Israel Meets With Google and YouTube To Discuss Censoring Videos (middleeastmonitor.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Various sources report Israel's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Tzipi Hotovely meeting with representatives of Google and YouTube to discuss censoring Palestinian videos believed to incite violence. Original aricle (in Hebrew) from Maariv The open question is how Google and Youtube will define "inciting violence." Currently, all foreign journalists in the Palestinian territories are required to register with the Israeli military, and all footage must be approved through the Israeli Military Censor's office before being released. However, according to the article in alternet individual Palestinians have been uploading videos showing violence by Israeli soldiers, including execution-style killings, and highlighting the living conditions in the territories, which Israeli authorities consider inflammatory.

Comments

Not true

[Anonymous Coward]

There are plenty of videos that show what living conditions in the West Bank look like. The most accurate ones are by Corey Gil Shuster, where he talks to the average Palestinian and asks pointed questions.

Not just arabs, he also asks Jews obnoxious questions posed by his audience. As someone who's been there and lived on both sides of the green line, I can tell you first hand how good his videos are.

Palestinians will always be the first to lie to you and tell you they're living in squalor. But their digs are first world. The biggest complaint arabs have is checkpoints. The biggest complaint Jews in Israel have is checkpoints. That much, the average person agrees on.

Gaza is another story. There you have a more extreme class divide, much higher unemployment rates, a lot more poverty; though, still doing pretty good when compared to the rest of the arab world. That said, it's also fair to point out that Gaza hasn't been managed by Israel in almost ten years. And they didn't have to burn their bridges with Egypt. They chose to do that.

Re:Violence!

[nbauman]

I'll play devil's advocate:

Firstly, the mandatory [citation needed].

OK, I'll give you your citation.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/...

GE.09-15866
UNITED NATIONS
A General Assembly Distr.
GENERAL
A/HRC/12/48
25 September 2009
Original: ENGLISH
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Twelfth session
Agenda item 7
HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE AND OTHER OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES
Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict

7. Deliberate attacks against the civilian population

43. The Mission investigated 11 incidents in which the Israeli armed forces launched direct attacks against civilians with lethal outcome (chap. XI). The facts in all bar one of the attacks indicate no justifiable military objective. The first two are attacks on houses in the al-Samouni neighbourhood south of Gaza City, including the shelling of a house in which Palestinian civilians had been forced to assemble by the Israeli armed forces. The following group of seven incidents concern the shooting of civilians while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags and, in some of the cases, following an injunction from the Israeli forces to do so. The facts gathered by the Mission indicate that all the attacks occurred under circumstances in which the Israeli armed forces were in control of the area and had previously entered into contact with or had at least observed the persons they subsequently attacked, so that they must have been aware of their civilian status. In the majority of these incidents, the consequences of the Israeli attacks against civilians were aggravated by their subsequent refusal to allow the evacuation of the wounded or to permit access to ambulances.

A/HRC/12/48
page 174
witness's recollection, there had also been a radio message broadcast by the Israeli armed forces around 12.30 announcing that there would be a temporary cessation of shooting between 1 and 4 p.m. that day, during which time residents of the area were asked to walk to central Jabaliyah.

773. At about 12.50 p.m., Khalid Abd Rabbo, his wife Kawthar, their three daughters, Souad (aged 9), Samar (aged 5) and Amal (aged 3), and his mother, Hajja Souad Abd Rabbo, stepped out of the house, all of them carrying white flag s. Less than 10 metres from the door was a tank, turned towards their house. Two soldiers were sitting on top of it having a snack (one was eating chips, the other chocolate, according to one of the witnesses). The family stood still, waiting for orders from the soldiers as to what they should do, but none was given. Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother. Several bullets hit Souad in the chest, Amal in the stomach and Samar in the back. Hajja Souad was hit in the lower back and in the left arm.

775. Inside the Abed Rabbo house, Amal and Souad died of their wounds. The family decided that they had to make an attempt to walk to Jabalya and take Samar, the dead bodies of Amal and Souad, and their grandmother to hospital. Khaled and Kawthar Abd Rabbo, and other family members and neighbours carried the girls on their shoulders. Hajja Souad was carried by family and neighbours on a bed. Samar was transferred to al-Shifa hospital and then, through Egypt, to Belgium, where she still is in hospital. According to her parents, Samar suffered a spinal injury and will remain paraplegic for the rest of her life.

This has been documented by the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others, who actually interviewed the eyewitnesses. The Israeli government never interviewed the eyewitnesses, and never conducted an investigation that they talked about.

You can search for "white flag" and get repeated incidents in which Israel