Audio By Carbonatix
A feature article in a Hamas Web site for children hosted by a local domain seller has a Palestinian boy lamenting that he must “kill the Israeli occupation and break the siege of Gaza,” according to an American expert on the Middle East.
The most recent update on the children’s site also has an editorial article that “celebrates the life of a young man by the name of Asim, who killed himself carrying out a suicide attack in 2001 against an Israeli bus as it approached a busstop,” writes Laura Mansfield, who runs a Web site dedicated to translating inflammatory Arabic rhetoric into English.
As Mansfield points out, a “whois” search of the site’s domain name shows it is being hosted by the Scottsdale-based GoDaddy.com:
Registrant:
Our work is funded by readers like you who make voluntary gifts because they value our work and want to see it continue. Make a contribution today to help us reach our $30,000 goal! Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com) Administrative Contact:
samo halabi
0100
Amman, N/A 9776
Jordan
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Domain Name: ALFATEHMAG.NET
Created on: 15-Dec-07
Expires on: 15-Dec-09
Last Updated on: 06-Dec-08
halabi, samo tantawi38@gmail.com
0100
Amman, N/A 9776
Jordan
0096265629400 Fax
(UPDATE 1-7-09: GoDaddy says it will remove at least one “offensive” page from the site and do more research on it).
An October 2007 article from the Washington D.C.-based Jewish Policy Center states that when GoDaddy learned it was hosting a potential terrorists’ site, islamic-block.net, it “immediately suspended” the site.
When told of the site, Nick Fuller, a GoDaddy spokesman, got back to us with this written reply:
We were not aware of any issues with this Web site, until you contacted us. We do not support terrorist activities. Obviously, we take accusations regarding potential terrorist Web sites seriously and, as with our standard protocol, will conduct an investigation into the site, since we have now received your complaint. By the way, our Abuse Department did some digging right after we spoke. They do not have a complaint regarding the alfatehmag.net Web site. As you may know, we host more than 3 million Web sites and have nearly 33 million domain names registered. Since it is impossible for us to monitor the ever-changing Web content of our customers, complaints like yours are an important part of our process. We do have a 24/7 Abuse Department to investigate complaints like these. While we respect the freedom of speech, we do not condone calls for violence or hatred. Thank you, Nick Fuller NFuller@GoDaddy.com Communications Manager — Ray Stern
