TEL AVIV – Sunday’s terror attack in Jerusalem was a “F**k you” to “settlers,” a Facebook post published by the president of a pro-Palestinian campus group said, prompting a prominent Jewish leader to decry the exploitation of social media to incite murder.
Nerdeen Kiswani, president of the New York City chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, posted on Facebook that the truck-ramming attack – which claimed the lives of four soldiers and wounded 16 others – served to “remind settlers that there will never be peace on stolen land” as well as “to galvanize other Palestinians to fight.”
She added that “Palestinians in Palestine are giving out sweets in celebration,” referring to the phenomenon of celebratory candy handed out to Palestinian drivers in the West Bank and Gaza following terror attacks.
“I will not hide from this.”
“These celebratory actions are what keeps the resistance moving forward, they are what keep it alive,” she added.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said Kiswani’s posts are the result of incitement, and “settlers living in peace in their communities” are not the “roadblocks” to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“She took advantage of our wonderful democracy in America to be a cheerleader for murder, nothing more, nothing less,” Cooper said.
“Those who are in favor of a two-state solution and are sympathetic to the Palestinian side must take the lead in denouncing such behavior — and not hand a moral blank check to the Palestinians,” he said.
The Algemeiner quoted Sarah Stern, founder and president of the think tank the Endowment for Middle East Truth, as declaring that Kiswani’s “deification of violence is the direct result of years of brainwashing” by Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas.
The report also said Kiswani has a history of posting inflammatory slurs against Israel on social media. The SJP president tweeted a litany of chants for activists to holler at anti-Israel demonstrations, including, “There is only one solution/Intifada Revolution,” “It is right, to rebel/Israel, Go to hell” and “We don’t want no two state/We want 48,” in reference to the year of Israel’s founding.
Alexi Shalom, another member of New York City’s SJP chapter, threatened to sue the Algemeiner when the newspaper requested a comment.
Kiswani’s original post seems to have since been deleted but the text was circulated by watchdog group SJP Uncovered.
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