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White House slams Twitter for permitting Ayatollah’s anti-Israel tweets

“It’s really appalling and it just speaks to their overwhelming, blinding bias against conservatives and against this president,” McEnany said.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

The White House blasted Twitter on Friday for not cracking down on anti-Israel tweets from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while at the same time labeling President Donald Trump’s tweets with content warnings.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters, “I thought it was very eye opening and it tells you where these social media companies stand, where they’re not willing to assess Ayatollah Khamenei’s tweets but they are willing to assess President Trump’s tweets.”

“It’s really appalling and it just speaks to their overwhelming, blinding bias against conservatives and against this president,” McEnany said.

Her comments came after an arresting conversation during a committee hearing in Israel’s parliament last Wednesday on the topic of social media anti-Semitism. The hearing took place at the end of a 48-hour boycott of Twitter by Jewish groups, prompted by the social media giant’s slow response to handling anti-Semitic tweets by a British rapper.

The head of Twitter Policy for the Nordics and Israel, Ylwa Petterson, was queried by Arsen Ostrovsky, an international human rights lawyer, as to why Twitter has recently started flagging President Trump’s tweets but not those of “Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, who has literally called for the genocide of Israel and the Jewish people.”

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Petterson said, “we have an approach to world leaders that presently says that direct interactions with fellow public figures, comments on political issues of the day, or foreign policy saber-rattling on military-economic issues are generally not in violation of our Twitter rules.”

Knesset member Michal Cotler-Wunsh of the Blue and White party, who headed the discussion, said, “Calling for genocide on Twitter is okay, but commenting on politics is not?”

Cotler-Wunsh later tweeted, “Wow. Twitter just admitted that tweets calling genocide against Jews by Iranian leaders DON’T violate its policy!”

Khamenei has repeatedly threatened Israel with annihilation on Twitter. Toward the end of May, he tweeted a threat to implement a “Final Solution” against Israel.

Later that week, Khamenei said, “the Zionist virus will not last long and the Zionist regime will not survive – and will be destroyed.”

Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen sent an official letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey following those tweets, demanding Khamenei’s accounts be immediately suspended.