Israel announced plans last week to use the Web to improve its image abroad in two ways: by setting up a new unit of the Israel Defense Forces devoted to fighting criticism on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and through what the Israeli newspaper Haaretz described as “an initiative by the Information and Diaspora Ministry to train people to represent Israel independently on the Internet.”

While it is not yet clear exactly what form this government-sponsored offensive against Israel’s online opponents will take, in some ways YouTube is already a key front in the battle for international public opinion about what is happening in the contested West Bank. And the skirmishing there seems to be happening among private individuals, acting without any apparent state support.

To take one example, last week amateur video of an Israeli settler driving his car over a prone Palestinian man — who had just been shot at a West Bank gas station after reportedly stabbing the settler’s wife — was uploaded to the video-sharing site soon after it was broadcast on Israeli television.

The next day that graphic, disturbing footage, filmed at the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, started to get more attention on the Web after it was featured in this English-language report from Al Jazeera that was posted on the broadcaster’s YouTube channel:

It seems significant that this video appeared first on Israeli state television, the same week an editorial was published in Haaretz headlined, “Israel Must Crack Down on Settler Lawlessness.” Watching events there from a distance, it is easy to forget that the settlements on the West Bank are not just a cause of tension between Israelis and Palestinians, but also within Israeli society.

Since the video starts after the stabbing attack on two settlers the Palestinian man was accused of, it is not surprising that supporters of the Israeli settlement project were unhappy to see it spread around the world via YouTube.

One day after that footage first appeared online, The Jerusalem Post reported that another graphic clip depicting an act of violence had been uploaded to YouTube. According to the Israeli newspaper, this video showed “a Palestinian female terrorist stabbing a civilian security guard at a West Bank checkpoint.”

As The Post pointed out, this clip, uploaded in December, was not new:

In the video, filmed on October 25, the Palestinian, who allegedly asked to enter Israel via the Kalandiya checkpoint for medical treatment, is seen being examined by a Border Police officer. The officer finds a knife in her purse, and while he takes the purse aside, the woman pulls another blade from her trousers and stabs the civilian security guard standing by. The security guard, working for a private firm, was still recuperating from his moderate wounds on Wednesday. The video seems to not be direct footage, but footage of a closed-circuit TV surveillance camera’s output. The date “10/25/2009″ appears faintly at the bottom of the screen early in the clip.

The Israeli newspaper reported that “An investigation was launched to find the source that leaked the video to YouTube.” That language is not quite accurate, though, since the video-sharing site is not a news organization but a platform that lets anyone upload video to the site directly. Someone simply decided to upload this video to YouTube in the immediate aftermath of the small storm of controversy caused by the other video showing an attack on the West Bank. It is impossible to say if the video of the Palestinian attack was uploaded in response to the video of the Israeli attack. It may have been a sort of reply to the first video, or the timing may have been entirely coincidental.

What is certain is that, just as supporters of the Palestinian cause drew attention to the clip of the Israeli attack, supporters of the Israeli settlers shared and discussed and reposted the clip of the Palestinian attack.

The Israeli blogger and radio host Tamar Yonah embedded the video in a post headlined “Arab Woman Stabs Jew — Caught on video!” Ms. Yonah introduced the video this way: