The 16-Year Old Jewish Girl Who Defends Hamas

Important note: Many of this girl’s supporters have taken to social media to hurl abuse at me and make accusations that I am harassing her. The fact remains this post is exposing her own tweets, with some of my additional commentary. Nothing more. I have not called for anyone to harass her, or any other action to be taken against her. 

So to haters I say: eat it up. Own your vile views. And don’t expect those of us appalled to remain silent.

Meet Bethany Koval.

bethany koval

She’s a 16-year-old anti-Israel, Hamas sympathizer who has been accused of bullring bullying browbeating over anti Israel tweets.

Administrators at a northern New Jersey high school are getting angry phone calls from Palestinian rights activists after a junior there says administrators accused her of bullying over tweets she made that were sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

Bethany Koval, 16, is prolific on Twitter, having dashed off more than 21,000 messages and gained nearly 4,000 followers since joining in February 2015. She got the attention of online activists including members of Anonymous this morning after tweeting about her trip to the principals office. The tweets include recordings of a man she says is her principal saying she could be formally charged with bullying, which under New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act (pdf) can lead to suspension or expulsion.

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She said she has family in Israel and grew outraged about the country’s treatment of Palestinians in 2014 after seeing video of civilians bombed in Gaza.

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Koval tweeted about the bombings and the Israeli-Palestinian political situation over her winter break, and said that it’s those tweets that caught the attention of a classmate who she describes as a former friend. In one, Koval described Hamas as “not extreme.”

In another, she described Israel as a “terrorist force.”

She almost seems to be waxing lyrical about the murderers of Hamas.

https://twitter.com/bendykoval/status/679564274361085952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

(tweet removed but it said “Hamas is just painted that way Hateful rhetoric against Hamas is what allowed the Gaza bombing”)

And I am willing to guess she is not top of her mathematics class.

https://twitter.com/bendykoval/status/679560376023945216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

She’s probably not all that strong in English Literature either.

https://twitter.com/bendykoval/status/681038459360948224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

And to think she has family in Israel. Family who were targeted for murder by Hamas rockets. Just like the rest of us here in Israel.

So, yeah, she may only be 16, but she is playing the very adult game of publicly supporting terrorists, and spreading hateful propaganda against Israel and her people.

You do not get to make yourself a “human shield” and hide behind your age after that.

47 thoughts on “The 16-Year Old Jewish Girl Who Defends Hamas”

  1. She may be completely misinformed. She may be posting completely false statements. But in the US, that should not matter. While I get that you’re from Australia and currently live in Israel where speech restrictions are more common, those of us in the US must be very vigilant against encroachment upon free speech – even when it is speech that offends us.

    Take this other recent case of Philadelphia high school student Michael Moroz who was subjected to threatening backlash and had an article he wrote criticizing Michael Brown and supporting Darren Wilson pulled from the newspaper because the school paper said “if an article comes across as insensitive, and the Central community would rather have it taken down…then the article will be taken down”

    People found his article “insensitive”. One student said that “students were upset, and hurt” by the article.

    So what? It challenged their perspectives. But we have become so intolerant of any writing that challengs our views, that the reaction is not to meet it with dialog, but to silence it so that we don’t feel bad anymore.

    I think this girl is wrong. I think what she publishes is absolutely stupid. But unless she specifically incited people to commit acts of violence against other students in her class who disagreed with her, her right to publish her opinions must be fervently defended – especially by those of us who disagree with it. I can assure you, soon it will be someone we agree with who is in the same position as she is.

    1. if any of her tweets attacked a specific person, that would be considered bullying

      and all schools have a zero tolerance policy

    2. I agree, assuming that all she did is what she claims she did. She’s entitled to express he hateful, ignorant, and foul-mouthed opinion, and her 15 minutes of fame is only making her a hero to her cause. But I’d like to know what the school’s response is. We are only hearing her side.

      1. Fair enough point, but from what I’ve seen of her posts (and I looked over at her twitter feed after reading the article), she is not attacking any students. I just saw her posting anti-Israel stuff.

  2. this story is already being carried by the nyt

    and im sure its as wrong as the clock boy story

    zero tolerance means what it means

    and if the school believes that any of her tweets targeted a specific person in school (and it seems that some did) that is bullying

      1. or this one

        @L_Chevere YOU’RE MY FAVORITE LOCAL. I’M DMING YOU THEIR NAMES RN— benny (@bendykoval) December 26, 2015

        zero tolerance policy and anti bullying statutes are clear, and were instituted as the result of many instances of cyber bullying that led to things like suicide.

        she can cry that she is being targeted because she is anti israel till the cows come home. but that isnt the reason she was read the riot act

        and its apparent that there is no parental oversight in that home

        1. Yes, and context of that tweet was:

          Her friend: WHO TELL THEM TO SQUARE THE FUCK UP IM READY TO FIGHT

          Her: YOU’RE MY FAVORITE LOCAL. I’M DMING YOU THEIR NAMES RN

          She’s really a masterful manipulator. She was handing over names to someone “ready to fight”, gets called to the principal’s office for bullying, then goes crying to the anti-Israel media about being persecuted for defending the Palestinians.

