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The demonization of Israel through the social media is a thriving industry. Both on Twitter and Facebook, there are no shortage of users who spend their days spreading hate and vitriol (often including implicit, and sometimes explicit, calls for violence against Israelis).
Here’s one Facebook page advancing the cause of anti-Zionism, and expressions of hate towards Israelis, which hasn’t come close to reaching its goal of 100 million supporters, but has still garnered nearly 30,000 “Likes”.
The page includes this video.
As if there was any doubt as to the goal of these “activists”, those commenting on the wall include NoIsrael# next to their name.
Here’s a subtle message conveyed by a subscriber to the page:
I reported the page to Facebook as a clear violation of their terms of service, particularly this passage:
You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or incites violence
So, far the page has still not been removed, so please consider reporting it, by going to the left hand side of the site, and clicking the “Report Page” link.
Finally, here’s a screen capture from one scene in the video above.
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- Richard Silverstein Gullibility Watch: The anti-Zionist “journalist” gets fooled again. (cifwatch.com)
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- Why is an essay on alleged Israeli racism in the “Jewish Belief” section of ‘Comment is Free’? (cifwatch.com)
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The Facebook message posted by prominent Saudi cleric, Dr. Awad al-Qarni, which offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who abducts Israeli soldiers, has been removed from his page.
Here’s the text of his message, as we reported yesterday:
“Media has reported the news that Zionist settlers pay huge amounts of money to those who would kill the released Palestinian prisoners. In order to answer these criminals, I declare to the world that any Palestinian who captures – inside Palestine [by which he means, all of Israel] - an Israeli soldier in order to exchange him for prisoners, I promise to pay him a reward and prize totaling one hundred thousand dollars.”
Here’s a screen capture of the original message, in Arabic, as it looked yesterday:
Now, when you try to open the link to the message, you get this:
So, thanks to all the readers and fellow bloggers who complained to Facebook that the cleric’s post represented an egregious violation of FB’s terms of service.
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It’s been reported on Ynet that, a week after the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, top Saudi cleric Dr. Awad al-Qarni began offering a $100,000 reward to anyone who kidnaps more Israeli soldiers – in a message he posted on Facebook.
Al-Qarni’s call was in response to an ad published by the Libman family offering a reward for anyone who catches the person who murdered their relative Shlomo Libman, who was killed by terrorists near the settlement of Yitzhar in 1998.
Al-Qarni is a famous Muslim cleric who often appears on Saudi TV shows and operates his own website where he discusses various religious law issues.
Here’s al-Qarni’s Facebook page.
Here’s a screen capture of the status update calling for the abduction.
While you can use the translate function on your browser, here’s a more precise translation of the text provided by a CiF Watch supporter who works as professional Arabic translator:
“Media has reported the news that Zionist settlers pay huge amounts of money to those who would kill the released Palestinian prisoners. In order to answer these criminals, I declare to the world that any Palestinian who captures – inside Palestine [by which he means, all of Israel] - an Israeli soldier in order to exchange him for prisoners, I promise to pay him a reward and prize totaling one hundred thousand dollars.”
The message has received over 1,800 “Likes” so far, and hundreds of laudatory comments.
To report this sick call to abduct Israelis to Facebook – as a violation of their terms of service which prohibits “incitement to violence” – go to the cleric’s FB message, here. When, you hover your cursor to the right of the message you’ll see an “X”, which will open up hyper-linked text allowing you to report it as abuse.
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This was written by Dr. Andre Oboler, and originally was published by the Jerusalem Post. Oboler is co-chair of the Online Antisemitism Working Group of the Global Forum to Combat Antisemitism.
It’s been over three years since the issue of Holocaust denial on Facebook was first raised. The truly amazing thing is that after countless protests, petitions, letters and meetings with experts, Facebook continues to refuse to recognise Holocaust denial as a form of hate. The social media platform continues to make a special exception and would rather spin and stonewall than fix a bad policy.
The danger today comes more from Facebook’s own position than from the content itself. The $70 billion dollar company’s refusal to recognise that Holocaust denial is a form of hate has continued despite advice and research from numerous experts. Facebook’s various justifications and efforts to redefine the issue seem to be the only thing that changes.
