ISRAEL AND *ONLINE* ARAB POETS

JERUSALEM : An Israeli court jailed an Arab poet for five months on Tuesday after convicting her of incitement to terrorism-

For a poem and remark she posted on social media during a wave of Palestinian street attacks.

Dareen Tatour, 36, posted on Facebook and YouTube a video of herself reading out her poem  :

 ''Resist, My People, Resist'',  as a soundtrack to footage of masked Palestinian youths throwing stones and firebombs at Israeli soldiers.

Tatour published her poem in October 2015 during a spate of  deadly Palestinian stabbing, shooting and ramming attacks on Israelis. She was arrested a  few days later, and prosecutors said her post was  a call for violence.

She denied this.

Her case  became a cause celebre for freedom of speech advocates in Israel and abroad.

It drew attention to the advanced  technology used  by Israeli security agencies to   trawl through  social  media  to identify and arrest users suspected of  incitement  to violence, or of planning attacks.

Tatour said her poem was misunderstood  by  the Israeli authorities as it was not a call for  violence, rather for  non-violent  struggles.

US-backed negotiations on a Palestinian state in territory Israeli captured in a 1967 was have been stalled since  2014.

Tatour was also charged with supporting a  terrorist group.

Prosecutors said she had expressed  support for the  Palestinian militant   group  Islamic  Jihad's  call for an uprising.

''I wasn't expecting justice to be done. The case was political from the start, because I am a  Palestinian and support  freedom of speech,'' she told reporters at the  Nazareth Magistrate's  Court  in Northern Israel.

Israel says the string of Palestinian attacks  that began in 2015 was fuelled by online incitement  and it has launched a legal crackdown to curb it. [Reuters].