Palestinian from east Jerusalem gets year in jail for Facebook incitement

Hamas operative pleads guilty to 9 counts of supporting a terrorist group and 3 counts of incitement to terrorism

By DANIEL K. EISENBUD
Updated: JANUARY 14, 2016 19:37
People are silhouetted as they pose with mobile devices in front of a screen projected with a Facebook logo. (photo credit: REUTERS)
People are silhouetted as they pose with mobile devices in front of a screen projected with a Facebook logo.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
An east Jerusalem Palestinian man convicted of using his Facebook account to incite violence against Jews was sentenced to one year in prison, and a six-month suspended sentence, by a Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court judge on Wednesday.
Obeidah Tawil, a Hamas operative who used the terrorist group’s visage for his profile picture, plead guilty to nine counts of supporting a terrorist group and three counts of incitement to terrorism for the postings between 2014 and 2015.
In one of the posts to his 1,700 friends, Tawil praised a terrorist who used his car in November of 2014 to run down a group of Jerusalem pedestrians and kill a Border Police officer.
Tawil wrote: “Run over more and more!” in Arabic and attached a video of him with his young son, to whom he states: “With the help of God, when you grow up, my son, you will chop [Jewish] heads off and not just run them over.”
Additionally, two days before Operation Protective Edge was launched in Gaza, Tawil received over 30 likes after writing: “O West Bank, either you wake up and arise, or you will be trampled on for another 20 years.”
On the same day, during intense Palestinian rioting in east Jerusalem, he received 31 likes after posting: “Tonight the Ras al-Amud neighborhood is a battlefront. God, make it a spearhead of the opposition.”
Tawil, who has previously been incarcerated for terrorist activity, also posted numerous Hamas training videos.
In a plea agreement, he confessed guilt on Wednesday to the 12 charges filed against him.
Judge Eitan Kornhauser wrote in his ruling: “Incitement to violence and supporting a terrorist organization harms public security and safety in that it provides fertile ground that furthers the growth and implementation of terrorist activity.”