When the leading international experts on online antisemitism gathered in Jerusalem last month, the issue of Facebook’s policy on Holocaust Denial was one of many issues on the agenda. The Online Antisemitism Working Group meeting covered a comprehensive review of conferences and research reports on online hate from around the world. The experts examined new challenges that result from technological innovation, discussed recent incidents, and reviewed past challenges that were enumerated when the working group last met at the Global Forum to Combat Antisemitism in 2009.
The increased concern on the Facebook Holocaust denial situation resulted from a lack of progress over the past two years and growing frustration in the expert community. In 2010 it had seemed Facebook had changed their policy without publically announcing it, but in 2011 more Holocaust denial groups appeared to be making a comeback and Facebook reasserted it’s position that Holocaust denial in and of itself was not considered by the company to be hateful. In truth, many groups and pages were only removed when the media specifically named them or published photographs of them. Experts who had met with Facebook on behalf of their own organizations had begun to feel they were going in circles. There was not much more to be said, all the arguments had been laid out before Facebook, the logical conclusion was obvious, and yet no progress was being made.
A video conference with a senior manager from Facebook was productive on a number of other issues, particularly the question of the responsibility users with special privileges should have. In the meeting Facebook requested a policy paper discussing this proposal in more depth. The Holocaust denial issue however remained an irrational sticking point that was embedded in an unwritten corporate policy. Following further discussion, the working group co-chairs, David Matas and myself, wrote to Mark Zuckerberg to explain that Holocaust denial was in and of itself hate speech and that Facebook’s exception for “historical events” led to an inconsistency in its policies. All hate speech should be treated the same, to do otherwise is to condones certain forms of hate. Not only was no reply forthcoming, even the policy paper that was sent to Facebook at their request received no acknowledgement.
Of all the issue of online hate the working group discussed, Facebook’s Holocaust Denial policy appeared to be the only one where a company was clearly saying “won’t” rather than “can’t”. Technical problems have technical solutions; the experts on the Global Forum Working Group discussed such solutions, shared knowledge and brainstormed on new approaches. When people refuse to recognise the danger of Holocaust denial, that is a human problem, and a danger to much of the fabric of human rights in modern society. It was in response to the Holocaust and the global desire to avoid a repetition of history that much of the modern human rights framework was created.
Holocaust survivors will not be with us forever, and once they are gone it will become increasingly difficult to convince people the Holocaust really happened. Denial will become more popular and more acceptable. The Nazi’s told their victims no one would believe them even if they did survive because the reality was just so implausible. If we struggle to understand the danger when the survivors themselves write to us, as they recently wrote to Facebook, then how are we as a society going to fair once they are gone?
To see Facebook ignoring the danger and denying the hateful nature of Holocaust denial is deeply concerning. To see the ethnicity of Jewish staff brought up in official statements to support the company’s assertion that it must know what it is doing, even while ignoring the warning of so many experts, is troubling. Technology however continues to change, and with the rise of Google+, Facebook may soon have real competition. Having a choice of platform will restore power to the public and may see the start of a race to retain users. When this happens it will be up to society to assert loudly and strongly that hate has no place in our online communities, and that Holocaust denial is no exception. I wonder if we are ready for that challenge?
The comprehensive report of the Online Antisemitism Working Group, including many recommendations for different sectors of society, will be published later this year. I hope by then we will be able to report that Facebook has had a change of heart.
H/T Jonathan Hoffman
It looks like anti-Ahava protesters aren’t all that happy about the possibility that the Ahava store in London may be moving to a more Jewish area and will likely be closed on Saturdays, the day of the BDS movement’s weekly protest outside the store.
Per their Facebook Page:
So, it seems like the boycotters aren’t too happy about the possible decision by the Israeli owned store to “play the Jew card”, feel that Jews need to be educated on the atrocities their fellow Jews are committing in the “name of never again“, and that BDS proponents need to counter “100 years of Zionist brainwashing”.
As we’re constantly being reminded, such folks are “progressives” and “peace activists.” No, no hate here.
Related articles
- Spineless in the UK (cifwatch.com)
- Protests drive Ahava out of Covent Garden (thejc.com)
- Bollan suggests moral equivalence between Israel’s war in Gaza and Nazi Holocaust against Jews (cifwatch.com)
This is cross posted by Dr. Andre Oboler, who is the Zionist Federation of Australia’s Community Internet Engagement Director on technology, digital diplomacy and anti-Semitism 2.0. This essay originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post.
