Hamas says YouTube shuts down channel upon Israeli Foreign Ministry request

“The videos depict recent terrorist attacks, praise the assailants and present Jews and Israelis in a hateful and racist manner," says Foreign Ministry.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

OCTOBER 11, 2015 16:45

Hamas threatens to 'eliminate the Zionists' in dark parody of popular Israeli song

YouTube shut down a Palestinian Hamas YouTube channel Sunday, following a request made by Israel's Ministry of Foreign affairs to remove videos encouraging violence against Israelis.

Hamas said Sunday that YouTube closed down one of its channels under Israeli pressure.

The Palestinian Hamas group says YouTube closed down a channel belongs to the movement under Israeli pressure
— Nidal al-Mughrabi (@nidalal) October 11, 2015

Yet YouTube, upon visiting the page, has a memo attributing the removal of the channel to copyright infringement.

The provocative channel featured a video in which lyrics to a popular Eyal Golan song were replaced with provocative verse such as: "And the most important, the most important/is to wipe out the Zionists at every site/and the most important the most important/is their defeat on site."

The video included staged scenes of Hamas ambushes, and struck a chilling note with its montages of violent terrorist attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians, rocket launchings and gruesome battlefield scenes.

The Foreign Ministry sent a letter Thursday to Google Israel, whose parent company owns YouTube, asking to remove the provocative content.

“The videos depict recent terrorist attacks, praise the assailants and present Jews and Israelis in a hateful and racist manner, and since their publishing, three more attacks have taken place so far,” the letter said.

Spokespeople for Google Inc said they could not comment on specific videos or contacts with governments.

“YouTube has clear policies that prohibit content like gratuitous violence, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts, and we remove videos violating these policies when flagged by our users,” said Google spokesman Paul Solomon.