This is not the article I planned to write. I’m writing an article about the dangers and potentials of Facebook activism, after being disillusioned by Facebook, deactivated my account, and then returned to Facebook with new insights.
Coming back to Facebook after a while, it feels strange, as if I’m in a new dimension. I see things differently now. One of the reasons I deactivated my account was because of the fact that this medium has become a fertile ground that breeds violence and hatred. And what better example that popped up in my newsfeed today than the following.
A post about a triplet born: three identical baby girls. According to the news item, this is rare, and only happens once every 100,000 births. Three identical babies means they were all formed from a single egg. The parents already have 5 boys, and the mother was extremely happy to finally give birth to girls.
Quite a happy news item, you would think. Nothing negative here. But, in our country, everything must be politicized. Even a birth. In this case, the parents are Arab. Still, this is a good, positive news item, right? Wrong. I was horrified at the responses this news received on Facebook. I have translated below some of the responses which appear under the link to the news item on the Facebook page of Reshet TV Channel, featuring the photo I reposted here:
“Three more suicide bombers” Tal Avitan
“3 more terrorists” Efrat Efrat
“Amen, in two hours the same photo but with dead babies in her arms” Niv Kesner
“Great. In several years these babies will go out to stab … hope they don’t reproduce too much. #deathtoArabs and to anyone connected to Arabs. And yes, I’m a proud racist.”Aviad Reuven
“These are also three terrorists who will carry out a terrorist attack in 20 years so maybe they should be prevented from now before it’s too late.” Omer Serdes
“Cancer in the head of the first clinical death for the second suffocation for the third suicide for father a bullet in the head for the mother and Amen.”Ron Levi
“Congratulations. I hope you get to bury them.” Osher Medina
These hateful words speak for themselves. There is nothing I can add, only that I hope the parents didn’t read these comments.
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Writing in the Margins 