YouTube video praising Tel Aviv attack as miracle ‘may breach terror law’
Legal experts call for police probe after web giant’s latest failure over hate speech
A VIDEO on YouTube celebrating last week’s murder of three Israelis in Tel Aviv as a “miracle” may be in breach of the law against encouraging terrorism, legal experts have told the JC.
In a sickening post, Abdel Bari Atwan (right) — an influential media figure known around the world — praised the gunman as a “martyr” and “hero” and said Israelis fleeing for their lives were “like mice”.
The shocking rant was posted on his YouTube channel, which has 750,000 subscribers.
The video was taken down after the web giant owned by Google was contacted by the JC — but only after it had been up for four days and viewed half a million times.
Numerous other videos uploaded to YouTube channels with millions of subscribers also called Tel Aviv gunman Raad Hazem a “martyr”.
YouTube has been the target of furious criticism over its failure to moderate content, as exposed in a series of stories by the JC.
Last week, after pressure from this newspaper, the company removed videos for breaking its rules about incitement to violence and supporting terrorism. YouTube also recently cancelled the accounts hosting the speeches of two hate preachers. But the latest revelations make a mockery of the commitment by the company to clamp down on hate speech.
Lord Carlile, the UK’s former independent review of anti-terror legislation, said: “Atwans’s statement, full of hysterical passion, is the warlike statement of a dangerous fanatic. Published in the UK, plainly it should be examined by the police for possible breach of section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006. “Beyond shocking is that it appeared on YouTube. They must be required to ban such dangerous broadcasts, which encourage and apologise for terrorism.” Mr Atwan is a British-Palestinian journalist who appears regularly on BBC News in English and Arabic, as well as on France 24. He shares his thoughts regularly on his YouTube channel.
In his Arabic-language post the day after the Tel Aviv attack, he compared Israelis to “mice”, saying those killed and wounded were “are all military, police or security”.
He claimed the terror attack was a response to the recent landmark Negev Summit held in Israel two weeks
ago, calling Arab ministers who attended “treacherous Arab normalisers” and “lackeys of the occupation”.
He called Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ condemnation of the terrorist attacks as an “outrage”
He raged: “The Palestinian people won’t have it. That’s the point of the latest operation in Tel Aviv by young Raad Hazem. He ‘invaded’ Tel Aviv, the occupation state’s first capital, using just one gun. Did you see the Israelis, how did they flee? By Allah, like mice.
“Look at the miracle... his father is a security officer, he, the youth, takes a gun, goes to Tel Aviv and opens fire at settlers. Look, we will never accept, it is impossible that we accept, that they are civilians. Civilians, no way! They are all military, police or security.”
Mr Atwan suggested the recent terror acts showed restraint, saying: “These youths, had they wanted to shoot, they could have killed great numbers, hundreds killed, by Allah… One warrior liberated Tel Aviv for nine hours.”
Fourteen people have been murdered in terror attacks in Israel in recent weeks. Mr Atwan said the attacker “committed martyrdom” and was shot by Israeli forces “defending himself, his mosque, his ideology, his [Arab/Islamic] nation”.
Three Arabic-language reports on YouTube from Alghad TV, a news channel based in London, described the Tel Aviv terrorist as a “martyr”. In one video a reporter said the attacker “ascended [to heaven]” upon death. The Alghad TV YouTube channel has 3.7 million subscribers.
A video on YouTube from an account called “Quds News Network” refers to the perpetrator as a martyr.
One video posted by Alqanat Channel 9 TV on their YouTube account included a commentator who praised the killer, calling him “A steadfast, firm, forthcoming, unhurt, pure Jihad warrior”.
YouTube claims it will not allow “content praising or justifying violent acts by terrorist organisations” or material to“promote or aid them”. Its policies say: “Hate speech is not allowed on YouTube.”
Dave Rich, Director of Policy at the CST, said: “There is no excuse for YouTube not to have acted much sooner. It should be a no-brainer that he contravenes YouTube’s policies..”
Jonathan Turner of UK Lawyers for Israel said: “I think this does constitute encouragement of terrorism contrary to section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006, a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment for up to 15 years.”
A spokesman for CAMERA Arabic said “With over 700,000 subscribers, the plausible deniability defence does not stand for YouTube. They should already be aware of his reputation and record.”
YouTube said: ‘We rely on a combination of technology and people to help flag content and we work quickly to remove videos that violate our policies. Upon review, we have removed a number of flagged videos for violating our policies on Violent Extremism.”
Yet again, there is no excuse for YouTube – they should have acted sooner