Bill that criminalizes watching terror group’s videos is made less sweeping

Draft legislation in the Knesset that would ban watching or consuming media published or disseminated by terrorist organizations that calls for terror attacks or praises and encourages terrorist acts is moderated in committee, following concerns expressed by the attorney general’s office.

The legislation is amended in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, and the ban now will now apply only in circumstances where the consumption of the terrorist content indicates that the individual identifies with a proscribed terrorist organization.

The legislation also stipulates that the terrorist content must be consumed in an “ongoing, systematic manner” in order for an individual to fall foul of the proposed law, which stipulates a one-year prison sentence for anyone violating it.

The law will not be applicable to someone watching such content randomly or by accident, or for “a legitimate reason” such as providing information to the public, research, or preventing terror attacks.

The legislation is being advanced as a temporary law that will be valid for two years and then renewable.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel strongly criticized the previous version of the legislation as “anti-democratic,” and said it would create a “thought police” that would punish people “not based on their actions but rather on what is going on inside someone’s head.”