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Israeli incitement to the point of murder.. And the accused is Palestinian

At the height of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians there was a 15-fold increase in violent speech

Jerusalem24 – 24FM – Hala Zuheiry – It is not possible to count the number of times that Israeli journalists have incited against the Palestinians, taking advantage of the media in which they work or through their platforms on social media.

It is also not possible to limit the number of times that Palestinian journalists were directly targeted while working in the field.

In this report, we try to monitor some of these cases, in which media incitement amounts to calls for murder. In return; Journalists in Palestine suffer from harassment and targeting during their work in covering events, not only by the Israeli forces, which sometimes assault, arrest and destroy their equipment, but also by social media sites that target Palestinian content within what they consider “a violation of their standards” in bias to Israel”.

Member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, Omar Nazzal, told 24FM that the union had formed a unit to follow up on Israeli media incitement in cooperation with the Palestinian News and Information Agency – Wafa.

Over the past two months, it has monitored dozens of cases in which well-known Israeli journalists published tweets calling for the killing of Palestinians, including statements by journalist Amit Segal, who used his media outlet (Israel Channel 11) and his Facebook page as well, calling for an end to dealing with Palestinians in Lod as citizens, but dealing with them with bullets.

The same night witnessed violent attacks by settlers, as a result of which a Palestinian from Lydd was killed, according to Nazzal.

The Syndicate of Journalists submitted a documented complaint to the International Federation of Journalists against two Israeli journalists, Amit Siegel and Dov Gilhar, for inciting the killing of Palestinians.

Nazzal stressed that the cases of incitement practiced by Israeli journalists are accompanied by thousands of cases practiced by settlers through social media platforms, which are met with silence by the administrations of these sites.

In a similar case, live on the air, the Israeli journalist Kobi Finkler regretted that a missile that landed in Shefa-‘Amr, which is inhabited by 40,000 Muslims, Christians and Druze, did not cause great human losses among the Arabs.

This racist and inciting discourse against Palestinians by the Israeli media is not new; Rather, it is taking an upward trend, according to reports specialized in monitoring the content of the Israeli media.

We followed examples of reports that monitored Israeli incitement during the month of May; Between May 30 and June 5, the Palestinian News and Information Agency – Wafa documented 206 times in which inflammatory and racist content was used in the Hebrew visual, written and audio media, and on some pages on social media for political and legal figures in Israeli society.

Meanwhile, Hamleh – Arab Center for Social Media Development published the results of the index of racism, hatred and incitement against Arabs and Palestinians, which was published in Hebrew between 6-21 May, that is, at the height of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians. The results showed a 15-fold increase in violent speech, compared to the same time period last year.

Mohammad Hamayel

Ramallah based journalist, Mohammad graduated from Al-Quds University with a B.A. in Media and Television. He has covered the 2015 Jerusalem Intifada as well as the Great March of Return for international media outlets. currently an editor/presenter at Jerusalem24. A UN alumni and a follower of global events and politics, especially American affairs.

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