Israel Matzav

Is Israel a Muslim country?

If you're in Israel and you want to watch Innocence of Muslims, you'd better download it now. A group of Israeli Arab MK's and religious leaders has filed a lawsuit calling on Israel to join such progressive bastions of free speech as Egypt, Libya and Indonesia in forcing Google and YouTube to take the video down.

MK Taleb a-Sanaa and various Arab-Israeli mayors and religious leaders on Wednesday filed a petition with the Jerusalem District Court demanding that Google take down an anti-Islam video ridiculing the Muslim Prophet Mohamed from YouTube, to prevent future publicizing of the film and to block all access to the film in Israel.

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The petitioners claim that the publication violates the religious feelings of Muslims in contravention of Section 173 of the Penal Code, constitutes incitement to racism against Muslims in violation of Article 144 of the Penal Code, and is defamatory according to the 1965 Defamation Law.

The petition was filed by attorney Kais Nasser, and was filed against Google, which owns YouTube.

News reports have indicated that Google has already blocked access to the video in Egypt, Libya, Indonesia and India, but has rejected a request by the White House to pull it from the video-sharing site YouTube altogether. Authorities in Afghanistan ordered YouTube to be shutdown "indefinitely" to stop Afghans from watching the film, while Russia and Saudi Arabia also threatened to block the website unless it removes the film.

If the laws were properly interpreted, perhaps we would not have reached this point. My own view is that Israel's laws in this area are stifling and probably in need of revision. I would not ban the film.

Labels: Google, incitement, Islam, Mohamed, YouTube

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:30 PM