In the last week the Facebook group for the Third Intifada made headlines around the world. First in the Arabic language press, advertising and supporting it, then in the Jewish and Israeli press condemning it, and finally in the mainstream media always thirsty for more stories of ‘cycles of violence’ in the Middle East and perhaps sensing a bloodletting was in the pipeline. Real world events, in the form of unrelated Palestinian terror attacks, provided a backdrop.
The Third Intifada page has now been taken down, yet others are rapidly springing up in its place. A leading member of Fatah, Demetri Deliani, told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa that “Minister Yuli Edelstein needs lessons in human rights and freedom of expression as he is not aware of the world’s respect for individual opinion”. Edelstein is of course not only Israel’s Minister for Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, he is also a human rights hero. Born in the Soviet Union, in what is today Ukraine, Edelstein spent his twenties illegally teaching Hebrew and promoting aliyah. The authorities eventually caught up with him and he spent three years in a soviet labor camp.
It is his personal experience that gives Edelstein an insight into the balance between the human right of freedom of expression, and the responsibility to protect other human rights, like life and physical safety. Yuli holds not only a mandate to tackle antisemitism as part of his ministerial portfolio, he was also made chair of the Working Group on online hate of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism, a group of Parliamentarians and experts from over 40 countries. It was Yuli, in his personal capacity, and not in his official capacity as Minister Edelstein, who wrote to Facebook.
Perhaps Facebook initially failed to appreciate the significance of that.
Demetri Deliani is assuming people everywhere will value freedom of expression so highly they that they will allow its use for any purpose. Perhaps he is right, and this is how people at Facebook, in their naivety, would like to see it. After all, it suits their business purpose, they more content they can publish, without having to implement safe guards, or take any responsibility for the deaths, violence, suicides and mental harm that can result, the higher their profit margins. Imagine the cost to Facebook if they had liability in the same way the owner of a hall has when they rented it out for a gathering they know may be unsafe and might turn to violence. Perhaps it is self-interest and not naivety that drives Facebook to keep the standards low and the intervention slow.
The official explanation from Facebook has been that the group became a problem only very recently. As Andrew Noyes, Facebook’s public policy communications manager, tells it, “after the publicity of the page, more comments deteriorated to direct calls for violence”, he added that the page admin then made calls for violence too. This is nothing but spin. The calls for violence were there from the start. The administrators actions were consistent throughout. Those of us who were watching it for weeks and months can testify to this. What changed for Facebook was the public outcry. This is the same pattern we saw in 2008 with the group declaring Israel was not a country, the first documented case of antisemitism 2.0. Facebook cares not for values, but for business interests, and enough public outcry and negative press becomes a business liability.
A system where companies, like Facebook, can facilitate human rights violations when it is in their business interest is a system that needs fixing. Companies must be accountable. Human rights do not only apply when they are popular and can garner public outrage and media attention. Facebook’s responsibility to close a group advocating violence arose when the first complaint was made. The number of complaints should not matter, only the fact that the clock has started and Facebook should respond in reasonable time. I still believe we need legislation to make this the law.
In the mean time, there are new pages and groups carrying forward the third intifada message. Some of these are new replacement groups and pages, others are older groups and pages that have adopted this popular call for violence as a way of increasing their membership. One page I saw had over a million members. It’s up to Facebook to set the standard and remove all these groups the minute their administrators turn to advocating violence, or fail to properly administer the flow of comments.
A cynic might draw comparison between the battle to remove the pages of hate, as more continually spring up, and the myth of Sisyphus, who was punished by the gods to spend all eternity pushing a rock up a hill, watching it roll down, and then starting again. The first lesson is from the myth itself, some say Sisyphus beat the gods by taking joy from ownership of the rock. We too can take joy, or at least pride, for standing up against hate in all its forms. A more practical lesson is one I adapt from lecture Dr Boaz Ganor gave. He was speaking on counter terrorism strategies and said there were only two: either you decrease the desire for terrorism, or you decrease the capacity to deliver. In our context, each time a group or page is removed, that community must rebuild from scratch. It’s a setback, it disrupts communication, and it stops the growth of hate. Ultimately they may get tired of it and take their hate to another platform, but even if they don’t, the response it helpful. It outlines what is right and what is wrong, and it inhibits those seeking to use the power of social media for ill.
