Officially Israel and Hamas do not speak, have no diplomatic communication, and even fail to recognize each others' right to exist. On Tuesday however a direct exchange between Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli army and a member of Hamas made world wide news. Col. Lerner tweeted, "The #IDF will continue to seek out those that attempt to undermine and defy our way of life. #TerrorDoesntPay" A few moments later a response was issued from @AlqassamBrigade which stated, "@LTCPeterLerner Al #Qassam Brigades will continue its holy way of struggle & #resistance till the liberation of whole #Palestine #Zionists"
The exchange was minor, but it showed that Twitter can defy tradition and even official international policy... and the connectivity often operates at astonishing rates.
Last night I tweeted at Pierce Morgan about a New York Times article which discussed gun violence. He retweeted, and I was almost instantly hit with dozens of messages from people expressing their views of gun control and the second amendment. If you were on Twitter last night, you were able to see my exchange between some of these people. I had some productive (and some unproductive) discussion with people from Arizona, California, and Florida... where else could such an exchange take place?
Twitter is the ultimate technological connective tool. Agree, disagree.... thoughts??