YouTube hosted videos glorifying the Bnei Brak terrorist as ‘splendid’

The title of one of the new videos, posted on the day of the Bnei Brak attack, promised “details of a heroic operation near occupied Tel Aviv”.

In a translation provided by CAMERA Arabic, the presenter opened the broadcast saying: “This programme, this opening, this introduction, is not like any other programme. [We] open with an unusual hero tonight, of the people of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, whose name is Diaa Hamarsha.” She concluded the clip by saying: “He took the weapon, walked around in the city, I mean, this is a view, honestly, just like the proverb that goes ‘O land, rest assured, no one is greater’. He feels that this land is his, and these are merely occupiers, as he hunts [them] like ducks and geese.”

In a second video, published the day after the attack, another Mekameleen TV presenter praised the terrorist, saying: “Look at him! How splendid! How splendid is his picture and how splendid is his presence! How splendid are the people of Palestine, its free ones, its heroes, protecting its honour and ours, sons of Jerusalem and al-Aqsa.”

In the attack last week, Diaa Hamarsheh, a 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank, roamed Bnei Brak with an automatic weapon, gunning down passers-by.

Victims included 29-year-old student Avishai Yehezkel, who died shielding his two-year-old child.

The terrorist also shot dead two policemen, one of whom was 32-year-old Amir Khoury, a Christian Israeli Arab who left behind his wife and two sisters.

YouTube removed the channels of hate preachers Israr Ahmed and Wagdy Ghoneim over their anti-Jewish content last week. The JC had revealed that Ahmed’s channel, in which he made comments such as “Jews are agents of Satan”, was watched by Blackburn terrorist Malik Faisal Akram before travelling to a US synagogue to take four people hostage at gunpoint.

After sustained pressure from the JC, the tech giant finally removed the two accounts, which had a combined total of more than 3.5 million subscribers.

The JC has been highlighting Urdu and Arabic-language antisemitism on YouTube for months. Last week the newspaper revealed allegations from former content moderator Khaled Hassan that YouTube had ignored his warnings about the potential for several channels, including those of Israr Ahmed and Wagdy Ghoneim, to inspire real-world violence against Jews.

Yoaz Hendel, Israel’s Minister of Communications, met Chris Philp, the UK Minister for Technology and the Digital Economy, in the UK last week. The two discussed the need to regulate extremist content, particularly on social media.

Mr Hendel told the JC that “terrorists are inspired by content” and said there was an urgent need to hold the tech platforms responsible.

A YouTube spokesman told the JC: “Upon review, we have removed both videos for violating our Community Guidelines. We rigorously enforce the policies we have in place to deal with content that contains hate speech or incites violence.”

Mekameleen TV was contacted for comment.