A recent study from Capstone-Intel Corporation revealed that the ongoing Israel-Hamas received 90 percent negative mentions across non-social and social media platforms, adding that 31 percent of Filipinos are “sad” about the Israel-Hamas war, which illustrates how Filipinos perceived the raging battle between Israel and Palestine.
Capstone-Intel Corporation is a high-impact research company that uses innovative research technologies, tools, and methods to convert data and information into breakthrough insights and actionable intelligence outputs. It is committed to helping its clients solve problems, find solutions, grow markets and constituencies, build reputations, navigate risks, manage crises, and be the country’s leading private research and intelligence agency.
Background
The conflict between Israel and Palestine originated from the United Nations’ decision in 1947 to divide the land in the British mandate of Palestine into two separate states – one for the Jewish population and one for the Arab population. This decision was made in response to the widespread slaughter of European Jewry during the Holocaust.
Approximately 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled or voluntarily fled, constituting around 85 percent of the Arab population residing in the region acquired by Israel, and were permanently denied the right of repatriation.
The Palestinians refer to the mass departure and destruction of a significant portion of their community within Israel as the Nakba, meaning “catastrophe.” This event continues to be a distressing incident that defines their historical narrative.
Arab individuals who chose to stay in Israel as citizens were subjected to systematic discrimination by the authorities. They were confined to military governance for almost 20 years, resulting in the deprivation of numerous fundamental civil liberties. A significant portion of their territory was seized, and Arab Israeli communities were intentionally subjected to economic distress and insufficient financial support.
Amid the ongoing conflict, at least three Filipinos lost their lives in what appeared to be strategically planned assaults carried out by militant groups in Gaza. The Philippine government has released a statement expressing strong disapproval of the killings of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
The government has pledged to provide assistance to the 30,000 Filipinos in Israel and the 137 residing in the Gaza Strip, which have been severely affected by the ongoing conflict.
Methodology
Capstone-Intel conducted a one-month backtracking of posts across social and non-social media platforms in order to determine how Filipinos reacted to the issue. The agency utilized its customized social listening tools to gather data across all publicly available posts on social media from September 17 to October 17 in order to identify the sentiments of users about the topic.
Facebook Performance
According to Capstone-Intel’s data, the Israel-Hamas war garnered a total of 48,959.7 engagement scores coming from the overall 272,900 Facebook reactions during the date of social listening, with 60 percent of the total reactions, or 163,625, being like reactions, while Facebook sad came in next with 84,541 (31 percent), Facebook love with 13,143 (4.8 percent), Facebook haha with 7,463 (2.7 percent), Facebook angry with 3,262 (1.2 percent), and Facebook wow with 866 (0.3 percent).
Online mentions
The data also showed that of the 24,967 mentions across social and non-social media platforms, 90 percent of the total mentions were negative, while 10 percent were positive. This indicates that the Filipino audience is taking the issue seriously, as backed up by the 31 percent sad reactions on Facebook.
Meanwhile, according to the data, the Israel-Hamas war garnered a total of 61 million social media reach, indicating that the raging struggle reached millions of users across the country.
Top posts
In terms of top posts, a multimedia news report from TV Patrol, which tells how Hamas militants have threatened to kill their civilian hostages if Israel does not stop its missile strikes on Gaza, garnered the highest engaging story with a 9,366.2 engagement score. This was followed by another TV Patrol report, which narrates how a Filipino caregiver survived and protected the elderly she cared for when some Hamas members forcibly entered their home. This story received a total of 6,046.8 engagement score.
The ABS-CBN News report highlighted the third most captivating story, which had an Israeli official praising the “unimaginable honor” of a Filipina nurse who tragically perished during the Israel-Hamas struggle. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem disclosed that the overseas Filipino worker declined to evacuate without her elderly patient. The story yielded a total of 2,131.9, according to Capstone-Intel’s data.
