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Jerusalem Tech Community Gathers to Develop Tools to Boost Israel’s Public Diplomacy Amid Gaza War
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen speaks during a press conference with Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis at the Foreign Ministry in Athens, Greece, July 6, 2023. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi
Leaders of industry, government, and academia in Israel’s capital gathered at the headquarters of Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), a top venture capital fund headed by Erel Margalit, for a “hackathon” to develop tools to assist Israel in its public diplomacy efforts amid the Jewish state’s war with the Hamas terror group.
The event, in partnership with Israel’s Foreign Ministry, was developed to bring together the top technical talent in the capital city’s hi-tech scene for a three-day event to “help amplify Israel’s voice in the digital domain.”
Dubbed “HasbaraTech” — taking on the Hebrew word hasbara, the term used to denote efforts to explain Israel’s place in the world — the event combined top corporate and public partners to make it happen. Partners included private tech firms, top academic centers, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and Israeli government agencies at both the local and federal level.
At the event, a member of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit came to address the importance of their work.
Participants have been working on solutions such as a GIF generator to produce pro-Israel content, as well as a tool to share pro-Israel content on social media with just two clicks.
Lital Vilensky, head of innovation and marketing at the Hadassah Academic College’s Blender Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, explained the reasoning behind the event.
“How do we harness the ‘Startup Nation’ and all the brilliant minds here to amplify our voice in the world and compensate for our numerical gap?” she said. “The solution we found for this — a technology hackathon — for 48 hours, the best minds from Israeli hi-tech met together with the factors that lead Israeli hasbara to develop technological solutions for them that will increase Israel’s voice in the world.”
According to Jonathan Sagir, one of the event organizers, the hackathon aims to combat the “challenges identified as the main weak points of Israeli hasbara, including: fake news, developments to optimize the delivery of messages on social networks, and the development of tools to monitor and measure anti-Israeli biases in traditional media.”
The hackathon ends on Sunday afternoon, when the participants will present their built-out solutions to representatives of the Foreign Ministry at their headquarters in Jerusalem. Representatives from other ministries will be present as well. The goal is for some of the proposals to be picked up — through either direct funding or adaption of the tool — by any of the relevant ministries to help their hasbara efforts.
The event comes as Israel continues to face international pressure to curtail its military campaign in Gaza against Hamas, which launched the current war with its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israeli communities. Pro-Israel advocates have argued that the Jewish state’s public relations strategy will be in many ways as important to the war effort as its military strategy.
The post Jerusalem Tech Community Gathers to Develop Tools to Boost Israel’s Public Diplomacy Amid Gaza War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany’s Halt to Arms Exports to Israel Is Response to Gaza Expansion Plans, Chancellor Says
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends a cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen
Germany’s decision to curb arms exports to Israel comes in response to Israel’s plan to expand its operations in the Gaza Strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday in an interview with public broadcaster ARD.
“We cannot deliver weapons into a conflict that is now being pursued exclusively by military means,” Merz said. “We want to help diplomatically, and we are doing so.”
The worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel’s plans to expand military control over the enclave have pushed Germany to take this historically fraught step.
The chancellor said in the interview that the expansion of Israel’s operations in Gaza could claim hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and would require the evacuation of the entire city of Gaza.
“Where are these people supposed to go?” Merz said. “We can’t do that, we won’t do that, and I will not do that.”
Nevertheless, the principles of Germany’s Israel policy remain unchanged, the chancellor said.
“Germany has stood firmly by Israel’s side for 80 years. That will not change,” Merz said.
Germany is Israel’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the US and has long been one of its staunchest supporters, principally because of its historical guilt for the Nazi Holocaust – a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”
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Newsom Calls Trump’s $1 Billion UCLA Settlement Offer Extortion, Says California Won’t Bow
California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a press conference, accompanied by members of the Texas Democratic legislators, at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, California, U.S., August 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Saturday that a $1 billion settlement offer by President Donald Trump’s administration for UCLA amounted to political extortion to which the state will not bow.
The University of California says it is reviewing a $1 billion settlement offer by the Trump administration for UCLA after the government froze hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over pro-Palestinian protests.
UCLA, which is part of the University of California system, said this week the government froze $584 million in funding. Trump has threatened to cut federal funds for universities over anti-Israel student protests.
“Donald Trump has weaponized the DOJ (Department of Justice) to kneecap America’s #1 public university system — freezing medical & science funding until @UCLA pays his $1 billion ransom,” the office of Newsom, a Democrat, said in a post.
“California won’t bow to Trump’s disgusting political extortion,” it added.
“This isn’t about protecting Jewish students – it’s a billion-dollar political shakedown from the pay-to-play president.”
The government alleges universities, including UCLA, allowed antisemitism during the protests and in doing so violated Jewish and Israeli students’ civil rights. The White House had no immediate comment beyond the offer.
Experts have raised free speech and academic freedom concerns over the Republican president’s threats. The University of California says paying such a large settlement would “completely devastate” the institution.
Large demonstrations took place at UCLA last year. Last week, UCLA agreed to pay over $6 million to settle a lawsuit by some students and a professor who alleged antisemitism. It was also sued this year over a 2024 violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters.
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Trump Nominates State Dept Spokeswoman Bruce as US Deputy Representative to UN
FILE PHOTO: U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce speaks during her first press briefing at the State Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
President Donald Trump said on Saturday he was nominating State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce as the next US deputy representative to the United Nations.
Bruce has been the State Department spokesperson since Trump took office in January.
In a post on social media in which Trump announced her nomination, the president said she did a “fantastic job” as State Department spokesperson. Bruce will need to be confirmed for the role by the US Senate, where Trump’s Republican Party holds a majority.
During press briefings, she has defended the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions ranging from an immigration crackdown and visa revocations to US responses to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza, including a widely condemned armed private aid operation in the Palestinian territory.
Bruce was previously a political contributor and commentator on Fox News for over 20 years.
She has also authored books like “Fear Itself: Exposing the Left’s Mind-Killing Agenda” that criticized liberals and left-leaning viewpoints.
In a post after Trump’s announcement, Bruce thanked him and suggested that the role was a “few weeks” away. Neither Trump nor Bruce mentioned an exact timeline in their online posts.
“Now I’m blessed that in the next few weeks my commitment to advancing America First leadership and values continues on the global stage in this new post,” Bruce wrote on X.
Trump has picked former White House national security adviser Mike Waltz to be his U.N. envoy. Waltz’s Senate confirmation for that role, wherein he will be Bruce’s boss, is still due.
Waltz was Trump’s national security adviser until he was ousted on May 1 after he was caught up in a March scandal involving a Signal chat among top Trump national security aides on military strikes in Yemen. Trump then nominated Waltz as his U.N. ambassador.