A racy cartoon posted to YouTube to attract attention to Sderot's plight
Sderot was until recently a quiet and uneventful small city on the western edge of the Israel's Negev desert. But in recent years, especially Israeli soldiers and citizens completely evacuated neighboring Gaza to the east, the town has been on the receiving end of most of more than 6000 rockets and mortars fired by Palestinians to terrorize, maim and kill people in that town, the nearest population center they can hit from the air.
The Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces have been largely paralyzed, incapable of quelling the incessant attacks. But now Israeli citizens, armed only with a modicum of video production capability, gonzo journalistic skills, and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, have found a battlefront on which they can take the fight back to the Palestinians and raise awareness for the incessant suffering and traumatization of the citizens of Sderot.
One of the leaders in this grassroots quest has been Noam Bedein, son of veternal journalist David Bedein, both frequent contributors to Israel Insider. Following his military service, Noam moved to Sderot and eventually set up the Sderot Media Center, which distributes information, photos and -- most successfully -- videos of surreal life under the constant threat of rocket strikes, only occasionally forewarned by the "Color Red" siren systems that in the best case gives citizens there a few seconds of warning to escape the arrival of the short range, small scale but nevertheless lethal projectiles manufactured in Gaza metal shops.
Most recently, Bedein's crew was on the scene first when a Kassam landed meters from two young brothers, Osher and Rami Twito. The graphic video -- not for the fainthearted -- shows one of the boys writhing on the bloodstained ground -- as sirens scream, medics try to treat and evacuate the wounded, and citizens rush around in disarray. And then the video shows the whole group scurrying for cover in panic as more rockets land.
In his coverage of the violence visited on the innocent citizens of Sderot, Bedein plays it straight and to the point, making do with primitive equipment that are all his small not-for-profit organization can afford. But via the Internet, the work of Bedein and his volunteer team is gaining attention for Sderot that conventional media is not, providing a more gritty realistic insight to the suffering of its people.
More unconventional are the techniques of a YouTube poster known only as Oberhok. His "channel" of the Google-owned video sharing services includes some relatively straightforward and professionally produced video pieces on the situation in Sderot.
But Oberhok also features some rather unconventional approaches to raising awareness about the situation in Sderot. One is a cartoon of a contest between two Beavis and Butthead types, competing to see who can expel gas most explosively, is rudely interrupted by a more compelling explosion from without.
That one only attract a mere 250 or so YouTube viewers. (What, is there no appreciation anymore for competitive flatulence?!)
But a variation on the theme, showing a copulating cartoon couple in flagrante delicto until the Qassam arrives at a climactic moment, did much better, attracting more then 12,000 views with a "Sex - XXX" title an extended opening scene of frenzied coitus by the illustrative lovers, accompanied by increasingly frenzied guitar or banjo music until the rocket brings an abrupt end to their vigorous attempts to be fruitful and multiply.
Joel Leyden, an Israeli SEO specialist, applauds and promotes the use of sex and provocation to raise awareness of the plight of the people of Sderot. He makes no bones about the means, and the media, justifying the end: "Use what works to survive!" he wrote today in a discussion group for journalists and public relations professionals which he hosts: "We are at war. Fight to win - both on the ground and for public opinion which determines Israel's future."
Leyden took some heat on his forum -- including harsh words from David Bedein, who argues that Israel would earn more support by portraying itself as a moral, family-oriented place -- for promoting a recent "Sex festival" in Tel Aviv, the first ever in Israel, with an on-the-scene interview with Playboy representatives interspersed with B-roll scenes of a scantily clad dancer embracing a pole while men dressed as spermatazoa frolic about inside a gigantic condom -- "looking for daddy" as the SexTival promoter described it (Viewer discretion advised for partial nudity and extreme disingenuity.)
Leyden sees nothing immoral about promoting the events -- asking Playboy VP Sarit Medalia with a straight face how she "came together" with the SexTival -- pointing out that most other media outlets covered the event (although not with in-depth interviews and explicit shots of the dancers) and thousands of Israeli visitors, as Medalia notes, "kept coming and coming and coming" to the event. It was, Leyden says with a straight face, a "health awareness event" promoting Israel's identity as an open, adult democracy -- for mature audiences only.
Leyden suggests a Sextival in Sderot. But juxtaposing Leyden's productions with Bedein's leaves a disquieting sense of the huge gap that separates even allies in the media front of Sderot's -- and Israel's -- struggle for survival.
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