Cyber Colonialism and the New Media Warfare: Special reference to the Palestinian Resistance

“How can a man in a cave out-communicate the world’s leading Communication societies?”

-Zaharna (2001)

As Joshua K Fowler, in his paper on the ‘New Media Warfare’ ideates the transfer of traditional warfare to the virtual and information front and that in the specific case it becomes necessary to manage and control the respective space by the powers involved.

He further suggests that the horizontal power structures that the terrorist organizations like the Hezbollah have are more efficient as compared to the vertical power structures that most conventional militaries have, with reference to information warfare because the red tape involved causes hindrance in the fast and efficient dissemination of information.

Now Internet is supposed to be a platform where the freedom of expression is held paramount, at least that is the argument that the US and its other Western allies put forward when the MacBride Commission Report was published in 1980, which led to subsequent abandoning of the UNESCO by the US and UK. They also termed the Brazilian effort to create ‘The New Internet’ through the ‘Marco Civil da Internet’ as the Balkanization of the Internet ignoring the Net Neutrality clause which the western-backed internet doesn’t provide for, thereby sustaining the ever-increasing digital divide. Under such circumstances if the Western Scholars complain about the terrorist organizations having better social-media management, it actually leads us to think how a man in a cave is able to out-communicate the world’s leading Communication societies.

It’s quite amazing that even the smallest of lapses in control over the internet tends to wreck havoc in the policy offices of the hegemonic powers. The need for maintaining the hegemony of culture through the internet seems to be extremely important to these powers.

Now coming back more to the east, another paper by Helga Tawil Souri and Miriyam Aouragh entitled ‘Intifada 3.0? Cyber Colonialism and Palestinian Resistance’ talks about a nexus between the Palestinian Elites and the Israeli Telecom authorities which has led to a digital divide between the Palestinian Authority Areas and the mainland Israel. This paper also divides colonialism into 2 kinds, firstly the Settler Colonialism and then the Cyber Colonialism and then establishes a relation between the both, drawing on how Settler Colonialism harbors Cyber colonialism in the geographical constraints of Israel and Palestine.

Now going down to the ground realities, the Palestinian Authority Areas has only one functional telecommunications company ‘PalTel’ which has its own ISP ‘Hadara’  which provides internet in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip at higher rates and lower bandwidths. According to the Oslo Accords of 1993, the Palestinian Areas have been divided into 3 categories A, B and C, out of which only on the areas with Palestinian Control, development of Communication infrastructure is allowed. This hinders the development of Palestine’s very own internet infrastructure, thereby rendering slower internet speeds. Also, ‘Hadara’ buys internet from Israeli ISP’s at very high costs making the internet access inaccessible to the general public in the PA Areas. This Digital Divide points to a reality where the settler colonialism has in fact led to cyber colonialism. The ‘Enough Walls Campaign’ has also been termed as a failure by a lot of resistance activists.

The only success that this information warfare has achieved is recognition of Palestine by Google in May 2, 2013, in its products and services among other minor successes. On ground, nothing has changed; there is still only 1 telephone line between the West Bank and The Gaza Strip which is frequently cut-off by Israel. It will be long, or maybe never, before the Palestinian Online Resistance actually amounts to action on ground.

Although the Information Front has transformed over the years, the hegemonic powers most often than not, dominate the telecommunications and internet scene because of the communications infrastructure and the subsequent flow of the information. Under such circumstances, the idea of cyber colonialism is a universal one and a cyber war is one that is already lost.

REFERENCES:

1.       Derek Crockett, “Amid Israeli Protest Google Stands Its Ground; it’s Palestine!” Washington Times, 7 May 2013.   

2.       Dan Williams, “Israel Says Google’s ‘Palestine’ Page Harms Peace Hopes,” Reuters, 6 May 2013.

3.       Helga Tawil-Souri & Miriyam Aouragh, “Intifada 3.0? Cyber Colonialism and Palestinian Resistance” New York University.

4.       Joshua K Fowler, New Media Warfare: Tweeting from the Frontlines, Department of International Affairs, European Graduate School, December 2009.

5.       Brazil's controversial plan to extricate the internet from US control. (2013, September 20). Retrieved March 18, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/brazil-dilma-rousseff-internet-us-control