Over 45 Million Social Media Users Exposed to Violent Posts Against Syrian Druze Community Using Antisemitic Tropes

July 23, 2025

CYBERWELL: OVER 45 MILLION SOCIAL MEDIA USERS EXPOSED TO VIOLENT POSTS AGAINST SYRIAN DRUZE COMMUNITY USING ANTISEMITIC TROPES

(TEL AVIV — July 23, 2025) — New insights from CyberWell, the tech-based nonprofit combating online antisemitism and Holocaust denial, show over 45 million social media users were exposed to violent posts targeting the Syrian Druze community using calls to violence and antisemitic tropes during a single week in July. The uptick in hate speech followed violent unrest in the southern Syrian region of Sweida and was fueled by antisemitic conspiracy theories and dehumanizing language portraying the Druze as agents of Israel. 

Between July 13 and July 20, thousands of Arabic-language posts on Twitter (X) were flagged by social listening tools that CyberWell utilizes. The posts explicitly targeted Syrian Druze, which reached a combined 45 million users. Included were calls for violence, references to Druze as “Zionist dogs,” and slurs labeling them as traitors or collaborators. Many of the posts relied on longstanding antisemitic tropes, reframed to target a non-Jewish minority perceived as politically and culturally aligned with Israel.

During this period, CyberWell noted an average of 1,016 posts per day containing the terms “Druze” and “Greater Israel,” marking a 3,529-percent increase compared to the previous six months. The peak occurred on July 17 when over 3,700 posts were published, representing a dramatic 13,114-percent rise over the baseline. An Arabic hashtag, directly translated to “The Druze are agents of Israel,” appeared in more than 5,700 posts and reached over 4 million users alone.

Hundreds of other posts included language portraying the Druze as “Zionist dogs” alongside direct or implied threats of violence, and the term “Jewlani,” a derogatory combination of a Syrian leader’s name and the English word “Jew,” appeared in 900 posts and was used to imply that the Syrian interim president and his response to the clashes was controlled by Jews. 

“This rhetoric is a direct continuation of familiar antisemitic patterns, only now the target is the Druze people – not because of their religious or national identity, but because of their political and social association with Israel and the Jewish people,” said CyberWell Founder and CEO Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor. “We are witnessing a dangerous escalation in violent rhetoric against the Druze community in Syria, which poses a real and immediate threat to human life. Social media platforms must act swiftly and consistently to prevent this hate from leading to further loss of innocent life.”

The rhetoric meets the criteria outlined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which includes hate speech and conspiracy theories directed at non-Jews when rooted in antisemitic narratives and conspiracies.

This is not the first time CyberWell has documented online incitement tied to offline violence. In July 2024, a video calling for attacks on the Druze community using the term “Zionists” was posted to Instagram just days before Hezbollah launched a rocket salvo at the soccer field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams. The attack claimed the lives of 12 children and left 45 others injured. Despite being flagged, the video was not removed by Instagram.

CyberWell is demanding social media platforms take immediate action to remove inciting content, enforce policies on antisemitic terms and slurs, and treat online hate as the security threat it poses in practice, particularly when targeting minorities for violence. 

CyberWell is an independent, internationally focused, tech-rooted nonprofit combatting the spread of antisemitism online. Its AI-technologies monitor social media in English and Arabic for posts that promulgate antisemitism, Holocaust denial and promote violence against Jews based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. Its analysts review and report this content to platform moderators while indexing all verified posts in the first-ever open database of antisemitic social media posts – democratically cataloging it for transparency at app.cyberwell.org. Through partnerships, education and real-time alerts, CyberWell is holding social media platforms and their moderators accountable, promoting proactive steps against online Jew-hate. For more information, visit: https://cyberwell.org/.