Vice-Minister of Culture V. Gasparavičius: “The support of the democratic world is crucial for Israel today”
The Deputy Minister of Culture Vygintas Gasparavičius, together with parliamentarians and politicians from Norway, Denmark, Finland and Latvia, is visiting Israel this week.
The delegation visited the site of the Nova Music Festival massacre near Gaza, the Beeri Kibbutz, which was completely destroyed by Hamas terrorists on 7 October, meeting with relatives of the people held hostage by terrorists and the survivors of the music festival massacre. The security and humanitarian situation in the region was discussed with representatives of the Israeli police, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and NGOs. The delegation paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust and met with relatives of the survivors during a visit to Yad Vashem, the world's Holocaust memorial centre.
"The support of Europe and the democratic world is crucial for Israel today. We must acknowledge that the country attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists is today fighting on another front in Europe – the information war. Fake news, disinformation and propaganda are the weapons we see in Russia's war against Ukraine. Similar techniques and algorithms for manipulating public opinion are being used in the Islamic terrorist war against Israel. Both Ukraine and Israel are fighting wars today to defend not only their own countries, but to also fight for Western values, and we cannot stand aside watching how the outcome of these wars will determine the future of Europe", the Vice-Minister Vygintas Gasparavičius said.
The delegation visited the Knesset, the National Security Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, and met Israeli parliamentarians, advisers to the Prime Minister, politicians, diplomats, representatives of public organisations and journalists. They discussed Nordic-Baltic-Israeli cooperation in the fields of education, culture, foreign policy and the fight against anti-Semitism and terrorism. In a meeting with the Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania to Israel, Audrius Brūzga, the Vice-Minister of Culture discussed bilateral cooperation between Lithuania and Israel in the fields of culture, education and others.
At Cyberwell, a public data intelligence company in Tel Aviv, V. Gasparavičius discussed ways of combating disinformation, fake news and propaganda, exchanging countries' experiences in dealing with social networks in pursuit of promptly removing unlawful content, hate speech and disinformation from them. Israel's innovation ecosystem, innovation policy, incentives, opportunities for exports, investments and joint activities with the European Union were presented to the delegation.
The visit was organised on the initiative of the non-governmental organisation ELNET in cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Photo from the personal archive of Vygintas Gasparavičius
Last updated: 05-07-2024