Of all tweets published in the past week (April 3-April 10) using the term “Zionist,” 92% contained antisemitic content or tone, according to a data analysis conducted by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).
The study was based on a randomized sample of 100 tweets out of 32,608 “hits.”
The last seven days saw heightened security tensions in Israel, with rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria; violent clashes between Muslim rioters and Israeli police inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem; and deadly terrorist attacks in the Jordan Valley and Tel Aviv.
Manifestations of antisemitism found in the sampled tweets included Holocaust trivialization, denial of the historical ties of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, false allegations of Israeli “apartheid,” religious extremism (rooted in both Islamic and Christian fundamentalism), and numerous alt-right tropes.
Much of the hateful rhetoric in these tweets contained components of both far-left and Islamic antisemitism; rooted in demonization of Zionism, calls for the extermination of the Jewish state, and religious proclamations falsely alleging “Israeli attacks on Islam.”
Additionally, the past week saw many distortions of the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to incite antisemitic hatred.
The most popular related hashtags in tweets using the term “Zionist” can be viewed here:
The most popular words associated with searches for the term “Zionist” were:
Three examples from the sampled tweets follow:
While dangerous forms of antisemitism are proliferating on other social media platforms as well, the CAM Antisemitism Research Center is currently analyzing data from only Twitter, Reddit, and 4Chan.
Hatred disseminated online can have devastating real-world consequences for Jewish communities across the globe. At a time when Jews are facing rising threats, social media platforms must do more to monitor and remove antisemitic materials.
