The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court sentenced Israeli Arab Sami Dais to 8 months in prison on Tuesday, for inciting and supporting terror on Facebook.
Dais, a resident of the neighborhood of A-Tur in Jerusalem, is accused of having published, among other things, a picture of a man dressed as an Orthodox Jew with guns aimed at his head and a knife and a gun over and above him with the caption: "Blood = blood! Kill them, death to settlers."
Several of the posts were made during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza; Dais's posts received many "likes" and "shares" from other users who spread the incitement.
On October 23, 2014, the day after one of the car attacks near the Jerusalem light rail which killed two people, Dais announced, "with dignity and pride, the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine announces the fall of the martyr Abdul Rahman Alslodi Shahid, who killed settlers in an attack in the French Hill neighborhood."
He also openly praised Hamas and the assassination attempt on Temple Mount prayer rights activist Yehuda Glick.
Dais was charged and convicted of multiple offenses in accordance with his confession of incitement to violence or terror and supporting a terrorist organization.
"The defendant committed a series of serious crimes, one after another, taking advantage of social networking," Justice Shmuel Herbst stated. "I got the impression that that person is educated, as mentioned, and is aware the consequences of his actions, but nevertheless decided to carry out acts of incitement and support terrorism."
The ruling is one of two precedent-setting cases recently in which an Israeli was indicted for incitement over social networks.
A Jerusalem District Court judge sentenced an Arab resident of the capital to nine months in prison plus an additional five months on probation last week, in a landmark case over incitement on social media.
Omer Shalbi was convicted for posts he made on Facebook over the past year, in which he expressed sympathy with the terrorists behind the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens last summer, the Har Nof synagogue massacre, and the series of deadly attacks by "lone wolf" terrorists using vehicles and knives to target Israeli civilians and security personnel during that same period.