Arab Israeli jailed for 8 months for Hezbollah praise on Facebook

A 32-year-old Arab Israeli man was sentenced to eight months in prison on Thursday for praising the Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah on Facebook and inciting to violence against Israeli Jews.

Judge Pnina Argaman of the Hadera Magistrate’s Court also slapped a six-month suspended sentence on Abed Jabareen, a father of three from the northern city of Umm el-Fahm.

Jabareen operated a Facebook account under his name, garnering more than 1,000 friends and 744 followers, the court heard.

Between December 2014 and May 2015, he published six posts praising Hezbollah and calling on others to support the terror organization.

One post said, “Hezbollah are the victors. May God protect them and let Hassan Nasrallah [the organization’s secretary general] and Hezbollah achieve victory over the dogs of IS (so-called Islamic State) and Israel, and say amen!”

Another was written from “Umm el Fahm, Occupied Palestine.”

“Awake, from victory to victory until the occupied Syrian Golan is liberated,” said a third, juxtaposed with a photograph of Jabareen holding a Hezbollah flag.

The word “revenge” was written in a fourth post, next to a picture of Jihad Mughniyeh, a Golan District commander for Hezbollah when he was killed in an Israeli helicopter strike across the border in Syria last year.

Mughniyah was the son of Hezbollah’s global operations chief, Imad Mugniyah, killed by a car bomb in Damascus, Syria in 2008, reportedly in a joint Mossad-CIA operation.

The posts received comments such as “Soon, all the lands will return to the people, including the Golan, and we’ll liberate Jerusalem, with the help of God.”

From October to November 2014, Jabareen wrote 13 posts which, the prosecution argued, had “real” potential to provoke acts of violence or terror.

In one post, he featured a video clip of a car-ramming terror attack that had taken place in Jerusalem the day before, describing it as a “courageous act.” The next day, he posted a picture of a masked man with the words, “Let’s go back to being opponents/terrorists.”

The day after an assassination attempt on right-wing activist Yehuda Glick, who is now a Likud Knesset member, Jabareen posted a video from Channel 10 and wrote, “Residents of Jerusalem, make the lives of the Jews hell. In the end, they’ll run away. Jerusalem is ours.”

Jabareen has no previous criminal record. He quit school after nine years because of learning difficulties and worked in construction, although he had trouble holding down a job.

He told investigators that he was unable to read or write and had copied posts uploaded onto Facebook by others. A psychologist said he had limited ability to grasp the severity of his actions.

Jabareen’s lawyer asked for two weeks before the start of the prison term to allow the defendant to organize his family affairs.