New Media in Israel

This paper covers the period 11 – 13 January 2018. Two issues preoccupied the Israeli social media networks. The first issue was the approval of the State budget. This week, the Israeli cabinet approved the State budget and the financial plan for 2019. The size of this budget is NIS 397.3 billion; NIS 60 billion of which is allocated for education, NIS 38 billion for health, NIS 13 billion welfare for Holocaust survivors and NIS 2 billion allocated for disability. While NIS 63 billion were allocated to Defence Ministry.

The budget allocation was the primary concern of Israeli social media, as the budget motivates most of the causes and movements in the Israeli streets nowadays.

The second issue was the initiation of building a settlement highway between Tall and Fara’ta villages with the intention of expanding the arbitrary settlement, Havat Gilad, built on both Tall and Jeet villages north West Bank.

This decision was the ramification of the settler shooting incident, Raziel Shevach, at the mentioned settlement.

The Israeli social media contributed to promoting this expansion and giving the settlement an official status.