by Sharon Udasin
Staff Writer

Lifting a frothy cappuccino with one hand and scribbling scraggly Hebrish notes with the other, David Saranga severed himself from his Twitter feed to sit down at a Midtown espresso bar last Monday, armed only with his BlackBerry and pocket-size digital camera.

Saranga, Israel’s consul for media and public affairs in the Israel Consulate, has led the consulate to the frontlines of a cyber battle that aims to spread Israel’s message to as many people as possible and create an instant dialogue with public opinion, he said. As the Israel Defense Forces faces Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israelis and Palestinians are engaging in a simultaneous online media war, fueled by real-time blog updates, talkbacks, YouTube video feeds and social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

By employing these tools, both supporters and opponents of Israel are changing the face of wartime activism — they are able to bypass the mainstream media and speak directly to readers, who in turn can influence their home governments, according to both Saranga and many other new media users who spoke to The Jewish Week.

“In the past, governments, organizations and so forth used to communicate their message through the media, a third party — something that caused Israel a lot of problems,” Saranga said. “All of a sudden I have a method of directly transferring my message and sharing my thoughts with the public.”  Continue reading…