In further effort to tackle the roots of Palestinian incitement against Jews, Israel has established a new online task force to identify and target problematic posts on social media. Last week, Google and YouTube promised to assist in this campaign.
Israel has been suffering from an endless wave of Palestinian terror attacks over the past two and half months, a wave of terror which has been driven by incitement and lies spread about Israel.
Social media, the internet and other online tools have been key in disseminating this deadly malicious campaign in an effective way.
As part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ campaign against online incitement, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely met last week with YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and with Jennifer Downes, Director of Public Policy at Google at the company’s Silicon Valley offices.
Deputy Minister Hotovely was briefed on the companies’ system for identifying video clips which incite to violence.
In the meetings, Hotovely raised the problem of incitement which goads small children to go out and stab innocent Israeli victims.
“The daily stabbings in Israel are a result of young boys and girls who are indoctrinated from an early age in the Palestinian education system and through social media. We are engaged daily in confronting incitement to violence, a task which can benefit greatly from the cooperation of those companies that are involved in social media.”
The majority of Palestinian terrorists who carried out terror attacks were aged 11-21, those who are active on social media.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry is itself establishing a monitoring body which will combat online incitement. The body will track down inciting materials and will report them to the respective hosting sites.
The new group will also become active online and will publish pro-Israel materials.
Hotovely said this new entity was a “big step” in the war against online incitement.
By: Max Gelber, United with Israel