An Israeli and a Palestinian launched a joint petition Monday to the Israeli Attorney General against Hadar Muchtar, an Israeli politician and influencer who they claim incited violence against Palestinians on social media.
Muchtar is a famous young political influencer in Israel and founded her party, Tzeirim Boarim, or Youth on Fire, to protest rising prices years before October 7.
Amir Segev Sarusi, 29 and Ali, who we have given a different name over safety fears, accused Hadar Muchtar of incitement, dehumanisation and defamation of Palestinians in videos posted on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Muchtar, who is believed to be serving with the IDF as an academic soldier, published videos where she claimed 67 percent of Palestinians supported October 7, appearing to say that they are legitimate military targets and criticised the Israeli government for allowing the supply of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the complainants said.
In one post to Instagram in June, Muchtar stated that claims made by Palestinian detainees in the Sde Timan prison camp of human rights violations were “stupid”, calling on the accused Israeli soldiers not to be indicted.
The plea labelled the social media posts an "incitement for violence in of itself" and said it portrayed the prisoners as if they were "not worthy of human dignity". It comes as scores of Palestinians have been arrested for "inciting" posts on social media.
The two men launched an initial complaint to the IDF in June calling for the removal, and a criminal investigation to be opened over Muchtar's social posts. However, officials found none of the videos were a criminal offence.
Monday’s petition to Gali Baharav Miara asked for an “intervention in the decision of the military attorney's office to avoid opening an investigation and removing misleading posts.”
Segev Sarusi and Ali claimed they were both victims of Muchtar’s posts but for different reasons, however, despite their differences, the two came together to put forward their plea.
“She posted a few videos and called for genocide, and that we should kill all the Palestinians and… starve to death,” Ali said. “If I called for the death of Israelis on social media and we were both brought to the same judge, I would be jailed and she would not.”
At first, Ali believed there was no reason to launch a complaint against Muchtar, as “nothing is going to happen. We are just not equal before the law. ” However, he went ahead with the joint case as he wanted to reveal that unashamed discrimination.
He added: “I witnessed the Second Intifada when I was young, so I’m familiar with Israeli brutality. I've seen the Israeli soldiers. They break into my house several times. Most of the time it was for no reason. I have been humiliated at checkpoints many, many times. I believe if the system was less tolerant for such expressions, if they really took into consideration my dignity as a human being, maybe at least some of it would be different.”
The other complainant, Segev Sarusi, states that he is being discriminated against as he had his military rank removed years earlier over what he believed to be illegitimate reasons. “I was deprived of my ranks with no discipline or misconduct. She has not been deprived of her ranks although she called for the starvation of two million individuals.”
“The real surprising thing is that they didn’t take down the posts”, Segev Sarusi said. “As a soldier, she’s not entitled to the same freedom of speech by law to begin with. The military understood that and reported to her commanders, but for them the issue was only that she spoke politics, totally ignoring the severity of her expressions”.
“Lieutenant Muchtar clearly strayed from what’s expected for her as an officer in her rank and status,” the complaint said. As she is also an influencer, the complaint suggests that her posts should be considered more dangerous because of the number of people her videos reach.
According to the IDF's reply in August, the videos were then passed on to her military commanders. Segev Sarusi told The New Arab that Muchtar had posts on social media where she claimed she had been punished by her commanders for her “political” views.
Months later, however, the posts remain online and her rank appears unchanged.
While Muchtar’s “inciteful” posts remain online across various platforms, Palestinians have often been arrested for “incitement” for more precarious reasons.
In November, Adalah, a legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel, monitored 251 cases of arrests and detentions that were “primarily based on suspicions of ‘incitement to terrorism’ and/or ‘identifying with terror organisations’, as defined in Article 24 of Israel’s Counter-Terror Law.”
At least 103 of these had been approved by the State’s Attorney’s office for criminal investigations. Although the ethnicity and national background of the suspects were not provided to Adalah, police stated that at least 95 percent were Arab.
From October 7 to November 16, Adalah received over 100 reports from Palestinian students enrolled in Israeli academic institutions that they had faced repression on social media platforms.
Some students were suspended and expelled over posts the institutions claimed were “supporting terrorism” or “sympathising with terror organisations.” According to Adalah, in most of the over 100 cases, the majority of students had expressed solidarity with the people in Gaza, posts that were “completely arbitrary and irrelevant to the war or Hamas.”
The legal centre went on: “These draconian actions were prompted by complaints received from political, far-right student groups that targeted Palestinian students at their academic institutions and monitored their social media accounts.”
These actions were backed by Education Minister Yoav Kish who issued a statement saying that: “in cases where there is indeed incitement, [you must] order a permanent expulsion.”
According to a database compiled by Law for Palestine, a human rights non-profit, from October 7 until January 4, there have been more than 500 instances of Israeli incitement to Genocide. Various officials including politicians, army personnel, legislators and journalists have been quoted in the report.
Some of the examples include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement on October 13, saying that the city of Gaza was “evil.” “I say to the residents of Gaza: get out of there now. We will act everywhere and with all our strength,” he said.
In its 2023 report, Amnesty International said that Israeli politicians who had “incited racial hatred, and proposed to annex Palestinian territory and forcibly deport Palestinians, were given military and policing responsibilities by the Benjamin Netanyahu government. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich became governor of the occupied West Bank in February, and security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir formed a volunteer ‘national guard’ in April.”
Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara’s office and Hadar Muchtar have been reached for comment but did not respond by the time of publication.