Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had his social media account suspended on Facebook for 24 hours because he committed “hate speech”, according to Facebook.
According to The National, the Prime Minister’s Likud party had a message in the chatbox of Benjamin Netanyahu’s official Facebook page, which read…
“We cannot have a dangerous left-wing government…a secular left-wing weak government that relies on Arabs who want to destroy us all – women, children and men, and will enable a nuclear Iran that will eliminate us. We cannot allow this to happen!”
The message resulted in Facebook suspending the account from posting messages for 24 hours.
Typically “hate speech” is a catchall term used by big tech to censor anyone that exercises wrongthink. YouTube has been using it plenty of times to silence, censor, and terminate mostly those on the Right for not adhering to the Left’s regressive politics.
Nevertheless, the Likud party denied that Netanyahu saw the message and that it was a rogue staffer who posted it, telling the press in a statement…
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t see these things [and] did not approve them. They are not his opinion and are not accepted by him. When these things were brought to his attention he asked that they be removed immediately,”
This all comes during the time of the elections, where the Prime Minister is looking to retain his seat.
As pointed out by Twitter user and political pundit Peter Sweden, who questioned if Facebook’s suspension of Netanyahu’s account was potential election meddling?
Facebook suspended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facebook page for “hate speech”.
There is an upcoming election in just a few days.
Isn’t this election meddling by facebook?https://t.co/SN6Ff1Y7WV
— PeterSweden (@PeterSweden7) September 15, 2019
The election is fairly significant this time around because Netanyahu has propositioned extending Israel’s sovereignty through the West Bank, something that he’s received significant pushback on from political advisers, as reported by the Times of Israel.
What’s interesting is that Facebook’s censorship of the Prime Minister was only challenged by those on the Right, where-as many organizations, pundits, and journalists criticized the language of the Likud party’s post, calling it “racist”.
Netanyahu is asking the Israeli citizen – those who are Jewish, of course – to prevent the formation of “a weak leftist secular government that relies on the Arabs who want to kill us all” https://t.co/mFu9jccy6v Nothing even slightly racist here.
— JewishVoiceForLabour (@JVoiceLabour) September 13, 2019
Is it racism, scaremongering, evil lies, propaganda or all of the above: Palestinians will annihilate us if you don’t vote for me, says Netanyahu https://t.co/vYcR5sFNHJ
— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) September 12, 2019
Netanyahu has historically had huge success by stoking racism against Arabs and using fear-mongering ahead of elections, and this time around is no different. His new message to Israeli voters: “Arabs want to annihilate us all – women, children and men” https://t.co/tkDRJ2i5E1
— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) September 11, 2019
In this case, it appears as if the Jews aren’t being protected by the Left when it looks like the Arabs are being thrown under the bus.
These fickle alliances with partisan groups that mostly don’t align with the ideology pushed by the San Francisco crowd sure is fascinating to watch play out. I’m curious to see how they would react if their activism for Arabs paid off, and the more extreme portions of that group began targeting the very people who championed for their rise to power?
(Thanks for the news tip alex9234)