The flourishing of social networks in recent years has once again flooded the antisemitic discourse and hatred of Jews, and the central focus of it all is the national-political conflict. Unlike the battlefield, however, the network brings the two camps “face to face,” and so the power and capabilities are in the hands of each and every one of us.
It is no secret that for decades we have been improving our military effort but abandoning the field of consciousness. For a long time, the Israeli government and institutional bodies could be “blamed” for the situation by means of the international media in general, and foreign reporters covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular.
And yes, it can be seen that many Israelis are taking part in the online effort, especially during periods of security tension. From the moment the first rocket is launched to Israel, the network is flooded with thousands of documents of moments of terror under a missile attack. Alongside them, dozens of volunteers join the fight against the same content.
The organizations leading the delegitimization campaign of the State of Israel and hatred of Jews use fake news distribution and conspiracy theories. Since the outbreak of the Corona plague, an unprecedented wave of antisemitism has been observed on social media in Europe and the United States, linking the plague to Jews and the State of Israel.
In contrast to an epidemic that sometimes calms down, toxic content saturated with antisemitism floods social networks throughout the year and to dimensions we have not known before. These posts enjoy exposure to millions around the world at any given moment, compared to tens of thousands of posts that present a more balanced picture of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Horrible and shocking cries such as “Hitler must end his work and destroy the two viruses that rule the world – the plague of the Corona and the State of Israel ” are just some of the brainwashing on the Internet that is published almost unhindered.
The violent discourse floods the net and harms Jews around the world throughout the year, and leads to physical acts of hatred that endanger human lives—which do not always manage to find their way into the headlines of news editions, especially in Israel. In order to combat the phenomenon, the “Movement for the Fight against Antisemitism on the Net” (FOA) was established. The FOA deals with locating and monitoring offensive content and works directly with social networks to bring about its removal. At the same time, we constantly call for the expansion of the content removal policy, so that it also includes all content that undermines the existential and historical right of the State of Israel.
There is no doubt that as more citizens are mobilized for the Sisyphean and day-to-day struggle on this issue on a regular basis, this will allow the establishment of a strong and organized “network unit” that will constitute a significant force against such racists. Hundreds and thousands of male and female volunteers from across the country are a considerable force that will certainly be taken into account by international corporations and governments around the world, who will have no choice but to take the escalation of hate speech more seriously.
