President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital received many reactions and the anti-Israeli organizations did not hesitate to respond as well. Following the declaration, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, together with the head of the leftist organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), held a live video chat on the JVP's Facebook page this past weekend. Members of the Act.il initiative decided to take action and fight against the anti-Israeli campaign within the Facebook broadcast itself. “Act.il is a joint venture between IDC Herzliya and the IAC, which is the Israeli-American Council,” says Alyse Lichtenfeld, a student at IDC Herzliya and an intern at Act.il. The goal of the project “is to build online communities to act on behalf of Israel on social media platforms.” “I felt wonderful. I felt like it was great to gather our communities together, all around the world, in order to fight for Israel and to fight against these harmful narratives which only serve to harm the Israeli people. It was great to come together to offer a separate narrative on behalf of Israel,” says Lichtenfeld of Act.il’s participation in the BDS-JVP video chat. Act.il has an application in which it puts missions for people to do on behalf of Israel, such as reporting inciting posts on social media or to sign petitions on behalf of Israel. As of today, the app has 12,000 users from 41 countries around the world who positively influence the online discourse on Israel every day.
