The conflict between Israel and Palestine, which has become even more bloody and violent in the weeks since three Israeli teenagers were murdered and a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was burned alive in revenge, is a controversial topic. So controversial, in fact, that even Rihanna, who is basically a walking, talking personification of controvers, couldn't make a comment on the situation there.
She tweeted '#FreePalestine' yesterday evening, and it got 7,000 retweets from fans, but then it was deleted, either by her or her management, Roc Nation, reports TMZ. A source now tells the website that she never intended to Tweet that, saying: 'She deleted it because it was never meant to be Tweeted. She didn't even realise it was a Tweet until she started hearing from her fans.'
Still, despite Rihanna's second thoughts/Twaranoia, this isn't the first time she's loaned her support to the Palestinian cause. Last year, she was performing in Tel Aviv - Israel - and was reported by Israeli press to have change her lyrics for Pour It Up from 'all I see is signs, all I see is dollar signs' to 'all I see is signs, all I see is Palestine.' However, the paper since retracted its claim.
It's certainly true, though, that it's not just Rihanna who's found that social media covering the latest Israeli-Palestine flare-up has been something of a minefield, for lack of a better word. There's been widespread reports that the hashtag #ZionStandUp (Zion being the Hebrew name given to Israel) has been used by young Israelis to put out hateful comments about Arabs. However, in the storify by @davidsheen which started the allegations, he has put up selfies of young women (only young women, no men) that they've uploaded recently next to the alleged hateful Tweets with the hashtag Zion Stand Up. Though these pictures have then been screen-grabbed and sent around, so it looks like the selfies are being accompanied by the hate messages, many of them were never tagged as #ZionStandUp, and some have since been deleted. Plus, something seems a bit off if he's only showing female Israelis using Twitter to bash Arabs.
Plus, there's an assumption that Twitter's going to be the first to get there, or find the inside story when it comes to missiles being fired, or defy traditional news outlets' bias to show us all what's really happening. However, some users have been flinging up images of old conflicts and passing them off as what's happening right now. Unaware of the lies they're then repeating, people have been retweeting images in dismay, not realising that they're from previous conflicts.
All in all, a lesson learned here - though, we're not sure how valuable it is – is that when it comes to this conflict, it's best to proceed with caution, at least certainly in a forum where your only comment can be 140 characters long.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.