The Antisemitism Report of the Monitoring Center summarizes the main points of the events, With focus topic: Instrumentalization of the Russo-Ukrainian war in global antisemitic propaganda.
Key Findings
- Transnational extremist elements from across the ideological spectrum are capitalizing on the Russia-Ukraine war to spread antisemitic propaganda online. Ministry data shows a nearly 40% increase in global antisemitic hate speech disseminated on social media in March 2022 compared to March 2021. Moreover, 55,000 antisemitic posts containing specific references to the Russia-Ukraine conflict were recorded between February 24-March 28, 2022.
- Convergence of far-right, far-left, and radical Islamist discourse
• Russia’sinvasion of Ukraine is giving new momentum to right-wing extremists, who are exploiting the crisis to strengthen their ideological influence. Despite the lack of consensus among them regarding which side to support, the extreme right camp is converging on scapegoating Jews. Notably, white supremacists lamented a ‘brother war’ between two white nations, allegedly fueled by a Jewish conspiracy seeking to annihilate Western civilization and establish a ‘New World Order.’
• On the far-left and pro-Palestinian camp, fallacious analogies between the Israeli-Palestinian and Russian-Ukrainian conflicts abound. Indeed, intersectional activists are constructing a ‘competitive victimhood’ narrative demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish state.
• Lastly, radical Islamist discourse is combining anti-Western and antisemitic narratives, often focusing on President Zelensky’s Jewishness. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claimed that the Ukrainian president is a “Zionist Jew” who “supports the Nazis that killed the Jews.” According to him, this proves that the West has no principles.
- The case of Russia and Ukraine, the two directly involved actors, displays more complex characteristics. While war-related public discourse promulgated in the region does not seem tainted by antisemitic rhetoric per se, the abuse of Nazi-related rhetoric and Holocaust analogies constitute the most common discourse patterns of the Russia-Ukraine information war.
