While Israel prepares to mark a national day of mourning on Sunday for the victims of Mount Meron, Twitter is swarming with tens of thousands of posts celebrating the tragedy that left 45 Jewish worshipers dead and 150 injured.
According to the findings of UK-based Journalist David Collier, the social media sites have been abuzz with hundreds of thousands of posts cheering the tragic deaths. “Vile hashtags” are trending in Arabic wishing that “more Jews had died,” he tweeted.
Many of the injured worshipers are still in critical condition following Friday’s deadly stampede during the annual pilgrimage at Mount Meron, one of the holiest Jewish sites. Children were among the dead and seriously injured.
The UK weekly newspaper Jewish Chronicle reported Collier’s findings:
According to investigative journalist David Collier, a report of the deaths by Al-Jazeera had garnered 30,000 responses, and that “10,000 — 33 per cent — were either laughing at or loving the fact [that] innocent Jews have died. The most ‘liked’ comments were the most vicious”.“It isn’t about a few sickos celebrating the awful tragedy in Israel. It is the scale of it,” he wrote on Twitter.Another report of the incident on a site called New Press featured the line: “A number of Israeli settlers were killed and wounded due to a bridge collapse in Galilee, north occupied Palestine”.This received reactions such as “Even the bridge wants them dead” from someone called ‘Levantine Pali’, while a poster known as Ms.Andry responded with a picture of someone yawning and the comment “Drinks on me, y’all”.Also writing in response to the New Press article, one social media user called Rooqs said the news had made her night “1,000000 per cent better”, while another, Alishaq’, [apostrophe correct] said it was “about time we got some good news on our media”. A tweet by someone called “MeMe” said simply: “I feel so happy, actually”. Ali Salah wrote “May God ensure the bodies pile high”, while another poster declared: “Oh, God, send your anger and your distress to the Jews…God willing, complete their celebration in the fire of hell”.In the same thread, a person called Tyre Beragh remarked: “Shouldn’t celebrate the death of any human, but we must also recognise if these occupiers weren’t on stolen lands they would [be] alive”. And a person called MF Jackson responded: “Shut the f*** up — no-one would ever want peace with rapists and murderers, and yes, we will celebrate any loss of Israeli blood, even if it’s that of a child’s.”It was reported that the international news agency Reuters had received similarly abusive responses after it reported the tragedy.
Some Israeli social media influencers highlighted the outpouring of antisemitism among Arabic users.
The hatred was not limited to anonymous Twitter users, the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) also ramped up its campaign to smear Israel. Disregarding the tragedy, HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth continued to malign the Jewish State, the only democracy in the Middle East.
“Human Rights Watch has led a smearing campaign against a democracy that has been unable to rest from protecting itself from constant jihadi threats,” Israeli broadcaster Arutz Sheva noted on Saturday.
Tragedies like these unmask the ugly face of Israel-haters who otherwise keep their vile Jew-hatred hidden behind the rhetoric of “social justice” and “anti-Zionism.”
Noted Israeli blogger David Lange also documented some of the despicable tweets. (View his blogpost comprising only English language comments here)
“As someone who follows these so-called Israel haters closely, this is vile but not surprising. Surprising would be to see any express their sadness or condolences over Jew dying,” David wrote. “I have to keep reminding people: if you find yourself on the same side as such people, you need to seriously consider your own life choices,” he concluded.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY