Jul 26, 2016

On July 2, Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan lambasted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, holding him partially responsible for the terrorist attacks plaguing Israel. “The young generation runs its entire discourse based on incitement that has been piled up on Facebook’s platform and in the end it launches terror attacks,” Erdan charged, claiming that if the management of the social network cooperated with Israel, the inciters could be arrested and the attacks averted. “The blood of some of the victims … is on Mr. Zuckerberg’s hands,” Erdan said.

Yet, incitement and violence on the web is not the exclusive domain of young Palestinians. On July 22, Ahmed Dawabsha, 6, the only survivor of a hate crime perpetrated by radical right-wing Jewish terrorists in the West Bank village of Douma a year before, was discharged from Shiba Hospital. His father, mother and little brother were burnt alive after their house was set on fire. Suffering from serious burns, Ahmed fought for his life in a hospital. He underwent a yearlong rehabilitation with his grandfather never leaving his bedside. The hospital staff threw him a sixth birthday party, and when he was discharged the villagers gave him a warm welcome.

Right-wing circles, by contrast, chose to mark the joyous occasion differently. Hateful comments, curses and death wishes to the Douma child were posted on right-leaning websites as well as on leading Israeli news outlets, mainly on Walla!, whose editors did not filter out any of the nauseating comments.

''It's a shame that they wasted bandages on him,'' someone wrote. Others wondered why the media had decided to cover the story of the child's discharge from hospital. There were even those who claimed that what happened in Douma was not a terror attack but an internal village conflict between clans. All these comments shared the same sentiment — of wishing for Ahmed to die.

“God willing, [the child] will soon join his parents six feet under,” wrote G. Aharoni. “It’s a shame he didn’t die, because he would have been a shahid [martyr] and then there would have been a real celebration,” wrote Nati. And the list goes on and on. Even the website of one of Israel’s leading newspapers, Yedioth Ahronoth, carried — alongside well-wishers — “advice” from some readers to the Jewish terrorists who torched the Dawabsha home. “It’s a shame he didn’t die; it’s a shame they didn’t burn down the entire village,” R. Koller wrote.