TikTok isn’t the only digital media platform to have attracted the attention of Arab youth across the world

Lieutenant Colonel (Res.) Yaakov Sabag served as an advisor on Arab affairs in the Israeli civil administration for 21 years, first in Gaza and later in Judea and Samaria, tasked with building up the Palestinian leadership. With his nom de guerre Abu Yusuf, he made the acquaintance of a young Palestinian politician by the name of Ismail Haniyeh, as well as a series of other figures, whom we know today as the leadership of Hamas.

In his book, The Memories of Abu Yusuf, Sabag argues that Israel has abandoned the Palestinian masses to the rule of their worst and most corrupt elements.

With tension levels once again on the rise in the form of incited bands of Arab youth taking videos of themselves terrorizing Jewish passersby and uploading them to social media for entertainment, Sabag explains the origin of this wave of violence. What looks like a copycat social-media phenomenon, he says, may emanate from a Palestinian leadership increasingly worried about an upcoming Hamas election victory

"I scared the Jews.” That was the caption Muhammad Issa attached to the short clip he posted on October 11, 2020.

The clip showed an elderly Jew, apparently a Chabad chassid, walking by a crane Issa was operating on a street in Petach Tikvah. As the Jew passed by, Issa pretended to dodge to avoid an object falling off the crane — this startled the Jew, who covered his head in his hands and jumped back in alarm. The clip ended with the Arab bursting into laughter and flashing the V sign. He thought it would be a good idea to post this on social media, specifically the video-sharing platform TikTok. Issa didn’t neglect to add a “face with tears of joy” emoji…

Issa’s “impish” practical joke, which drew an impressive number of views, gave rise to a disturbing phenomenon: young Arabs filming themselves as they harass and terrorize random Jewish passersby and proudly posting the results on social media.

The peak came last week: Almost everyone on the Israeli street was exposed to and horrified by the video of a young Arab slapping a chareidi yeshivah student on the light rail in Jerusalem, before walking away free. The clip of the incident was uploaded to TikTok, receiving millions of views — something with potentially significant monetary value for the uploader.

Among the youth in the Arab sector — as across the world — digital media is all the rage. Almost every young Arab finds himself spending hours on it every day. The idea is to entertain; the more entertaining a video is, the more views and likes it will get. And as there are tens of millions of Arab users across the world, many have been able to monetize this to stable six-figure incomes.

TikTok isn’t the only digital media platform to have attracted the attention of Arab youth across the world, and one can find platforms with millions of followers, many of which serve as trumpets for terror groups. One example of this is the Shehab News Agency’s Facebook page, which was eventually deleted after garnering 2.7 million likes because of the blatant incitement and hate speech it contained. Shehab was undeterred; it started from scratch and is rebuilding its social media presence.