PM Netanyahu’s Son Blocked From Facebook After Anti-Muslim Post

Facebook officials blocked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s son Yair for 24 hours and removed his post calling for revenge over last week’s terrorist murder of two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. Yair sparked a firestorm on Sunday when he wrote on the social media platform that, “There will not be peace here until: 1. All the Jews leave the land of Israel. 2. All the Muslims leave the land of Israel. I hope it’s the second.” He added, “Do you know [why] there are no terror attacks In Iceland and Japan? Coincidentally there’s also no Muslim population there.” In response to the ban, Yair accused Facebook of being a thought-manipulating “dictatorship” while noting that the company has “pages created by Hamas, Hizbullah and the Iranian government members, as well as endless pages calling for the murder and extermination of Jews. There are also thousands posts with death threats for me and my family that do not get removed by Facebook, as they fall under the label of freedom of speech.” It is far the first time that Netanyahu’s son has been at the center of controversy. Last year, for example, he posted on Facebook a diagram featuring perceived antisemitic tropes, including an image depicting far-left Jewish billionaire George Soros controlling the world via Freemasons and lizard-like creatures. There is a growing chorus calling on the Israeli premier to clamp down on Yair’s behavior, which is viewed by some as unbefitting an immediate family member of Israel’s political leader.