HAARETZ: Dutch social media sites are rife with anti-Semitism linked to Israel, according to a new report compiled by Dutch and Israeli monitors who study online discussion.
Though described by some as "superficial," the report prompted Holland's Political Reformed Party to demand the justice ministry address the issue.
In preparing the 11-page report, the team of Web monitors reviewed two online outlets - the Hyves social network, often described as the "Dutch Facebook," and the discussion forums of the respected, mainstream newspaper Volkskrant for three months, until August.
On Hyves - the most popular social network in Netherlands with nine million Dutch members - the team documented calls to "murder all Jews" and for Adolf Hitler "to finish off his job."
The report says that moderators on Hyves take no action to stop the posting of inflammatory anti-Semitic content on its pages.
"Hyves should consider a new system for moderation," the report states. "Moderators who do not comply with regulations should be barred."
The research team, led by Yochanan Visser, a Dutch Israeli living in Efrat, and members of two pro-Israeli Web-monitoring groups, say they also found "blood libels" about Israeli soldiers on Hyves.
In one post, "Fatima," who described herself as a Palestinian girl from Jerusalem, wrote that her father had been abducted in the dead of night and hacked to pieces. "My dear mother was beaten to death before me by the Jews, the beasts," she wrote, adding that soldiers raped her sister.
The Web-monitoring groups, the Israel Facts monitor and the Network on Anti-Semitism in the Netherlands, trace the text to a discussion group called "Free Palestine, one of 35 different groups that the report defines as either anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. >>> Cnaan Liphshiz | Tuesday, September 22, 2009
