Somebody tweet that

by Melody Nasiatka, Editor

The Information Age – that’s what they call it, this thing we’re in. The texting, the instant messaging, and of course the internet social media sites like Facebook. And just when we thought the bite-sized, detached yippity-yap couldn’t get any worse, along came Twitter.
And for those of you “backward folk” who have yet to recognize the vital role of this ever exploding site in shaping the information age, here are some facts. “Twitter” is the key-word that globally ranked number four in the most searched key-words for the year 2009. With over 70 million users, Twitter is currently one of the best Social Bookmarking, Social Networking as well as Social Marketing websites on the planet.
So now, to be anybody who’s somebody, you must join the Twitter sphere along with Facebook.
We had several Twitter nerds accompany us to Israel a few weeks ago on the student advocacy mission, who tweeted about what they were eating, seeing, experiencing. After all, do not the most moving moments of our lives find us all with only 140 characters? The phrase heard most often during the entire trip was “Somebody tweet that.” And somebody did.
Without a doubt the biggest twit on the trip was John Eakin, a brilliant College Republican from Ohio. (He once had a life – now he has Twitter). Our trip guide, in fact, was so impressed with John, that he took him on a private detour to Israel’s one and only Apple Store – a highlight of John’s trip.
Twits like John use Twitter for more than just announcing what they ate for breakfast. John stirs the social networking pot by using it as a forum where he exercises his democracy and gets very large amounts of data to very large numbers of people. As a CR, he has no qualms about sharing his political views and that includes his support for Israel. And in truth, we need a lot more John Eakins out there trolling the social networking world, and here’s why: If you think anti-Israel rhetoric dominates the global media, it’s five times worse in social media. Just search “Israel” and other Middle East topics on Youtube, Facebook and Twitter, and you will quickly discover that in terms of the number of comments, posts and tweets, the other side has us beat, badly.
While we are excited about the 1,900 CUFI on Campus Facebook fans we’ve gained over the year, each time a group creates a fan page for the Third Intifada, they have thousands of fans within days. Luckily, their pages are soon taken down due to racism and hate speech. But that’s not the point. The point is, where they are out in force, we are not. Where they are screaming, we are barely murmuring.
When someone posts a video that shows Israel in a positive light, fifteen anti-Israel fanatics go on a rampage about how Israel is an oppressive, apartheid state, and how Jews are responsible for all the problems of the Middle East and in the world. They make this announcement using an array of colorful language, and they present no facts (or they present wrong “facts”), and too often there is nobody confrontational enough, informed enough or just plain THERE to counter them.
Twitter is a magical world – a world where you don’t have to be afraid that people are following you. In fact, you like it. In the social networking world you can tell everyone anything all the time no mater how trivial, dumb or embarrassing.
And Israel is a legitimate, sovereign state. A Holy Land that God calls His and the Jews are His chosen people. So somebody tweet THAT.
As for those of us on the trip, we will continue getting the pro-Israel message out through every means possible. John Eakin tweeted it best: “I LOVE how many #cufi2011israel people are actively using Twitter now. Now if we could just get everyone to 'hangout' on Google+ video chat.”