IDF gets trolled by Twitterati over attempts to justify barbaric military response to Gaza protests

RT
Sat, 30 Mar 2019 08:57 UTC

© Reuters / Amir Cohen

An Israeli soldier sits in a military vehicle near the border fence between Israel and Gaza on its Israeli side, March 15, 2019.

The IDF took to Twitter to jokingly explain why Palestinian "riots" in Gaza are not "protests" and justify the military response to it. The trolling session didn't go so well, however, and the IDF got a taste of its own medicine.

The bizarre thread was posted on the IDF Twitter account on Friday, describing in tongue-in-cheek fashion why Palestinian protests shouldn't be described as "peaceful" and perceived as "violent riots" instead. Some tweets were tech-savvy.

Others were generally funny:

And at least one was borderline creepy.

The thread was met with quite a mixed reaction by the twitterati, as many flocked to the IDF page to show that two can play that game. The replies mimicked the IDF's style, while berating the activities of the Israeli military instead.

Others took on the Israeli state as a whole.

Some drew not the most flattering comparisons.

And criticized the poor taste of the IDF trolling spree.

Using fun pop culture references to address what's happening in Gaza is like acting like this isn't real life.

Stop doing these tweets.

- Kyle Berger (@kberger16) 29 марта 2019 г.

Other users, however, showed support towards the Israeli military, while using the very same tweeting style.

Comment: UN report on Israel's massacre of Gaza protesters makes horrific reading

A sampling of the UN's conclusions in the above report:

• The commission found in the killings of 189 demonstrators between 30 March and 31 December 2018, 183 were killed with live ammunition, including 35 children, 3 health workers and 2 members of the Press. Only 29 of those killed were members of Palestinian armed groups.
• Only 4 Israeli snipers were lightly injured, none were killed by demonstrators.
• 23,313 Palestinian demonstrators were injured during the 2018 demonstrations, 6106 with live ammunition, "contributing to the highest toll of injuries recorded in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 2005.
• On the killing of child demonstrators, the commission found "reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot them intentionally, knowing that they were children".
• On the killing of health workers, "the commission found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers intentionally shot health workers, despite seeing that they were clearly marked as such".
• On the killings of journalists, "the commission found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot journalists intentionally, despite seeing that they were clearly marked as such".