Iran Attacks Israel, Online Antisemitism Abounds

On April 14, Iran and its proxies in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon carried out an unprecedented attack against Israel, launching hundreds of drones and missiles in an aerial assault. This was the first time since the establishment of the state that Iran attacked directly, despite having threatened to do so numerous times throughout the years. For 15 minutes between 1:42-1:57 AM Israel time, sirens sounded in dozens of Israeli towns and cities as rocket trails and explosions lit up the night sky.

Although most projectiles were intercepted by Israel and its allies, the attack resulted in the severe injury of a 7-year-old girl, who remains in critical condition. Dozens of others sustained light injuries.

Throughout history, antisemites regularly blame the Jewish people for major world events, even when the victims of such events are the Jews themselves. The Iranian attack on Israel proved no different. Following news of the attack, CyberWell’s monitoring technology detected blatant antisemitic discourse in English and Arabic across the five mainstream social media platforms that we monitor – X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. These posts linked the Iranian attack to various hateful narratives and ludicrous antisemitic conspiracy theories, some of the most prominent we detail in this blog.

Jewish World Domination

The fact that a number of nations around the world condemned the Iranian attack and several of Israel’s allies worked in concert to intercept the missiles, including the US, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, led Jew-haters to the classic antisemitic accusation that Jews are puppet eers insidiously controlling the world’s governments. One specific term when referring to Jews controlling Western nations and the US in particular is “Zionist Occupied Government”, or ZOG.

The post below alleges Jewish control over the US, mentioning ZOG in particular, while also referring to the stereotype of Jews controlling banks and the economy and calling Jews “blood-soaked traitor” and “pedophiles”. The post also marks senior officials in the Biden administration with a Star of David – either indicating that they are Jews or that they are controlled by Jews.

This X user has a blue checkmark and the post received over 483K views!

Because Jordan aided Israel in thwarting the Iranian missiles according to several sources (see e.g., here, here and here), it has also come under attack for allegedly being under Jewish control. Unimportant to antisemitic conspiracy theorists, Jordan had good reason to counter the aerial attack since many of the missiles and drones violated its sovereignty when they passed through its airspace, some even falling within Jordanian territory. However, this detail didn’t prevent users from calling the King of Jordan and his country “slaves of the Jews” and alleging Jewish control.

In following tweet, the term “Jews” is used as an insult towards the Jordanian government and implies that Jews control Jordan. The user writes: “The Jordanians have a Jew inside!! I ask you, by God, what is this news? This means that if Israeli planes passed through Jordanian airspace to target an Arab country that it called, it would have passed unnoticed, but if drones passed from Iran to target the occupied territories. No, this is a violation of Jordanian sovereignty. By God, the Jordanian government are Jews sons of Jews.”

The most delusional accusation that CyberWell identified within the context of the Jewish control narrative is that the Jews and Israel control no less than Iran itself! These contemptible accusations, that Jews are behind the very attack that was directed against them, are reminiscent of antisemitic arguments that the Jews orchestrated their own Holocaust in order to promote their political agenda – a deeply abhorrent narrative that blames Jewish victims for their own trauma.

The post below presents an example of religious-based antisemitism, with the user claiming that Jews will emerge from Iran as followers of the Antichrist. The user states: “The Antichrist will emerge from Isfahan (Iran) with 70,000 Jews following him”. The post includes an AI generated image of Iranian Muslims and Jews sitting in a room with demonic, animalistic figures, while the backdrop depicts the Iranian flag with the star of David.

Glorification of Violence

A number of posts detected celebrated the attack by Iran and expressed excitement and joy at the prospect of harming Jews. Glorification of violence violates every platforms’ community standards and is prohibited according to their policies.

Details for the above screenshot of an Arabic video on YouTube:

Video title: “Watch how God casts terror into the hearts of the Jews with the arrival of Iranian missiles to Israel!!!!”.

Video Content: The video describes the recent Iranian attack and includes a thumbnail of a scared orthodox Jew with the caption: “Panic and fear shake the Israelis”.

Some of the posts that glorified the attack included the “Khaybar” phrase. This refers to the Battle of Khaybar in the 7th century in which Muslim forces, led by Muhammad and his cousin and son-in-law Ali bin Abi Taleb, massacred Jews in the oasis of Khaybar located in present-day Saudi Arabia. In many anti-Israel demonstrations today, demonstrators chant the phrase “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Mohammed will return”, celebrating an historic massacre and calling for future murder of Jews.

Details for the above screenshot of an Arabic video on TikTok:

The user glorifies the Iranian attack and compares it to the massacre of the Jews in Khaybar. The user posts a video of the Iranian rockets arriving to Israel and adds the caption: “From occupied Palestine. Aim he who yanked the door of Khaybar. O Husain [Son of Ali ibn Abi Talib] O Imam Ali”.

In the post below, the user glorifies the Iranian attack and compares it to the massacre of the Jews in Khaybar. The user posts a video of what seems to be Iranian rockets and adds the caption: “In Khaybar, Ali (peace be upon him) emerged, and when their followers today were unable and failed, the people of Karar unsheathed their swords 🔻 to support Palestine. Shiite Haidariya Rafidi missiles made the Jewish people cry […]”.

Holocaust Justification

Some posts identified justified the Holocaust and saw the Iranian attack as one step further toward the end goal of Jewish extermination that was left incomplete by Hitler and the Nazis. These posts were published just 3 weeks before Yom HaShohah (Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day) and are a painful reminder that Holocaust hate speech on social media platforms still gains traction and engagement, as can be seen in the post below.

