Palestine- Tweeting its Way

to Statehood?
June 27, 2014June 27, 2014 / Ilan Manor
Cu toate c reelele sociale au devenit o obinuin a lumii moderne, utilizarea acestora este predominant
asociat cu petrecerea timpului liber. Cu toate acestea, uurina cu care este transmis informaia,
posibilitatea adugrii propriei opinii i accesibilitatea le nominalizeaz drept instrumente potrivite pentru
utilizri mai serioase. Spre exemplu, n cadrul campaniei electorale pentru alegerile europarlamentare

Social Networking Sites such as twitter and Facebook have long since become a fixture in our lives.
Whether they are used as a tool for maintaining and deepening friendships, seeking new employment
opportunities or even gathering information on past lovers, social networks have impacted numerous
areas of daily life. Yet what is truly remarkable is that social networks are continuously evolving as is the
manner in which we use them. While Facebook was originally intended to serve as a tool for maintaining
social ties, recent studies have indicated that American teens now use this social network as their main
source for news and information gathering.
Twitter has also evolved since its launch in 2006. Intended to serve as a micro blogging service, twitter is
now used by different users to different ends. Reporters use tweets in order to complement their stories,
news organizations canvas the twittosphere in order to analyze public sentiment and interests and social
protest movements use twitter in order to promote their cause.
In the past few years, another powerful player has joined the twittoverse- the nation state. Nowadays,
foreign ministries throughout the world are flocking to twitter as part of their digital diplomacy efforts.
Foreign ministries have embraced twitter as it allows them to disseminate foreign policy messages to
global audiences, engage with foreign populations in order to facilitate the acceptance of their foreign
policy and even evaluate their image amongst foreign nations. Moreover, foreign ministries and their
embassies routinely follow their peers in order to gather information regarding other nations foreign
policy agenda. This is nowhere more evident than in the United Nations, one of the worlds most
important hubs of diplomacy.
Embassies to the U.N. routinely use twitter in order to gain insight into other nations initiatives, learn
how different nations intended to vote on upcoming resolutions and even influence deliberations in UN
committees. Recently, I have attempted to analyze the network of world embassies to the United Nations
as a social network asking which UN embassies are most popular within this network and which
embassies have the ability to effectively disseminate information throughout this network. A recurring
finding of this analysis is the centrality of the Palestinian embassy to the UN.
Image: the UN social network (Palestines embassy marked in red)

The Palestinian embassy to the United Nations is currently followed by thirty three other UN embassies
making it one of the most popular members within the UNs social network. More importantly, the
Palestinian mission serves as an important hub of information within this network as many countries that
do not follow one another, follow the Palestinian embassy turning into a bridge over international waters.
The Palestinian embassy to the UN is also one of the ten most connected embassies within the UN social
network enabling it to effectively disseminate information and foreign policy messages throughout the
entire network. Thus, this embassy seems to have an impressive global reach.
It is also the identity of its followers that reveals the centrality of the Palestinian embassy to the UN as its
twitter account is followed by six of the G-7 nations as well as by the vast majority of nations currently
comprising the UNs holy of holies, the Security Council. This indicates that the Palestinian embassy has
the ability to disseminate information to, and engage with, some of the worlds most influential nations.
Social media experts often warn us from the tyranny of numbers. After all, the question is not necessarily
how many followers one embassy has, but whether that embassy effectively uses its social media
accounts in order to promote its national interests and garner the support of the international community
for its policies.
Recently, the Palestinian embassy has been increasingly using its twitter account to do just.
Tweets published over the past few weeks have dealt with issues ranging from Palestinian world heritage
sites to highlighting Palestinian activity in UN forums and gathering international support for the new
unity Palestinian unity government. Followers of the embassy are also exposed to Palestinian culture.
Such was the case with a long string of tweets published on May 31st which all celebrating the first ever
qualification of the Palestinian national soccer team to the Asia Cup.
We are often reminded of the fact that the online and offline world are no longer separate but are rather an
extension of one another. Thus it is possible that through its popular embassy to the UN, Palestine is
tweeting its way to statehood for states that exist on twitter may soon exist opposite Israel.
http://digdipblog.com/2014/06/27/palestine-tweeting-its-way-
to-statehood/