Syria’s state-run news agency SANA is trying a new form of outreach to Israel: a Hebrew-language website. Though Syria is officially at war with the Jewish state, the AFP reports that the official news agency of the Assad regime now has six employees assigned to the new project, all of whom learned Hebrew through an army program discontinued in 1990. The website went live Sunday.
“We want to diffuse impartial information… on the attacks and violations committed against the Palestinian and Syrian people,” SANA director-general Ahmad Dawa told AFP. Sounds impartial already!
But SANA has other lofty hopes for their new Hebrew-language site, too: “Our objective is to reach the largest number of people possible and to clarify Syria’s image,” Dawa explained.
SANA’s other new offering, a Farsi-language website also launched Sunday, may get better traction. After all, Iran and Syria are allies and don’t regularly exchange fire.
Will you be perusing SANA’s Hebrew-language version?
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Stephanie Butnick is the founder of GOLDA, a Jewish lifestyle newsletter. She hosted the Tablet podcast Unorthodox, co-authored The Newish Jewish Encyclopedia: From Abraham to Zabar’s and Everything in Between, and worked as a writer and editor at Tablet.
