A peacenik is, ironically, brutally murdered by Muslims. Did Facebook irresponsibly facilitate his death?

Who is to blame for the brutal murder of Richard Lakin?

At first, the answer seems simple.

Lakin was aboard Jerusalem's No. 78 bus on Oct. 13 when two Palestinian men stormed the vehicle, shooting and stabbing five people. Among their victims was Lakin, a 76-year-old retired American-born teacher and peace activist. He died on Tuesday after two weeks in the hospital.

"He was brutalized by two Arabs from east Jerusalem who got on a bus, shot him in the head, then stabbed him in the face, then stabbed him in the head" and continued stabbing him multiple times in the body, his son told the Associated Press on Thursday.

But like the broader conflict, where 11 Israelis and at least 62 Palestinians have died in a month of bloody reprisals, Lakin's murder is complicated.

His family's anger isn't just directed at the men who literally took Lakin's life, but also at the Web site that they claim facilitated the incident.

Facebook.

Lakin's family was shocked to find one of his killers had announced his plans on the social media site before the attack. They were even more stunned to find reenactments of the crime on Facebook afterwards, according to the AP.

On Monday, the day before Lakin died, he became the leading plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against Facebook in New York state court. More than 20,000 Israelis have signed onto the suit, according to the legal rights group behind the effort, Shurat HaDin.

The suit claims that Facebook shares in the blame for the string of deadly attacks on Jewish Israelis because of inciting messages posted to the Web site by Palestinians.

"Many of these murderers were motivated to commit their heinous crimes by incitement to murder and the glorification of violence against innocent civilians they read on Facebook," the lawsuit claims. Facebook "is far from a neutral internet platform, as it is Facebook's algorithms that connect the terrorists to the inciters, and Facebook often refuses to take down pages filled with incitement to murder."

"Facebook is fanning the flames of the current Palestinian intifada and its refusals to actively monitor and block the incitement to violence is an outrageous abandonment of its obligations to the public," Shurat HaDin said in a press release.

The suit does not seek damages but does demand Facebook block all posts that incite violence against Jews in Israel.

Facebook has strenuously denied any responsibility for the violence in Israel, arguing that it does all it can to monitor users and take down dangerous or threatening posts.

"We want people to feel safe when using Facebook," a spokesperson told the New York Post. "There is no place for content encouraging violence, direct threats, terrorism or hate speech on Facebook . . . This lawsuit is without merit and we will vigorously defend ourselves."

The fact that Richard Lakin's name is atop the lawsuit against Facebook is layered in irony.

First, there is the tragic irony of his death. Lakin was a lifelong peace activist. Raised in Newton, Massachusetts, he took part in Freedom Rides throughout the South in support of the Civil Rights Movement, according to the Jerusalem Post.

He went on to become a teacher and elementary school principal in Connecticut and New Jersey, before moving to Jerusalem in 1984 with his family. He and his family lived in Armon HaNatziv, a neighborhood in east Jerusalem captured by Israel during the Six-Day War, where he taught English to Jewish and Arab students, the Jerusalem Post reported.

"He was just a deeply optimistic and hopeful person, and refused to be deterred by the grim political reality here," Lakin's rabbi, Levi Weiman-Kelman, told the New York Times. "He wasn't oblivious to the reality, but it didn't affect his basic existential nature. He could not imagine a solution wasn't possible and that people couldn't learn to live together."

"He was really a peacenik," Rabbi Richard Plavin of Beth Shalom B'nai Israel in Manchester, Conn., told the AP. "He believed deeply in a two-state solution and wanted to see Arabs and Jews living together in peace."

Then there is the irony that Lakin's lawsuit is against Facebook, when the retired teacher was an active user and believer in social media.

In the days before he was attacked, he had posted numerous articles about the rising violence in Israel and Palestine. One post was an article on a lawmaker's push to outlaw both Islamic and Jewish extremist groups. "No one on either side is fighting for the people of Jerusalem," ran the headline to another article he shared with his 551 Facebook friends.

Even the backdrop to his profile page was a picture of a Jewish boy and an Arab boy embracing beneath the word: "Coexist."

In the wake of the bus attack, however, Lakin's family's anger turned towards the very Web site his father had used to advocate peace and cohabitation.

According to Lakin's son, Micah Avni, at least one of his father's murderers had announced his plans on Facebook before the attack. Even more outrageous, as Lakin lay in the hospital, Avni found video reenactments of the bus attack on Facebook, "showing how to butcher people and encouraging others to do so," he told the AP.

"My father had been a great beneficiary of social media. He used Facebook and Twitter to express his thoughts on education and on peace," Avni told the New York Times. "He also became the victim of a tremendous amount of incitement and hate on those vehicles."

Social media, Facebook in particular, has emerged as a fiery battleground in the month-long spate of violence between Palestinians and Israelis. Lakin's attacker was not the only Palestinian to reportedly use the Web site to announce his plans to kill.

Muhannad Halabi, 19, wrote on his profile page that Palestine was like an orphan girl adopted by an evil man, Israel, and that Palestinians, were subjected to humiliation and abuse. A few days later, Halabi, a law student, stabbed a well-known rabbi and an off-duty Israeli soldier to death in the Old City of Jerusalem before being shot to death by Israeli soldiers.

Videos depicting the violent deaths of both Palestinians and Israelis have circulated on Facebook. Oftentimes, the footage is selectively edited to portray the other side in the worst possible manner.

The lawsuit against Facebook accuses the Web site of complicity in the carnage. The complaint includes threatening posts, including an image allegedly posted by a Hamas-owned news portal depicting a youth holding a knife walking towards two religious Jews at a Jerusalem bus stop, along with the hashtag "Knife Intifada."

Another post allegedly uploaded to Facebook is a video instructing Palestinians on how to best carry out a knife attack, the lawsuit says.

"Facebook posts have included practical tips on how to make attacks more deadly, including which part of the body to target, how to approach the victim and escape, suggesting dipping the knife in poison to create a more deadly weapon, or using syringes filled with poison," the complaint continues.

The lawsuit acknowledges that "Facebook may not technically be considered the 'speaker' or 'publisher' of such incitement" but claims that "its status changes when it actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in their hateful messages. By brokering connections between terrorist inciters, including recognized terrorist organizations, and potential followers, recruits, rank-and-file terrorists and violent criminals, Facebook is introducing the people who scream 'fire' in a crowded theater to arsonists. Just as 'fighting words' are not protected speech, Facebook's conduct is indefensible and must be ended."

Shurat HaDin will likely have a hard time convincing a New York court that Facebook is at fault for the attacks that killed Lakin and 10 other Israeli Jews.

At Lakin's funeral on Wednesday, his own granddaughter seemed to echo the late teacher's overriding message of personal responsibility.

"I know you would want me to always try to be a better person and do the right thing," 16-year-old Shachar Boteach said, according to the New York Times. "I think you wouldn't want me to have not even one ounce of hate in my body, even though what has been done to you."

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