East Jerusalem Palestinian man sentenced to prison for Facebook incitement

Mohammad Abd al-Latif praised terrorists responsible for 2014 Har Nof massacre.

By DANIEL K. EISENBUD
Updated: JANUARY 29, 2016 01:41
Hamas social media (photo credit: PALESTINIAN SOCIAL MEDIA)
Hamas social media
(photo credit: PALESTINIAN SOCIAL MEDIA)
For the second time this month, a Jerusalem resident convicted of using Facebook to incite violence against Jews has been sentenced to a year in prison.
On Wednesday, a Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court judge ordered Muhammad Abd al-Latif, 24, imprisoned for praising the Har Nof synagogue massacre that took the lives of four rabbis and a policeman in November of 2014.
According to the court, Latif posted “A great morning thanks to knives” and “Kill them, death to the settlers!” on his Facebook account following the bloody attack, which rattled the nation.
Stating that the postings “substantively endangered every single aspect of society,” the judge’s decision added that “when the seed of incitement is sown, it is impossible to know when an act of terrorism will sprout from it.”
Earlier this month, Obeidah Tawil, a Hamas operative who used the terrorist group’s image for his Facebook profile picture, pleaded guilty to nine counts of supporting a terrorist group and three counts of incitement to terrorism for the postings between 2014 and 2015.
In one of the posts to his 1,700 friends, Tawil, who was also sentenced to a year in prison, praised a terrorist who used his car in November 2014 to run down a group of Jerusalem pedestrians and kill a Border Police officer.
Tawil wrote: “Run over more and more!” in Arabic and attached a video of him with his young son, to whom he states: “With the help of God, when you grow up, my son, you will chop [Jewish] heads off and not just run them over.”
Tawil, who has previously been incarcerated for terrorist activity, also posted numerous Hamas training videos. In a January 14 plea agreement, he confessed to the 12 charges filed against him.
Judge Eitan Kornhauser wrote in his ruling: “Incitement to violence and supporting a terrorist organization harms public security and safety in that it provides fertile ground that furthers the growth and implementation of terrorist activity.”


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