Ultimately the causes of hate need to be addressed, but that does not mean removing hate groups and pages is a futile task. Meantime, at least down here in Australia at the Community Internet Engagement Project, we continue to work on more long-term solutions.
The limiting factor is not the need for change, or the lack of a plan, its dollars. I’m told once you reduce the problem to that, solutions are possible. As the number of hate groups grow, I can only hope that prediction holds true, if it does a year from now our plans will have been implemented and we will all be living in a very different reality.
This is cross posted from Backspin, the blog of Honest Reporting (See original CiF Watch post on the issue, here.)
Despite previous statements saying they would monitor but not remove the controversial Facebook group calling for a Third Intifada, Facebook administrators shut down the group early Tuesday morning in response to enormous pressure from pro-Israel activists. All links to the group now go to users personal Facebook profile.
The group had been calling for a march on Israel to “liberate” Palestine beginning on May 15. It remains to be seen how Facebook will respond if similar groups emerge with similar message of a Third Intifada.
New media expert Andre Oboler, one of the first to discover the group was down, told HonestReporting that Facebook made the correct decision shutting down the group. “It’s about time,” he said. “Facebook needs to learn to distinguish between the right to ‘attack’ conceptual ideas, and the ‘wrong’ of attacking people be it because of their race, religion, nationality or political view. When they start to understand that, perhaps they will stop making so many mistakes.”
See our previous post on the issue for background on the issue.
H/T Israel Matzav
A Facebook group - said to be supported by a yet unnamed Arabic TV Network – calling for a third violent intifada in Israel has garnered over 40,000 supporters.
Despite the above threat (to boycott Facebook if the page is closed), note that Facebook’s user agreement quite explicitly prohibits such incitement to violence:
“You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”
So, anyone interested in acting to prevent another deadly campaign of terror against Israelis should click on the link “Report Page” located just under the number of “Likes” on the left hand side of the page (graphic below), and submit the “anonymous” complaint under the appropriate category.
(UPDATE on March 10: The page still hasn’t been removed and has now garnered over 75,000 members.)
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2010 was a year of consistent growth at CiF Watch, both in terms of measurables – for instance: the number of unique daily visitors to our site increased, and JTA listed us in their top 100 most influential Jewish Twitterers (a quite respectable 59th) – and in more intangible ways, such as the fact that in a very crowded blogosphere, CiF Watch is clearly not only “on the map”, but has become a true force to be reckoned with.
Future posts will note some of the more important highlights of the past year but, moving forward, we want to introduce you to our new free monthly e-newsletter, which we’re just about to launch, and ask that you sign-up, by clicking here.
Also, if you haven’t already begun following us on Twitter, please go here.
And, finally, please “Like” our Facebook group.
2011 is upon us, and CiF Watch, Version 2.0, is about to launch!
H/T Harry’s Place
Guardian contributor Rachel Shabi, frequent and vociferous critic of the Jewish state (See CW posts here, here and here) also just happens to be Facebook friends with notorious anti-Semite, Israel Shamir. (Shamir, its worth noting, is also FB friends with Norman Finkelstein, Lauren Booth, Philip Weiss, and Ken O’Keefe.)
Just to be clear about what a prolific anti-Semite Shamir is, here are a few highlights.
- He’s said: “It’s every Muslim and Christian’s duty to deny the Holocaust.”
- He’s described Jews as “virus in human form.”
- He’s endorsed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
- He’s Stated: Palestine is not the ultimate goal of the Jews; The world is. Palestine is just the place for the world state headquarters.”
It kind of puts everything she’s written about Israel in perspective doesn’t it?
This is cross-posted at the blog, Adam Holland
What does it mean to “like” someone on Facebook? Salon Columnist Glenn Greenwald says that he is a fan of anti-Israel conspiracy theorist Alan Hart. I wonder why. (See screenshot from Hart’s website above. Hart’s Facebook widget featuring Greenwald’s image is located on the right side.)
