WHY DID YOUTUBE DELETE 700+ VIDEOS DOCUMENTING ISRAELI HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS?
Israel has increasingly become a political lightning rod over the last several decades. But the past couple years have seen it become an electric storm almost all on its own. Why almost? Because the United States has supported Israel’s policy under a host of various Administrations. And as shocked as most Americans would be if they knew how outrageous some of those supports have been, it’s nothing compared to recent support from the Trump administration. The latest, but not necessarily the least, example of these can be found in answering the question: why did YouTube remove over 700 videos of Israeli human rights violations?
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YOUTUBE LITERALLY CANCELLED 3 PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS, ERASED EVIDENCE
YouTube removed the videos after the Trump administration placed sanctions on three prominent Palestinian human rights groups: Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. So why would the Trump administration sanction human rights groups? Because all three groups worked with the International Criminal Court which led to the ICC issuing arrest warrants and charged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant with war crimes in Gaza. To summarize: 3 human rights groups provided supportive evidence documenting human rights violations and war crimes, and this led YouTube to completely remove all three groups accounts, videos and archive.
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To be clear, these accounts and the over 700 videos were not propaganda; they were evidence. And also to be clear, the three groups were sanctioned by the Trump administration because evidence they provided led to the indictments of multiple Israeli officials, including Netanyahu. YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle issued a statement which included, “Google is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws.” That’s all YouTube needs to say to explain why they are furthering the official Trump administration policy of protecting war criminals by crippling their ability to share evidence of those crimes with the world.
