] You know the truth about Israel, and you decide that starting today you are going to tell the whole world the real truth about Israel,” Aynaw said.
Simultaneously to the launch, a mobile app also aimed at combatting BDS and developed by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in conjunction with the Israeli-American Council (IAC) and the Maccabee Task Force also went live. The application allows pro-Israel communities and organizations to work together to fight anti-Israel incitement online by creating and distributing tailor-made campaigns and by rebutting false and inciting language.
