The outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas has led to a dramatic surge in online antisemitic hate, according to a report accompanying an online resource compiled by the World Jewish Congress.
Posts on major social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok between May 10-19 featured Holocaust imagery, conspiracy myths, and Nazi glorification, in particular evocations such as “Hitler was right.”
The report, which is intended to serve as a wake-up call, especially to policymakers and social media platforms, provides an overview of some of the most blatant of such antisemitic phenomena. The included examples are representative of a far greater volume of online hate speech, much of it glorifying and praising the Nazi German genocide of European Jewry during the Holocaust.
In addition, certain anti-Israel demonstrators have gathered outside synagogues and Jewish community centers, equating Jews with the Israeli military and seeking to blame Jews around the world for the latest Middle East violence. Jewish communities and religious institutions worldwide have been targeted in what has become an antisemitic campaign against Jews. In Germany, synagogues and a Holocaust memorial were vandalized; in Austria, Jews have been verbally abused; in Spain, stones were thrown at a member of the Jewish community; in Canada, an elderly Jewish man was beaten with flag poles; in London, Jews were intimidated by calls to “rape Jewish daughters” over the loudspeakers of a pro-Palestinian car convoy that drove through Jewish neighborhoods; and in Florida, pro-Israeli protesters were circled by a van bearing sign “Hitler was right.”
The World Jewish Congress’s goal with the report is to highlight examples of some of the most virulent content, pushing social media platforms to monitor and remove such content and take steps to prevent its dissemination in the future.