Why did YouTube ban 'We Con the World'?

Was YouTube's removal of an Israeli "attack parody video," which mocks activists killed in the Gaza flotilla raid, a matter of copyright law — or politics?

A screengrab from the video.

YouTube has removed "We Con the World," a spoof clip created by a satirical Israeli website, Latma TV, to mock media coverage of what The Jerusalem Post calls "the Gaza-bound 'aid' flotilla." The music video, which portrays some of those aboard as terrorists, went viral after the Israeli government press office mistakenly sent it to journalists. While YouTube says it is protecting Warner Music's copyright on the original Michael Jackson song "We Are the World," some commentators aren't buying it. Is YouTube attempting to silence critical Israeli activists? (Watch the video below)

Obviously, YouTube is hostile to Israel: Not only is this parody "legal and permissible" under U.S. copyright law, says conservative Israeli journalist Caroline Glick, who helped create the video, but "this is not YouTube's first move to silence Israeli voices." In 2008, when the Israeli Defense Force "began posting combat footage on its channel to bypass the anti-Israel media," the site did the same thing. As our success distributing the video elsewhere will prove, YouTube was "messing with the wrong Jews."

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