Group praising Jerusalem bombing banned from Twitter by Elon Musk

After the Jisr Collective expressed praise for the deadly Wednesday Jerusalem bombing in a series of posts on Twitter, company CEO Elon Musk appeared to ban the anti-Israel group from the social media platform on Thursday. 

"That is not ok," said Musk in response to a post by political commentator Ian Miles Cheong, in which he shared a screenshot of the collective "actively promoting and celebrating violence against Jews. The account has been active since 2021. I hope more can be done to crack down on this."

Agreed, that is not ok

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

In the screenshots shared by Cheong, the Jisr Collective had posted a video of the bombings declaring that "The resistance has spoken. Explosion in al-Quds [Jerusalem]," and in another post of a burning bus, "How many more billions of dollars do the imperialists want to spend for these spectacular moments?"

One teenager was killed and 19 others were injured in Wednesday's coordinated twin bombings. The explosive devices were packed with nuts and bolts for shrapnel.

According to Cheong, the group also on Monday reportedly described Mizrahi Jews as "traitors who joined white supremacist Zionists. They were of us and they chose to be traitors. The manufactured victimization is likely [because] if they ever have to disband from their supremacist colony, we the oppressed await them. We all know what happens to traitors."

Jisr Collective's backup Twitter account had also been suspended, and while still active on Instagram, the group had set its content to private mode. 

Jisr Collective and support for terrorism

The group maintains a blog with writers under pseudonyms, with radical content that advocates for armed "resistance," the dissolution of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

"The resistance is actively protecting Al Quds,  the capital of Palestine. No settler, neither in 'West' nor 'East Jerusalem' is safe. All of Al Quds will be liberated from the violent presence of colonial agents of US and British imperialism," Jisr collective tweeted in August, following a shooting attack on a bus that in which eight people, including a pregnant woman, were injured.

 In an October article, one of the group's writers called to abandon Oslo and pursue armed struggle. In late September a member called for a mass uprising during the Jewish Shmita (religious agricultural rest year) in order to exploit what they described as a strategic vulnerability. 

The group was one of the early supporters of the Boston Mapping Project, which listed and mapped local Jewish and Zionist institutions alleged to be "structurally tied" to US media, police, government, and other key local establishments. The FBI said in June that it was monitoring the project. 

Attacks on Palestinian movements

Jisr Collective has railed against Palestinians and pro-Palestinian groups who have advocated for diplomatic or non-violent methods. It blasted the BDS leadership for disassociating itself from the Mapping Project-affiliated BDS Boston, claiming that the "BNC (BDS National Committee) is a danger to Palestinians and the liberation movement."

In October the group attacked the NGO Jewish Voice for Peace as a zionist organization that sought to control Palestinian groups from within.

In mid-November, 180 NGOs called on Musk to adopt the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism on Twitter to counter harassment against Jews on the platform.