          Good luck to her parents.

    1. She’s not guilty of bullying another student, which would be forgivable. No, she’s guilty of bullying Israel. Guilty of exposing Israel’s vast crimes against the Palestinians. For this the Zionists will never forgive her.

      1. what is it with you jew hating loons?

        you think spewing the same talking points over and over makes you right?

          1. Please do not blame Israelis for defending their citizens, It is more what the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are doing to themselves and their citizens, the problem is they do not want Israel to exist and now openly admit that, how can you make peace with a people that do not want to make peace, answer you cannot no matter what you give them

          2. ya, another over repeated talking point

            you dont hate jews….just zionists and the only jewish state

            go away

            and if you think bullying of a child or teen is forgivable, you are a horrible human being

          3. “what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians”

            Yes, defending themselves from bombs, knives, car rammings, AND liars.

            You find that upsetting? Check your privilege. Who’s claiming they want to wipe your nation off the planet? Are they trying to stab, bomb, or ram your family on a DAILY basis?

      2. Interesting that you say she is guilty of “bullying Israel”. This is precisely the behaviour I have seen several anti Israel people engage in. In one breath they claim they are “merely being critical of the state of Israel” and in the next breath they are calling Israel an “Apartheid State”, “Nazi State”, etc. etc. In another words, they engage in name calling, the hallmark of bully behaviour on school playgrounds designed to hurt and demonize. Now, Miss Koval, being of school age, is probably used to such juvenile behaviour, but some of us are older than that and think it is quite pathetic that so called “critics of Israel” resort to such tactics.

  3. Joined Twitter last February and tweeted 21,000 times?
    Doing a brief calculation, that is around 1750 a month, 58 tweets a day, around 4 tweets per waking hour, or one every 15 minutes..

    That is an obsession. Forget about the alleged bullying. I wonder if her grades are slipping.

  4. she referred to this article as a hate article

    of course, salaita had to comment

    he still doesnt get the concept about free speech for all, not just those that hate israel and love the hamas terrorists

    1. Can’t see the tweet now because her tweets are private. It was something along the lines of wanting to block the “evil journalists” at Breitbart because they were going to spin her story in a way she wouldn’t like. She wanted to block all their followers, too, as I recall. By taking her account private, she’s blocked 99.9% of the twittersphere. So she’s effectively muzzled herself. Which may be a good thing.

      1. im sure that her account is now private on advice of counsel

        however, im sure state has the right to subpoena her twitter feed

  5. “James Marcella, the principal of Fair Lawn High School, said in an email on Thursday that the issue had been referred to the superintendent of the Fair Lawn school district, Bruce Watson. Mr. Watson, in turn, said that the district could not discuss confidential matters involving students but was obligated by New Jersey’s strict bullying law to investigate a complaint alleging harassment.”

    “At no time have District officials sought to censor or reprimand any pupils for their online speech,” Mr. Watson wrote. “The investigation is focused solely on the factors we are required to apply by law and not upon any political opinions expressed by any pupils.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/nyregion/anti-israel-tweets-land-new-jersey-student-in-principals-office.html?_r=0

      1. We’ll never know the full story here, because she’s a minor and they can’t talk about her. Unless the person or people who went to the principal want to go public, but I wouldn’t blame them for keeping a low profile. Well, the kid and her family have lawyered up, but I suspect there won’t be any interesting court case.

  6. bethany chose to make this issue public, by live tweeting her walk of shame and recording the meeting with the assistant principle

    she made it an issue about her hate of israel….when it is in fact all about two tweets which can be construed as bullying….nj has some of the toughest anti bullying statutes in the states

    as a result, the jew/israel haters have jumped on the bandwagon, twisting this case, the same way that the clockboy case was twisted

    as for what this site and some others have done, in pointing out her absurd and evil stance in regards to hamas and israel…if she cant handle it…maybe its time for her to get off the internet for awhile

  7. is she a Jew? if she is she is just a waste of a life who is looking to suck up to the enemies of the Jews in order to save herself, if she isn’t a Jew you can only hope she is a victim of an Islamic terrorist attack or another attack on her…

    1. she apparently is jewish

      maxxie blumenthal is trying to push the idea that she is an israeli….but no evidence of such

      update….according to someone who lives in the community, she is neither israeli or jewish…has just said that as another ruse

    2. She’s a 16 year old KID. A rebelling adolescent trying to show the whole world how “smart” and courageous she is. As gross as it is, have a little mercy. I can barely imagine what my childhood would’ve looked like with a twitter acct.

      1. She’ll be raped by her Terrorist buddies once she sets foot in Gaza or the West Bank. typical use full idiots with Stockholm syndrome.

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