Israel praises Apple for removing ‘intifada’ application

Edelstein calls removal of program a step in "preventing hostile elements from spreading incitement."

By HERB KEINON
Yuli Edelstein 311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem / The Jerusalem Post)
Yuli Edelstein 311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem / The Jerusalem Post)
The computer giant Apple’s decision to remove an application from its online store called “3rd intifada” is an additional step in “preventing hostile elements – which are frequently tainted by anti-Semitism – from spreading incitement via the new media,” Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein said Thursday.
Edelstein was responding to Apple’s decision to remove the application because, as the company was reported to have said, it “violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people.”
The offending application gave information about protest activities planned against Israel, some of them violent. Edelstein sent a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday, requesting that the computer giant stop sales of the application.
Earlier in the year, public outcry against a Facebook page carrying the same title was also removed after company heads decided that the page’s creator had posted incitement to violence against Israelis and Jews.
Edelstein issued a statement saying that by its action, Apple has proven, as Facebook did, “that it shares the values that oppose violence, incitement and terrorism.”
In both the Apple application and Facebook page, opponents expressed their concerns that calls for a third intifada were inherently violent.
Edelstein claimed that both the Apple application and Facebook page were started by the same organization, seeking the same goals.
In his original letter to Jobs, Edelstein wrote that he believed Apple, “as a pioneering and progressive company, places the values of liberty, freedom of expression and creativity as a guiding light.”