Does Greenwald share Alan Hart’s belief that, on 9/11, Israeli agents controlled the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center via remote control devices hidden in cell phones? Does he agree with Hart that Israel has stolen nuclear weapons from a U.S. military base and intends to use them to destroy an American city? (Read my column documenting Hart’s conspiracy theories here.) In May, Hart not only made those bizarre assertions, he also claimed in radio/podcast interviews with conspiracy mongers Kevin Barrett and Alex Jones that he had proof that the World Trade towers were destroyed by controlled demolition, i.e. that explosives had been planted within the buildings and were detonated after the plane crashes to bring down the towers. (This implausible belief is an essential part of truther conspiracy theories.) Hart said in those interviews that his proof for this controlled demolition conspiracy, which he claimed came from a source within “one of the world’s leading engineering firms”, resided on a laptop to which he didn’t then have access because he was away from home on a U.S. speaking tour. That was more than four months ago, and Hart has still not come forward with the computer file that, if it actually existed, would undoubtedly provide him with the biggest scoop of his career as a journalist. Maybe Hart just hasn’t gotten around to looking for it.
I don’t believe that Greenwald shares Alan Hart’s belief in these bizarre theories, but his “liking” Hart does raise the question: how crazy does an anti-Zionist have to be to be too crazy for Glenn to like?
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Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Israeli Jews characterized as Nazis on the ‘Air Flotilla 2′ Facebook account
April 6, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Facebook, Flytilla, Hamas, Nazi Analogies, Pippa Bartolotti, Swansea Palestine Community Link, Syrian National Party, Terrorism, Welcome to Palestine | by Guest/Cross Post | 18 comments
A guest post by Hadar Sela
As mentioned in the recent CiF Watch report on the upcoming ‘Air Flotilla 2′ – otherwise known as ‘Welcome to Palestine’ – the initiative is supported by a plethora of groups from the United Kingdom, all of which are defined by their supposed ‘solidarity’ with the Palestinian cause as a raison d’etre. One of those groups is the ‘Swansea Palestine Community Link‘ from South Wales.
Members of that group are no strangers to the ‘flytilla’ concept, with several of them having taken part in the abortive 2011 provocation. As reported by CiF Watch at the time:
Joyce Giblin (left) and Pippa Bartolotti (right).
Also from Wales come the last two members of the British delegation to the ‘flytilla’: 46 year-old Swansea council worker Fiona Williams from Mumbles who is also involved in Swansea Action for Palestine and 56 year-old book-keeper Dee Murphy from Swansea who is a founder of the Swansea-Palestine Community Link.
Dee Murphy (left) and Fiona Williams (right)
Ms. Murphy seems to make quite a hobby out of getting herself arrested; she is half of what is apparently known as ‘the Tesco two’ and spent eight days in custody following a January 2009 incident in a local supermarket.
Here is Dee Murphy explaining her actions at the time, prior to being arrested:
Less than a month before that incident, Dee Murphy had super-glued herself to the entrance barriers at BBC Wales in Cardiff. Her fellow ‘flytilla’ memberFiona Williams told the press at the time that the reason for the action was that the BBC’s coverage of Operation Cast Lead was “pro-Israeli”.
Here is Dee Murphy once again.
There is, however, a less quaintly eccentric side to these women, as can be seen in the casual (and apparently unremarkable) use of Nazi analogies on the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ Facebook wall.
Whilst the majority of people might find it distinctly worrying that those who inhabit this echo-chamber can apparently see no fault in invoking antisemitic Nazi analogies as “legitimate criticism” and yet in the next breath declare themselves to be the victims of “spurious smear campaigns”, it is also worth remembering that they apparently have no criticism of their revered co-activist and local minor celeb who sees nothing wrong in posing with of an existing Nazi party or withwho clearly state their genocidal aspirations.
Pippa Bartolotti in Syria – posing with the flag of the SSNP
Pippa Bartolotti in Gaza – posing with Hamas’ Mahmoud al Zahar
Finally, a clue as to why Ms. Giblin sprang to the defense of Bartolotti in the above thread can be found on her list of friends displayed on her Facebook page:
(Note to Ms. Giblin: You may want to change your Facebook security settings!)
What the ladies of the Swansea Palestine Action Link obviously do not appreciate is that there is neither need nor intention to “smear” them. That, they are doing very effectively by themselves.
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