Online hatred becomes real violence in Israel-Palestine

As the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire continues to unravel, digital terror is not slowing down. Network hatred, harassment, and coordination of physical violence have emerged on social media channels. An Israeli group dealing with misinformation and hatred cannot work fast enough.

FakeReporter has sent online threats reports from Israeli offices to Israeli authorities in an attempt to prevent them from becoming a reality. A large group of 10 volunteers, entrepreneurs and online researchers who are largely volunteers put false information and false accounts online. Previously they focused on state-backed misinformation and captured the growth of Israel’s digital hatred.

“We’re a team of disinformation watchdogs, so somehow we weren’t ready for this situation,” executive director Achiya Schatz told BuzzFeed News.

Online hatred only captures part of the ongoing violence. In combat, Israeli rockets It killed 248 Palestinians, including 66 children. Thirteen men of Israel, including two children, they were killed Through rockets fired by Hamas. On May 21, a ceasefire was agreed.

For FakeReporter, the conflict made it clear that the divisions of Israeli society have led to network hatred and physical violence. Their team spends whole days and long nights working on cataloging violent messages, many of which are provided through the website. Another organization, Democratic Bloc, contributes to research.

“Right now we have a mission to save lives,” Schatz said.

For the past two weeks they have seen the discourse of hatred turn into violence on the street. Nearly 100 WhatsApp and Telegram channels are being monitored, most of them in Hebrew. Schatz said there has been violence throughout Israel, even against Jewish residents, but far-right Israeli extremists are more organized.

“The land was ready for such violence because I believe the trend of racism in Israel has increased over the years,” Schatz said.

May 12 in Bat Yam, a coastal town in southern Tel Aviv, a wicked mob attacked a man. FakeReporter watched what was happening on state television and controlled what was happening on the Telegram channels that were being broadcast live on television. it is called lynching. Victim as he was about to spend the afternoon on the beach, a man looked out of his car window at a traffic jam and asked if he was from Alava. When he said yes, he was dragged and beaten from the car while people shouted and filmed the incident on his phones.

Four fathers survived but were hospitalized and seriously injured. “I was going to the beach [for] free time. I didn’t know I would come back like that with my kids, ”the victim said he told Channel 12 News, The main Israeli news program. “Why am I guilty? What did I do to deserve that? Is it my fault that I was born in Alava? “

Ori Kole, co-founder of FakeReporter, saw the scene unfold on both television and Telegram. “We were trying to see what they were doing, because they were uploading photos of what they saw, photos of violence being uploaded to Telegram groups.”

Schatz said the FakeReporter submitted reports to Israeli police before the attack, the next day and the day after, with extremists threatening to beat people in Bat Yam. The messages the guard team saw were explicit: “I invite you here to a massive fight against the Arabs that will take place on Bat Yam promenade at 6pm today. Bring the right equipment, knives, swords, pistols, rocks, wooden boards, cars with bulls,” he said. one.

Despite the warning, investigators at FakeReporter were able to see how the violence occurred. “No one was sent to the ground,” Schatz said. “And a horrible thing happened.”

In the days following the expulsion of Palestinian Israelis Sheikh Jarrah from the eastern district of Jerusalem and the storm of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, extremists happily laid down their arms and gave advice on where to take them via Telegram and WhatsApp channels. They posted photos of knives, guns and sticks, according to screens seen by BuzzFeed News, as well as racism suggestions, stimuli, false information and coordination when and where to meet.

Kol, who monitors some of the groups, said, “It’s been a really deadly atmosphere on the street.”

The tensions have led to right-wing actors like Yair Netanyahu, the son of the Israeli prime minister. With just over 130,000 followers on Twitter, a Telegram channel It has added 1,500 followers in the last two weeks, and in a podcast, he has taken on a similar role as Donald Trump Jr. in the United States in Israel: he has united supporters of his father’s line and spread hatred against opponents.

Israeli forces after bombing Gaza’s 12-storey building, according to the Israeli army. “Hamas military intelligence assets“(it he does not answer Asking U.S. officials for evidence), destroying the AP and Al Jazeera offices and residences, Yair Netanyahu intensified attacks on the media. (In a subsequent document of the incident, AP he said there was “no indication that Hamas was in the building or active in the building”).

Turned on May 19, he tweeted a cartoon showing a bunch of people gathered around refreshing water, with a man holding a rocket launcher in his hand. “Sheila works with Al Jazeera and I’m with the Associated Press,” the woman tells the man to launch the rocket. “How are you?”

Yair Netanyahu is rewriting coverage of well-known right-wing American actors such as Ben Shapiro, Dinesh D’Souza and Andy Ngo, and news outlets like Breitbart and Federalist.

“Yair Netanyahu uses his social media platform to give millions of conservatives sidelined by Israeli media outlets an independent voice that tends against the right of millions of Israeli conservatives,” a family spokesman told BuzzFeed News. “Your article calling his followers ‘right-wing extremists’ is a perfect example of media distortions in a right-wing majority region. And his attempts to work against Yair only show why independent voices like his are needed.”

On May 15, the same day as the bombing of the AP and Al Jazeera building, Yair Netanyahu tweeted a call for protest in front of the home of media executive Avi Weiss. The prime minister’s son then published leaflets calling for protocols on the outside of the media: “We are no longer saying anti-Zionist brainwashing in the media.”

The protest was canceled due to the subsequent shout it received, but FakeReporter has noticed that people are sharing the screen of Yair Netanyahu’s tweets. In at least one case, the two friends discuss in the video whether it would be better to go to the executive’s home or the media. On Sunday, Yair Netanyahu called for protests against members of the media again.

In recent days, members of the Israeli media have been victims of violence. Four journalists have been attacked, According to the Jerusalem PostHe broadcast a Yam mobbing, including a public broadcaster.

“When we end up fucking Arabs we are going to fuck up the media,” a message said in a Telegram chat. Others called for the destruction of the studios and called 12 channels “Al Jazeera in Hebrew,” a term that Yair Netanyahu expressed sympathy for Hamas.

Yai’s messages are often a fodder for Israeli far-right groups, says Tehilla Schwartz Altshuler, head of the Israel Democracy Institute’s Media Reform Program, which analyzes Israeli social media and consults with FakeReporter.

“I’m worried, I’m so scared,” he told BuzzFeed News. “Because I think it’s a very delicate dog whistle and the far right and right-wing activists understand the messages that appear on Twitter well. They take them to WhatsApp or Telegram and all of a sudden they become a call to action. “

And while attacking the building terrified international observers, hura inspired extremes within Israel, Reinforced by Yair Netanyahu’s tweets, they took screenshots and spread them out.

“The main contribution we have seen to these telegram groups has been in recent days, where right-wingers in these groups have really started to support the non-patriotic, treacherous media. [behavior]”, Said Kolek.

According to Kol, the phone number of a famous 12-channel journalist and anchor, Dana Weiss, was posted in groups along with messages such as “congratulations for the work she did”. Other texts call him a “Jihad spokesperson” and he misrepresents his photoshopped images while wearing a hijab. As a result, he he has received numerous violent threats, including death threats.

Cole has repeatedly seen that online hate causes offline violence.

“Violence starts online and goes to the streets,” he said. “Something we’ve seen in our work at FakeReporter is the main lesson we’ve tried to pass on. And businesses are growing for online-inspired lynchings, unfortunately, all over the world.”