News

‘Digital Apartheid’: Jew Owned Meta allows Israeli settlers to monetize terror attacks against Palestinians

May 1, 2026

Social media platforms owned by US tech giant Meta are actively monetizing the accounts of Jewish settler groups promoting violence against Palestinians, while blocking monetization for the accounts of Palestinians and suppressing their reach, according to a new investigation by The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh).

Extremist Jewish groups such as the Hilltop Youth, sanctioned by the US, UK, and other nations for their involvement in violent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, continue to generate revenue through Facebook and Instagram.

The report presented samples of monetized Israeli pages that “promote illegal outposts, justify settler violence, mock Palestinian victims, call for forced displacement, or celebrate destruction and genocide in Gaza.”

Meta is allowing Israeli police pages, settlers, and individuals implicated in Palestinian killings to profit directly from violent and inciting content on its platforms.

Jala AbuKhater, Policy Manager at 7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, sheds light… pic.twitter.com/0cftTWFF0U

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) April 23, 2026

While these groups use platforms to organize and fundraise for settlement activities—illegal under international law—Meta’s moderation systems still permit revenue to reach those committing violence, violating the company’s own policies.

In contrast, Palestinian voices—such as those of well-known journalists and human rights advocates—are subject to systematic censorship and “digital erasure.”

7amleh documented thousands of instances where Palestinian accounts were shadow-banned, restricted, or permanently deleted for documenting the reality of life under occupation.

This discrepancy creates a “monetization blockade” that bars Palestinian creators from earning revenue based on their geographic location.

“This reality creates a dual system: on one hand, Palestinian digital and economic participation is suppressed; on the other, pages that promote settlement activity, violence, and incitement against Palestinians are financially rewarded,” the report concluded.

By providing financial tools to sanctioned groups while suppressing the narratives of those reporting from the ground, Meta is accused of facilitating a “digital apartheid” in West Asia.

7amleh called for an independent audit of Meta’s Hebrew-language moderation and an end to the discriminatory policies that silence Palestinian civil society while enabling settler violence to flourish.

Over the past two years, Israeli settlements and outposts in the occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank and Jerusalem have expanded at an unprecedented pace.

Israeli settlers, led by top government ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, are seeking to annex the West Bank and ethnically cleanse it of its indigenous Palestinian inhabitants.

⚡️🇵🇸🇮🇱JUST IN:

Israeli settlers carried out a 5+ hour pogrom across the West Bank, attacking over 12 villages without intervention.

After Israeli ministers falsely claimed a settler was killed in a car “terror attack”, later investigated as an accident, settlers burned… pic.twitter.com/VedgVHTZjx

— Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws1) March 22, 2026

Settler outposts often act as staging grounds for Jewish pogroms aimed at displacing nearby Palestinian communities. Although these outposts are illegal under Israeli law, the Israeli government retroactively legalizes them after they are established.

In 2025 alone, 41 new settlements were approved or legalized, 7amleh observed, marking the most extensive year of settlement expansion in the West Bank.

According to Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem, Israeli soldiers and settlers killed 1,068 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including 232 children and teens, between 7 October 2023 and 28 April 2026.

On 28 April, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo said he felt “ashamed to be a Jew” after touring Palestinian communities in the West Bank that have come under attack from Israeli settlers.

“What I saw here today reminded me of events that happened in the last century in a very developed country – the same phenomena directed there against Jews. And I feel ashamed to be a Jew here today,” Pardo stated.

Tamir Pardo, former Mossad head, on a tour documenting Jewish settler terror in the West Bank: “My mother is a Holocaust survivor, and what I saw here reminded me of the events of the previous century against the Jews.“ pic.twitter.com/o1eJ9vkhDi

— Etan Nechin (@Etanetan23) April 28, 2026