Note: The image and text in this post were shared a number of times and served as a template for antisemites to spread this hateful message. CyberWell regularly sees spikes in similar content claiming that Hitler deliberately left some Jews alive so that the world will see how horrible they are and appreciate his efforts at genocide. These posts typically also lament the fact that Hitler did not succeed.

Translation: “No, Iran will not try us because we are an ally. […] But keep in mind, it is in the best interests of it to end, so it is better if the matter is prolonged and remains boring. Because the Jews need another Hitler, and I support them [Iran] in burning the Jews to death”.

The Khazar Narrative

Some of the posts in the context of the Iranian attack referred to the Khazarian Myth – an antisemitic conspiracy theory aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish people and stripping them of their identity. According to this conspiracy, the Jews of today originate from Khazaria (an ancient kingdom in Eastern Europe) after the local population mass converted to Judaism during the Middle Ages. The theory claims that Ashkenazi Jews are not “real Jews”, but rather descendants of the Khazars, who performed dark and satanic rituals from the Kabbalah and established a secret empire designed to promote global control. The theory further claims that, although the Khazarian Jews control the modern State of Israel, due to their Khazarian origin they have no ancestral connection to the Land of Israel.

The Rothschild Conspiracy Theory

Not surprisingly, Jew-haters took the opportunity of the Iranian attack to link back to the Rothschild conspiracy theory, one of the most common antisemitic tropes found on social media that CyberWell has reported on a number of times (see e.g., here, here, and here). One of the prominent accusations leveled against the Rothschild family is that they have financed all the wars in the world for the past 200 years, thus reaping economic profits and increasing their global control. This narrative has also been adopted for the current Iranian-Israeli conflict.

The user in the post below has a blue checkmark and the post received over 227K views!

The post below argues that the reason Iran receives international criticism is not because of its attack on Israel, but because it is one of the very few countries not under the control of the Rothschild family.

The Power of Speech

In last week’s Torah portion, we read about the skin disease called “Tzaraath”. Don’t panic – according to Jewish scholars, while this disease existed in biblical days it no longer exists today and is not in line for another global pandemic![1] It also should not be compared to leprosy or to skin diseases from the famous wizarding world. While leprosy is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, Tzaraath is described as a divine message[2] that comes as a result of evil speech[3] (“Lashon Hara”) and therefore has nothing to do with the world of medicine. Since it is a spiritual disease manifested in the physical world, the one who treats it is not a doctor, but a priest, or kohen. Even if the kohen on-call is not familiar with the laws of impurity, no one else can make the diagnoses or perform the ritual healing, and he will therefore be assisted by a scholar to guide him.[4] But why is it only the kohen who can diagnose and treat cases of Tzaraath?

According to the Torah, a person with Tzaraath must undergo a humiliating process – it includes tearing their clothes, isolating from other people for the entirety of their bout of Tzaraath, and on their way to isolation they must loudly announce that they are unclean.[5]

As mentioned above, people typically are afflicted with Tzaraath as punishment because of engaging in evil speech. As soon as a person speaks wickedly about someone else it harms social cohesion, causes separation between groups of people, and is difficult to repair.

As the Talmud says:

“By speaking malicious speech, he separated between husband and wife and between one person and another; therefore, he is punished with Tzaraath, and the Torah says: ‘He shall dwell alone; outside of the camp shall be his dwelling’”.[6]

Therefore, just as the effects of harmful speech are difficult to repair, so too is the healing process from Tzaraath. The punishment entails isolation from others and humiliation to learn empathy.

Importantly, the kohanim are the descendants of Aaron – brother of Moses – who is described as someone who was “loving peace and pursuing peace and loving mankind”.[7] Aaron was a person who spent a lot of time reconciling people in conflict and was very successful in mediation.[8] Therefore, the healing for those who have Tzaraath, individuals who behaved the opposite of Aaron, must come through the kohanim, the descendants of Aaron, who have in their genes a desire for peace and reconciliation between people.

The story of Tzaraath demonstrates the power of speech and how much it can alter human relationships. In today’s digital era, with social media promoting provocative content to millions of users and others hiding behind anonymity to harass and bully, the power of speech is more powerful than ever. In a very short time, it is possible to reach the masses and spread messages that can shape perceptions for billions of people. While content that is critical or thought provoking is certainly legitimate and part of the basic right of freedom of speech, hate speech that can normalizes the dehumanization of minority communities and legitimizes violent and extreme acts outside the virtual world is not and cannot be allowed.

Iran’s attack against Israel was yet another opportunity for haters to go on the offensive, reveling in violence, promoting classic antisemitic tropes, and regurgitating that old familiar Jew-hatred. This normalization and regular cycle of resurgence is harmful. It can and does lead to real world harm and violence. We urge social media platforms to enforce their own community standards and prevent the spread of antisemitic content and incitement of violence against all protected categories – including Jews.

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Footnotes

[1] Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch, Vayikra (Leviticus) 13.

[2] Ramban, Vayikra (Leviticus) 13:47.

[3] Babylonian Talmud, Arakhin 16a; Mishneh Torah (Rambam), Tum’at Tzara’at 16:10.

[4] Mishnah, Negaim 12:5; Sifra 13:2.

[5] Vayikra (Leviticus) 13:45.

[6] Babylonian Talmud, Arakhin 16b.

[7] Mishnah, Avot 1:12.

[8] Avot of Rabbi Natan 12:4.