The epic failure of Hamas’s recent social media operation, in which senior leaders of the terror group agreed to answer questions via the hashtag #AskHamas, has been widely noted in the mainstream media. Some news sites reported statistics from twitter analytic companies like Topsy demonstrating that the overwhelming majority of questions posed by tweeters were decidedly derisive.
Here are a few examples:
#AskHamas: Do you still believe that Rotary clubs are all secretly controlled by Jews? http://t.co/nnQ1TtXZoO
— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) March 12, 2015
#AskHamas which Respect member of Parliment, do you think is closest to your antisemitic views, and when will he visit Gaza again?
— Gidon Shaviv (@GidonShaviv) March 13, 2015
#AskHamas Did @BowenBBC ‘s failure to acknowledge the success of your human shields strategy piss you off? http://t.co/g2sSA803J9
— Sharkiya East (@Sharkiya) March 13, 2015
Will you attend Open Hillel 2015? I hear there’s an opening. #AskHamas
— Daniel Mael (@DanielMael) March 13, 2015
Further, an article published by Associated Press (AskHamas Twitter Campaign Backfires on Gaza Militant Group, March 13) included the following passage:
Some users made a point of mentioning how senior Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal spent the recent Gaza war in his hotel room in Doha. One wrote: “Are your brave billionaire ‘leaders’ still urging you and your children to martyrdom from the luxury of a 5-star hotel in Qatar?”
Others tweeters chose to take things in a humorous direction. An image of a gunman in a white face mask with militant headband was posted with the caption: “What happens if he sneezes?”
That tweeter was UK Media Watch.
#AskHamas what happens if he sneezes? pic.twitter.com/ZtcJJtDnFs
— UK Media Watch (@UKMediaWatch) March 13, 2015
This has been retweeted over 400 times, and favorited 330 times.
Finally, it’s quite telling that, despite the coverage of Hamas’s spectacular Twitter failure by major news agencies such as AP, the UK media has thus far ignored the story (save one very brief mention in the Independent’s Daily News Matrix). Could it be that the Schadenfreude foreign journalists who cover the region typically demonstrate when gleefully reporting on Zionist public relation failures (real or imagined) doesn’t extend to the Islamist extremist group running Gaza?
#AskTheGuardian
Related articles
- #AskHamas Twitter campaign backfires: ‘Why did you murder 30 civilians?’ (washingtontimes.com)