Arab Israelis Sentenced for Inciting Terror on Facebook

The sentences come on the heels of Muslim religious leader from Lod being indicted for incitement.

By Pesach Benson, United With Israel

The Ramla Magistrates Court sentenced two Arab-Israelis to 16 months in prison for posting material on Facebook glorifying and praising terror, TPS News reported on Monday.

One of the defendants, Kamal Tenos, of the central city of Ramla, was convicted of two counts of inciting terrorism and multiple counts of praising terror acts, terror organizations and the terrorists themselves.

According to TPS, both persisted in their Facebook posts for a period of more than three years despite having been questioned by authorities and warned not to continue.

Prosecutors argued that the posts needed to be taken seriously due to the risk of the posts leading to acts of terror.

The sentences come on the heels of a separate case of a Muslim religious leader from Lod being indicted for incitement on Friday.

Haaretz reported that Sheikh Yusuf Albaz was arrested after giving a sermon in Lod’s Great Mosque accusing Israel of “interfering” at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. The sheikh was also charged over a Facebook post lauding the “brave” Palestinians “preventing the dissection of Al-Aqsa with their blood.”

Albaz is affiliated with the outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Last year, he was indicted for posting on Facebook a video of two Israeli police officers being killed during riots in Lod. Albaz captioned the video, “The best way to deal with injustice.”