PA Incitement: 'It's Bin Laden Meets Zuckerberg'

JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli authorities arrested a prominent Hamas leader overnight, accusing him of inciting Palestinians to terrorism and "fomenting violence."

Sheikh Hassan Yousef is the father of Mosab Hassan Yousef. The younger Yousef was an Israeli undercover agent credited with helping Israel's secret service sabotage many terror attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says social media is inspiring young people to carry out those attacks.

In fact, it didn't take long for Hamas to come out with a video reenactment of a terrorist stabbing and shooting attack on an Israeli bus.

Two Israelis were murdered in that attack and the terrorists were killed. It's this kind of combination between Islamic extremism and the Internet that's fueling the current wave of violence, Netanyahu said.

"It's Osama bin laden meets Mark Zuckerberg," the prime minister said. "It's incitement on social media networks. This is what is motivating the acts of murder."

Netanyahu said that assessment comes from investigations of terrorists.

"We investigated the terrorists – those who are still alive. We went to the Facebook pages of those who were killed during their attempted murders, and we see clearly there is very direct incitement and this is what motivates these acts of murder," Netanyahu said.

Social media is being used to foment the spread of violent attacks on Israelis. Bill Riggio, with the Foundation for Defense Democracies, explains how jihadist are spreading their methodology.

In an interview that aired on official Palestinian Authority television, senior Fatah official Jibral Rajoub glorifies terrorists.

"These are individual acts of heroism, and I am proud of them and congratulate all those who carried them out," Rajoub said.

Referring to one terrorist who murdered two Israelis on a Jerusalem bus, Rajoub said, "That obligates the Palestinian political elite and national political forces to regard the testament of one of them – that hero, who wrote a (Facebook) post that can be a document worthy to be taught in schools about the meaning of martyrdom."

On his Facebook page, Bahaa Allyan scorned leaders as well as fellow Palestinians for a lack of patriotism.

Israel released a document of some of the recent cases, including a Facebook post from an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

In it Sultan Abu el-Einein praises the murderer from the Beersheva central bus station attack, saying he receives a medal of honor as a martyr.

Other posts show various cartoons encouraging knife attacks.

According to an expert at the Institute for National Security Studies, about a third of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) are active on social media. That spells trouble when it's encouraging terrorism.