Hamas crashes Big Brother in an attempt to intimidate Israeli families

Talk about "must not see TV.”

On March 11, Hamas, acting like cheap knock-off comic book villains, hijacked the airwaves to issue a bizarre threat to the Jewish people. The satellite feed of Channel 2's  Big Brother broadcast was interrupted and compromised. Instead the expected group of twenty-something men and women deciding who to vote out of the house, viewers were greeted with something much stranger (yes, stranger than reality TV), an anti-Israeli propaganda film.

The three-and-a-half-minute clip included scenes of Hamas fighters committing acts of terrorism. wounded Palestinian civilians (held up as a product of Jewish "aggression”) and "brave” Hamas fighters. The clip celebrated the January 1 Tel Aviv attack and the recent stabbing murder of Jewish civilians while a superimposed threat taunted viewers, "learn from history, flee for your lives and get out of our country.” All this hatred was set to some cheesy over-dramatic music, and concluded with a message, "stay in your homes. The story’s not over. To be continued.”

During the broadcast, a series of coordinated rocket attacks hit Israeli controlled territory (thankfully resulting in no casualties). Evidently, Hamas wanted their message to have as much impact as possible and their threats to be taken seriously.

Signal hijacking is an uncommon phenomenon in this day in age. While there is a rich history of everything from harmless pranksters to State-actors taking over the airwaves for dubious purposes, the current state of most broadcasting technology prevents signal hijacking from happening anymore. Indeed, Hamas' recent effort was limited to the non-encrypted feed that is free to anyone with a satellite dish, rather the weakest link in the chain. They used a typical brute-force method of transmitting a stronger signal on the same frequency as the standard feed to drown it out. While Hamas would like to give the impression that this was a sophisticated cyber-attack, the reality of their prowess was actually fairly limited in this case. A lot of showmanship dressing up something that used to be done as a prank by bored collage kids and radio fanatics. 

You might think I'm just being snide, but it is important to recognize this attack for what it was. The point of an attack like this isn't to cause actual harm, but to project the appearance of menace. To make an organization or group seem more powerful than it really is. There may be a long history of signal hijacking around the world, but that doesn't stop it from being a jarring and unsettling moment if you happen to catch it live.

For as much as I'm poking fun at the amateurish quality of their propaganda video, imagine if you had sat down in front of the TV that night, just hoping to relax after a long day. You turn on some mindless reality TV just as something to watch but suddenly, the signal pops out. Images of violence and bloodshed fill the screen. A ominous voice issues a threat and in the distance you hear the low, telltale boom of rockets exploding somewhere. 

It would seem real. It would seem menacing. That's what Hamas trades in, fear and intimidation. They did this because the know the effect would be unnerving, that it would disproportionally frighten the Jewish people compared to their actual ability.

This is why it is so important to stand with Israel in their on-going struggle against extremists. To show Hamas that their cheap intimidation tactics won't work. When you stand up to a bully, you take away their power. Hamas needs to see that Israel and its international friends won't be intimidated by cheap tricks like these.