The Israeli Military’s Fake Facebook Parties

by Liz Colville

The Israeli military has been using Facebook as a super-sticky honey trap for women draft dodgers. They’ve used the site to invite alleged Orthodox Jewish women, who are exempt from the draft, to attend Friday night parties that don’t actually exist. If the women select “attending” or “maybe attending,” the military flags them, since actual Orthodox women would technically be observing the Sabbath on Friday. The Israeli Defense Forces say they’ve found about 1,000 fake Orthodox women on Facebook as part of their efforts to “embrace social media,” or squeeze social media so tight that it can’t breathe and eventually just expires. It hasn’t brought charges against any of the women, but it’s signed all of them up for military service. But how does the military make the parties look so cool and appealing that people who have never met their shady Facebook avatars actually want to go to them? This is weird.