Israel Lawmaker Doubles Down On Call To Shoot Palestinians After Twitter Ban

A far right-wing Israeli lawmaker was briefly blocked from Twitter following a post saying teenage Palestinian Ahed Tamimi should have been shot for scuffling with Israeli soldiers on her family’s property in the occupied West Bank.

“In my opinion, she should have caught a bullet, at least in the kneecap. That would have put her under house arrest for the rest of her life,” the Jerusalem Post reported<http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Twitter-blocks-member-of-Knesset-who-said-Ahed-Tamimi-should-be-crippled-552625> Smotrich wrote on Twitter.

Smotrich was bounced from the social media site and the offending Tweet was blocked.

He was allowed back on the site after confirming he would abide by Twitter’s policies, the New York Post reported<https://nypost.com/2018/04/24/twitter-blocks-israeli-lawmaker-for-wishing-palestinian-protester-shot/>. Twitter rules state that a user may not make specific threats of violence of a person or groups of persons.

Smotrich, however, made it clear he had learned little from the incident, taking to Facebook to double down on his call for Palestinian protesters to be violently punished without trial.

“If it depended on me, every incident like this would end with a sharp and painful lesson,” he said. “After several [people] like this would end up in a wheelchair till the end of their days, it is reasonable that there would be fewer of them who would dare do this.”

Smotrich added that Twitter’s “bullying” revealed the liberals who “support free speech for all as long as you think just like them.”

Seventeen-year-old Tamimi is serving an eight-month prison sentence for slapping Israeli soldiers<https://forward.com/fast-forward/390366/watch-palestinian-girl-arrested-after-videotaped-scuffle-with-israeli-soldi/> in an incident that drew international attention when it was caught on videotape.

Contact Haley Cohen at hcohen@forward.com<mailto:hcohen@forward.com>