Facebook 'monitoring' page calling for 3rd intifada

Social networking group believes page does not advocate violence against Israel, but has removed individual violent posts.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Facebook intifada page 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Facebook intifada page 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Facebook social networking site is monitoring an Arabic-language page which calls for a “third intifada” against Israel, but the site’s bosses have concluded that it has not gone beyond the bounds of acceptable speech, and have decided not to remove it, The Jerusalem Post learned on Sunday.
The Facebook page, called “Third Palestinian intifada,” has attracted over 330,000 fans since going online, and has issued a call for a mass march into Israel from neighboring countries.
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It has been condemned as a violence-promoting page by Diaspora Affairs and Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein, who sent a letter last week to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with a request to remove the page, and by the Anti-Defamation League, whose national director, Abraham Foxman, described it as “an appalling abuse of technology to promote terrorist violence.”
The page is centered around the following message, composed by the administrator, “The neighboring country will start a march to Palestine on the 15th of May. After that, all the Muslim countries will soon march, [and] Palestine will be liberated.”
A translation of the Arabic text was provided by the SITE Monitoring Service, which tracks online jihadi activity.
Since creating the page, a number of posts have been left on it by fans that carry both implicit and explicit violent content, SITE has found.
These include, “Prepare: Death comes to you, O raider of this abode.”
The page’s administrators posted a quotation of a Hadith (Islamic tradition) that is popular with radical groups, which reads, “The hour [of redemption] does not come until the Muslim fight the Jews and even the stones and trees say, ‘O Muslim, a Jew is behind me, so kill him.’” Other posts have made reference to “paradise,” a term often used in Islamist circles to promote acts of terrorism.
“Paradise beckons you to tell everyone about 5/15,” read one post.
Individual posts and comments on the page that incite to violence are being investigated by Facebook and removed, sources within the networking site have said. Facebook representatives have also made contact with the page’s administrator and requested closer monitoring of content.
The Facebook page has been picked up by and promoted on jihadi Internet forums. Earlier this month, an al-Qaida affiliated forum discussed the page’s creation, and urged members to join it.
A statement e-mailed to the Post by a Facebook spokesman said, “We want Facebook to be a place where people can openly discuss issues and express their views, while respecting the rights and feelings of others.
“With now more than 500 million users from around the world, who have varying cultures and ideals, using Facebook as a place to discuss and share things that are important to them, we sometimes find people discussing and posting about topics that others may find controversial, inaccurate, or offensive.
“While some kinds of comments and content may be upsetting for someone – criticism of a certain culture, country, religion, lifestyle, or political ideology, for example – that alone is not a reason to remove the discussion. We strongly believe that Facebook users have the ability to express their opinions, and we don’t typically take down content, groups or Pages that speak out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas.”