Do Social Media Wars Really Matter?

It's natural that the Arab-Israeli war would spill over onto popular social media sites. But does it really matter?

Who reads all those shoot-from-the-hip postings anyway? I have a huge social media network, but I can't possibly read all of the posts that I am virtually connected to through the Internet.

In a way, we have taken important words and hollowed them out of their true meaning. Twitter has me "follow" people, but in reality, I can't possibly read everything even the handful of journalists and politicians I am interested in post on their Twitter accounts.

So, am I really following anyone?

In fairness, I really doubt that all of the more than 1,000 people who follow me are in fact reading everything I post.

Facebook is the same. It has me "friend" people and people "friend" me. But the truth is that most of the people on my Facebook are not friends at all.

The meaning of words has taken a beating in today's Internet-driven world of impersonal communications.

Here's what I think is happening: The majority of people have fallen into a malaise, or a pattern of apathy and chance. They may read one of your posts out of chance, but they are generally apathetic.

But there are a handful on every site — and I imagine this applies to almost everyone, including those who friend or follow people in power such as the President of the United States, Barack Obama — who read every single word typed and dispatched in cyberspace.

What do we make of them? Well, I think they are already committed to a cause. Their views are hardwired. They are "cyber-activists." You can't change their views. But they are aggressively reading everything you or I post because they either love or hate the people they are following. All that happens is that they are pushed by emotion to respond.

And as I have postured many times in the past, emotion is the undoing of peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Our emotions always get the best of us. Or maybe our emotions get the worst of us. We have far more of those activists who are sentinels waiting for a fight to start that they can join.

More often than not, something rises above the norm and catches fire and it turns in to an ugly cyber-battle.

There was the battle over a Facebook page called Third Palestinian Intifada. The fight sparked discussions on the Arab side of the unfairness of Facebook and its owner, Mark Zuckerberg, who they called biased against Arabs and not very honest about believing in free speech.

Facebook loves the pro-Democracy protesters — well, it loves the perception of the protesters and what that impression stands for because I am sure Israelis don't feel comfortable with the trend in Egypt.

In the style of true free speech, the Third Intifada page should have been allowed to continue. But it was banned.

Recently, a smart Israeli noticed that a certain phrase was being repeated a lot on Twitter and creating a measurable trend. It was "Israelhates."

I am by no means a master of Twitter trending. You can "trend" any word or phrase by putting a hash tag (a pound sign) before the word or phrase, and Twitter acknowledges it and tabulates how often it is repeated.

What impressed me is that instead of responding the way we Israelis and Palestinians normally respond to things that provoke us — by throwing back something even more ugly at the other side — the Israeli responded smartly. He didn't start the trend "Palestinehates" to get back at the people trending "Israelhates." Instead, he trended a new phrase: "Israelloves."

Of course, though, others quickly rose to the predictability of the Middle East conflict and began trending the phrase "Palestinehates." And even more started offering cruel messages of sarcasm, wishing the Arabs the same "happiness" as those living in Syria, which has been racked by violence and killings.

Some Israelis have lost their love for the Arab pro-democracy movement as they notice the trend of some of the countries like Egypt to move to the anti-Israel right as the people gain their free voices.

It's like anything in Arab-Israeli relations. We can feed the beast, or we can starve it and focus our efforts in a different, more positive direction.

I favor ignoring the foundation of Middle East philosophy, which demands an eye for an eye.

No, instead of taking someone else's eye, why don't we try to win over that eye, or the mind behind the eye? Why don't we counter the anger and the hatred that seems to dominate relations between Arabs and Israelis on the Internet with peace and love?

Why don't we ignore those who promote hate and also those who promote vengeance and instead follow those who promote improved relations and understanding?

That's a trend I'd love to see.

Ray Hanania is an award-winning Palestinian American columnist. To find out more about Ray Hanania and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

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