A Facebook page calling on Palestinians to take up arms against Israel was removed this week from the social-networking website, following complaints from the Israeli government and others that it incited violence against Jews.
Titled “Third Palestinian Intifada,” the page had more than 350,000 fans before it was taken down March 29. In short order, a few other identically named pages popped up, some with the same messages as the previous page.
Facebook company officials did not comment on the removal, but a statement was posted for users seeking the page. It read, in part, “Your Page ‘Third Palestinian Intifada’ has been removed for violating our Terms of Use. A Facebook Page is a distinct presence used solely for business or promotional purposes. Among other things, Pages that are hateful, threatening or obscene are not allowed. We also take down Pages that attack an individual or a group.”
Before the page was removed, Yuli Edelstein, Israel’s Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, wrote a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg noting that the page included calls to kill Jews and for “liberating” Jerusalem through violence. Part of the page read: “Judgment Day will be brought upon us only once the Muslims have killed all of the Jews.”
The page urged Palestinians to take to the streets after Friday prayers on May 15 and begin an uprising, and it included quotes and film clips calling for killing Jews and Israelis. It also directed users to related content on Twitter, YouTube and other sites.
In a statement March 29, Edelstein said that the removal of the page showed that “Facebook management understood that the page is a blunt abuse of freedom of speech to incite to violent actions.”
The Anti-Defamation League also praised the move, and Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the group, noted in a March 29 statement that Facebook set a precedent with its decision.
“Facebook has now recognized an important standard to be applied when evaluating issues of non-compliance with its terms of service involving distinctions between incitement to violence and legitimate calls for collective expressions of opinion and action,” the statement read.
“As it continues to monitor its pages, Facebook should be able to apply this standard in response to complaints about other pages with similar content. We hope that they will continue to vigilantly monitor their pages for other groups that call for violence or terrorism against Jews and Israel,” the statement added.
The decision to pull the page, which was set up in early March by a group of unidentified activists, appeared to be an about-face from Facebook’s statement March 28, which suggested the page would remain.
“While some kinds of comments and content may be upsetting for someone — criticism of a certain culture, country, religion, lifestyle or political ideology, for example — that alone is not a reason to remove the discussion,” the company’s original statement said. “We strongly believe that Facebook users have the ability to express their opinions, and we don’t typically take down content, groups or pages that speak out against countries, religions, political entities, or ideas.”
To join the cause against the third intifada postings on Facebook, visit www.bit.ly/h70QbA.
JTA and the Associated Press contributed to this report.