Abbas’s Fatah Party Promotes Terror on Facebook, Says Media Watchdog

Palestinian Media Watch is demanding that Facebook shut down the “Fatah-Facebook Terror Promotion Partnership.”

By Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media Watch

Fatah, like all terror promoting organizations, needs a platform to turn its unknown terrorists into heroes and role models to emulate. Fatah has chosen Facebook as its prime tool, and through its Facebook page instantaneously promotes terror to its 224,000 Facebook followers.

PMW again demands that Facebook immediately close down Fatah’s official page before more innocent lives are lost to murderers who are inspired and drawn to terror by Fatah’s Facebook page.

In January 2019, Palestinian Media Watch sent a copy to Facebook officials of our comprehensive report on Fatah’s Facebook page documenting Fatah’s use of its official Facebook page to promote terror and glorify terrorists throughout 2018. PMW director Itamar Marcus spoke with the Director of Facebook’s Global Counterterrorism Policy Team, Brian Fishman, and described how Fatah’s use of Facebook for its terror promotion was both life threatening and in violation of Facebook’s Community Standards.

Tragically, in spite of the clear documentation, Facebook has chosen to knowingly let Fatah continue.

PMW’s new report on Fatah’s use of Facebook from January to June 2019 shows that Facebook still constitutes a central part of Fatah’s terror promotion mechanism. Facebook’s willingness to ignore all the evidence and keep the page open makes Facebook a willing and active partner in Fatah’s terror promotion. Whereas in 2018 Facebook was an unwitting accomplice in Fatah’s terror promotion, in 2109, Facebook is a partner by choice.

During their conversation, Facebook’s Director of the Global Counterterrorism Policy Team Fishman assured Marcus that Facebook would continue to follow PMW’s exposure of Fatah’s misuse of Facebook and would close it down if it violated Facebook’s rules.

Facebook did not honor this commitment. PMW has flagged many Fatah posts and notified Facebook repeatedly during 2019, but Facebook has refused to remove any of them:

“It doesn’t go against one of our specific Community Standards… We understand that it may still be offensive or distasteful to you, so we want to help you see less of things like it… You can block حركة التحرير الوطني الفلسطيني ” فتح “/الصفحة الرسمية [Fatah’s Facebook page] directly, or you may be able to unfriend or unfollow them.”

Facebook’s response was this: If it’s “distasteful” to PMW that Facebook is allowing itself to be used by Fatah to celebrate the murder of Israelis and promote murder of additional Israeli men, women, and children – then just don’t look. Pretend it doesn’t exist.

What is “offensive” and horrific is Facebook’s indifference to the murder of Israelis that Fatah is promoting through its platform. Facebook was created “to build community and bring the world closer together,” not to build easy communication lines to promote terror. For Facebook to allow its platform to be used this way is abhorrent.