Legislators Call On Twitter To Ban Hamas

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Hill: "The past week's violence in Gaza has rekindled calls for Twitter to shutter the accounts of U.S.-labeled terror groups such as Hamas. Seven House Republicans asked the FBI in September to demand that Twitter take down the accounts of U.S.-designated terrorist groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Somalia's al Shabaab. The letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller was spearheaded by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who said Wednesday that the recent events vindicated the request. 'Allowing foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas to operate on Twitter is enabling the enemy,' [Poe said] 'Failure to block access arms them with the ability to freely spread their violent propaganda and mobilize in their War on Israel.'"

Comments

Re:Most Israelis have other concerns

[websitebroke]

do you realize that, in moslem countries, the literacy rate is so low its almost non-existant?

Erm, sorry, that's just bullshit: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2103.html

Even the Gaza Strip has a 92% literacy rate. Not even close to non-existant.

Re:Bullshit

[CdBee]

Is that not because Israel in a treaty with Egypt required that that border be closed and all who cross it must do so with Israeli permission?

Re:Bullshit

[Artifakt]

The Palestinian people are a problem for Egypt, Syria and others. That's because they are viewed as a problem by those regimes. Many of the Arab nations have either very low immigration quotas for Palestinians or allow no immigration at all by them. They commonly speak of the Palestinians as shiftless bums and born criminals, both as an attitude the majority of people seem to hold and sometimes in official government statements. These nations track violent activites by Hamas and others and keep lists of Palestinians who are dangerous and will never be allowed to stay in those Arab nations or even travel through those countries except with close supervision as part of support for their actions against Israel. How severe this is varies - with Egypt usually being better than, say, Syria about it, but it's a real part of the problem, with Arab governments wanting to endorse 'freedom fighters' whom they don't trust all that much otherwise.
        This relationship between the Arab states and Hamas, etc. is often in some ways like the US propping up banana republics and turning a blind eye towards torture and lack of free elections in them, or the former Soviet Union supporting proto-communist movements in Africa or South America while all the time saying 'those people' will never really understand true communism. There's always elements of paternalism and racism driving such relationships, and so they end up contributing to the very problems they hope to solve. All this is not to deny Israel's responsibilities for such things as barbed wire fences and armed checkpoints, and other actions such as allowing illegal settlements or not prosecuting soldiers who aim those rubber 'mercy' bullets at the face at short range.