The systematic consumption of terror publications passed a first Knesset vote.
The Knesset plenum passed the Struggle Against Terror law proposal, an amendment to the Consumption of Terror Publications Law as a temporary order. 17 MKs voted in favor against 8 MKs from the Arab Ra’am and Joint List parties. The proposal will now go to the Knesset Committee.
Random or Good Faith Consumption Will Not Be Prohibited
The amendment proposes to “add as a temporary order for a period of two years a criminal prohibition which prohibits the systematic and ongoing consumption of certain publications of the organization of Hamas and ISIS which include words of praise, admiration or encouragement of terror attacks or documentation of the terrorist act accompanying the consumption of the publications. However, consumption of publications done at random, in good faith or for a proper purpose will not be prohibited consumption.”
The explanatory preamble stated that “the temporary order is meant to allow, for a limited period after which the need for its extension will be examined, another tool in the struggle against terror, with an emphasis on individual terror, which is characterized by perpetrators of the terrorist acts, as a rule, do not belong to terrorist organization but whose motivation to carry out acts derives from intensive consumption of terrorist publications of terror organizations of certain characteristics.”
The Publication Could Trigger People to Commit Terrorist Acts
The proposal states that brainwashing could lead to the perpetration of terror acts, stating that “this need increases in light of the current security situation and the fear of its exploitation by terrorist organizations. Intensive watching of terrorist publications of particular organizations could produce a process of indoctrination, a kind of self ‘brain washing,’ which could bring about the will and motive to perpetrate a terrorist act to a very high level of maturity, with the ultimate trigger bringing the consumer of terror content to carry out a terrorist act possibly being a random factor which cannot be predicted or prevented in advance.”