Israel Accuses Facebook Of Aiding Terrorists and Hampering Police Investigations (reuters.com)

"The young generation in the Palestinian Authority suckles all of its incitement against Israel from Facebook and, in the end, goes and commits murders," Israel's Minister of Internal Security said Saturday. "Some of the blood of the victims of the recent attacks...is unfortunately on the hands of Mark Zuckerberg, because the police and security forces could have been told about the post of that vile murderer." Reuters calls the remarks "ramping up the pressure" as Israel prepares legislation which would allow it to order social media sites to remove posts it considered threatening. The security minister says Facebook currently "sets a very high bar for removing inciteful content and posts" and "sabotages the work of the Israeli police" by being uncooperative.

Facebook responded that there's "no room for content that promotes violence, direct threats, terrorist or hate speeches on our platform." BetaNews writes that "while Facebook waits for content to be reported before acting, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said that the site should be pro-active in seeking out offending content instead."

Comments

Israel abuses human rights

[Anonymous Coward]

The war crimes committed in Lebanon and Gaza are awful. I despise Hamas and Hezbollah; they cannot be justified. However, the use of cluster bombs in southern Lebanon is inexcusable. How about Israel submits their leaders for war crimes prosecution and then we'll talk?

Re: Israel abuses human rights

[PopeRatzo]

I want everyone to take a close look at the URL of this guy's citation of a "survey of respected Generals from around the world".

www.high-level-military-group.org

Can anyone else spot the clue that it's bogus?

OK, now take a loot at the "In The Media" section from that website. Can you spot the single issue that appears to be the sole reason for this group of "respected Generals from around the world" to exist?

http://www.high-level-military...

You have to be able to know when you're being had.

Here's a novel idea

[Nidi62]

If you want the Palestinians to stop attacking Israelis a good step would be to stop the settlements, closely followed by not tearing down peoples' houses every time a family member commits a crime against an israeli. You are making the Palestinians not care any more. And when people don't care they will do anything.

Re:Here's a novel idea

[Anonymous Coward]

So settlements is the excuse now? What was the Palestinians' excuse during the 1929 Safed Riots, or the 1929 Hebron Massacre, or the 1938 Tiberias Massacre, or the 1834 Safed Massacre, or the the 1517 Safed Massacre, or the 1838 attack on Safed, or the 1834 Hebron Massacre, or the 1660 Destruction of Safed, or the 1660 Destruction of Tiberias?

All of those occurred before Israel was even formed. Between the formation of Israel and the first constructed settlement (1948-1967), there were an average of just over 3.2 attacks on civilians per year originating in the Jordan-controlled West Bank, ignoring the multiple actual wars that were started.

When Israel entirely withdrew from all Gaza settlements in 2005, they were immediately met with an increase of violence, not less.

So is there *any* reason to believe the Palestinians -- the same people who overwhelmingly support the government that holds this kind of shit at their schools -- would stop attacking civilians if the settlements are disbanded?

Fuck no. The settlements are just a convenient excuse, not that the Palestinians need one to kill teh joos.

Re:Here's a novel idea

[St.Creed]

To discuss "The Palestinians" in the context of the ancient history is rather farfetched - under the Ottoman empire it is difficult to say whether the Palestinians identified themselves as Palestinians . Going into detail on your examples, Safed 1517 seems to be a case of anti-semitism during wartime, in the case of 1660 Tiberias/Safed it was the Druze who attacked, for reasons not immediately apparent. In modern times, Druze do not identify as Palestinians. Hebron 1834... was a case of a day of rape and pillage by an army after a 5 months siege, in which there were a grand total of 12 casualties. Calling that a massacre seems more a propaganda piece than a massacre. especially as the Arab population suffered over 500 casualties during that same day. But they don't really count in your examples, do they?

The 1929 riots are more interesting. To quote wikipedia: "The Shaw Commission found that the fundamental cause of the violence "without which in our opinion disturbances either would not occurred or would not have been little more than a local riot, is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future."[ It also attributed the cause as being Arab fears of Jewish immigrants "not only as a menace to their livelihood but as a possible overlord of the future."

With the benefit of hindsight we might say they had a point.

When Israel entirely withdrew from all Gaza settlements in 2005, they were immediately met with an increase of violence, not less.

Is that so strange? It is quite obvious to all involved why Israel withdrew: it would make it possible to stall peace negotiations for much longer, it would bottle the Palestines up in West Gaza, a much smaller area than the original plans show, and holding the settlements was politically impossible if Israel wanted to keep up relations with the rest of the world. This was realized by the Palestines as well.

So is there *any* reason to believe the Palestinians -- the same people who overwhelmingly support the government that holds this kind of shit [youtube.com] at their schools -- would stop attacking civilians if the settlements are disbanded?

There are loads of reasons to think that the attacks will *never* stop until the settlements are disbanded, for several reasons.
1) the settlers are responsible for a lot of violence themselves. They are a huge part of the problem as they depend economically on the conflict. They do not want peace and do everything possible to stir up trouble. Shutting down the settlements would be a very small first step in normalizing the situation.
2) the settlements use up a lot of water which is scarce in the area. They are connected by roads that the rest of the inhabitants are barred from even crossing, and occupy strategic areas with fertile lands.
3) It is a visible reminder of the fact the population is controlled by outside soldiers.
Removing the settlements won't stop the attacks on civilians (although it will stop attacks on settlements), but it is at least a start towards a solution.

As for Hamas, yeah, they're wankers. It's not as if Israeli politicians are immune to the hatred though: rabbi Dov Lior (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_Lior) is at least as big a wanker as any member of Hamas.

Just go look for yourself

[ITRambo]

Israel is upset that Facebook didn't spy for them? State's have their own spy organizations that do that stuff. Get off your asses and go look for yourself to see what's posted. Why would any country expect a foreign organization to do their work for them? That's outlandish and pretty damn lazy.