This week, tragedy — a parent’s worst nightmare —struck an Arab family in Jerusalem. Their sweet son, the “flower of the family” as they called him, fell into a ditch filled with rainwater and drowned.
The torrential rains that hammered Israel this past month caused numerous deaths across the country, from swollen streams in the North to flooded neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv. Yet this tragedy was different. This personal nightmare was used by people far away to create and swiftly spread a blood libel against Jews.
When eight-year-old Qais Abd Abu Ramileh was reported missing, some took the opportunity to start rumours that he had been kidnapped by Jews. Video of a different child was sent around social channels, spread by people who cared more about spreading hate than finding the child.
Once the boy was found lifeless, Twitter user @BitarReal tweeted “KIDNAPPED & EXECUTED 7 year old #Palestinian child Qusai was kidnapped by a Herd of violent #Israeli settlers, assaulted & thrown in a water well was found this morning frozen to death in Beit Hanina, #Jerusalem after #Israeli forces assaulted search teams.”
Soon after, PLO Legislator Hanan Ashrawi, retweeted the tweet adding, “The heart just shatters. The pain is unbearable. No words.” This is not Ashrawi’s first connection with a modern blood libel. The Miftah organization which Ashrawi founded, and is funded by European and Western governments hosted an article on its site accusing Jews of using “the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover.” Given her hatred for Israel, perhaps her sharing of the blood libel isn’t so shocking.
But a US congresswoman? Rashida Tlaib retweeted Ashrawi — sharing the libel with her near 900,000 followers. It would have been easy to look up — in English — the real story of the tragedy, but Tlaib didn’t. And despite being told the truth, she did not delete the tweet for hours.
George Galloway, went further in his share of the story, writing, “This child, age seven has just been fished out of a well, dead in Jerusalem. Murdered by illegal Israeli settlers. Will anyone in power cry with his mother and father today? Will anyone check this evil rampage against the people of Palestine? Anyone?”
Ashrawi deleted her tweet, and offered this: “My apologies for retweeting something that’s not fully verified. It seems that the news of his being kidnapped is not certain.” Tlaib did not share this tweet, nor did she issue her own apology. She did not say one word in response to the many who called her out. Silence.
As for Galloway, after 20 minutes of scrolling through his (rather maniacal) feed I found no apology, but did find many references to the “apartheid state”, claims that settlers and the IDF randomly murder Palestinian children, and shares of others who retweeted the blood libel. Also this, “I strongly advise you to block Israel trolls. Many of them are paid to engage and confuse you.” I assume he sees me as an Israeli troll as he has me blocked (I had to scroll incognito).
The rumour starters and spreaders seem invested in making Jews and Arabs enemies, when in fact the search for the boy included Israeli security forces and local Arab residents working together. Police lit flares and used search dogs, eventually finding the boy in the rain swollen ditch. Jewish rescue workers from nearby Gush Etzion settlements joined the search despite it being the Sabbath.
Literally millions of people saw the tweets amplified by the three politicians. Not one issued a responsible retraction. Not one attempted to ameliorate the damage they caused. Blood libels have been used throughout Jewish history to blame the Jewish population for the death of children and justify massacres and pogroms.
In Jerusalem, the early rumours caused a group of angry men to try and enter neighboring Neve Yaakov, convinced the boy was being held there. They were stopped by the police and who knows what bloodshed was averted.
It is simply inconceivable that days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2020, a blood libel is allowed to spread across the world, promulgated by three public figures with verified Twitter accounts (the tweets were reported and deemed not problematic) with no repercussions whatsoever.
Antisemitism and opportunists should not be able to use their verified social media presence to spread rumours and sow hatred. That there is no accountability or recourse is dangerous. As we look back on Holocaust Memorial Day, unless this reality changes, all the talk about curbing antisemitism is just lip service.
Originally published in The Jewish Chronicle
