Social Media Erupts with Vile Comparisons of Israel to Coronavirus Attacking Palestinians

Palestinians attempt to copy coronavirus pandemic into their narrative, equating Israel to the deadly virus and spreading propaganda on social media.

By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel

A vile Palestinian social media campaign is comparing Israel to the coronavirus and showing the influx of Jews in 1948 as a virus attacking the Palestinians.

The propaganda campaign is pushing the #Covid1948 hashtag on Twitter with a wild array of inciting graphics and blatantly false allegations as the Palestinians mark “Nakba Day” on May 15, what they call their “disaster day” when Arab armies failed to destroy Israel in 1948 after refusing the UN plan to create both Jewish and Arab states.

One graphic being re-tweeted includes the slogan “On the day of Nakba in its 72 year, the world remembers the mass expulsion of 7 million Palestinians from their homeland #Covid1948.” However, a quick search online finds old tweets with the slogan “Nakba Day – the day when 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland by the Zionist occupation.”

The Palestinians decided to add an additional zero to the old number, even though most verifiable sources show there were fewer than two million inhabitants in the area in 1947, Arabs and Jews combined.

The graphics also include different combinations of the coronavirus centered in a Jewish Star of David “infecting” Palestine, or a series of maps of Israel inside lungs showing the progression of Jewish population growth infecting the Palestinians from 1948 until now showing a shrinking Palestinian population – purposely omitting the Palestinians own statistics that show millions of Arabs now live in Israel, Judea and Samaria, more than ever before in history.

The social media posts also mimic the anti-Semitic tones that come from Iran. Mohd Hussain Momin tweeted “1948 a cancer aroused on earth and captured the holy land of Palestine. Solidarity with Palestinians on the day of Nakba….. #covid1948.”

According to another tweet from @EbneHava, “It’s not Coronavirus, it’s a much more dangerous virus called Israel that has occupied Palestine. That has spread through Palestinian land. Palestine will soon be cleansed from the virus. #covid1948”

Although Twitter corporate policy states that its users “may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people” for anything including ethnicity, national origin, and religious affiliation, the company has been unable or unwilling to filter out incitement against Israel.