A study conducted at the initiative of the Shem Olam Institute for Holocaust Research, Education and Commemoration by Buzzilla, a company that monitors and researches social media, examined the scope of anti-Semitic discourse on social media.
The data produced indicates that the rise in anti-Semitic discourse, which peaked during Operation Protective Edge and continued to surge in light of the wave of terror that has been hitting Israel since September 2015, refuses to fade.
With the outbreak of a wave of terror on Sukkot and to this day, there has been a sharp increase of almost fourfold in anti-Semitic discourse, compared to the months preceding the terrorist events, with a record volume of anti-Semitic statements recorded last December.
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The report also shows that the most common anti-Semitic phrase online is 'Hitler was right' (50%), followed by 'hates the Jews' (22%), 'burn the Jews' (11%), 'hates the Jewish people' (11%), and 'fucking Jews' (6%).
Additionally, numerous Facebook pages were located across the social network where members are conducting an anti-Semitic incitement campaign.
The page with the most antisemitic comments recorded in the past year is Middle East Monitor, which has approximately 710,000 members, followed by the pages Americans Against Genocide in Gaza, Images Of Palestine, Israel Lies and Deceits, and International Solidarity Movement.
However, the two posts that drew the most anti-Semitic comments came from the eighth most inflammatory Facebook page on the network: AJ+, the Facebook page belonging to the Al Jazeera network.
The post with the most anti-Semitic statements featured a video showing children whose school was allegedly destroyed by the IDF. This post received no less than 1.2 million views, about 33 thousand shares, about 20 thousand likes, and many hundreds of comments.
In another post that received 1.8 million views, 12,000 likes, about 34,000 shares, and nearly 2,000 comments, police officers are allegedly seen threatening to kill Palestinians with tear gas.
It should be emphasized, however, that these are antisemitic responses to the post and not antisemitic references in the original post.
The peak of anti-Semitism online came last December - at the height of the wave of terror - during which approximately 2,500 anti-Semitic posts were posted, each of which attracted dozens, and in some cases even hundreds, of additional anti-Semitic comments, likes, and shares, compared to approximately 700 posts that were posted about a month before the wave of terror.
Rabbi Avraham Krieger, head of the Shem Olam Institute for Holocaust Research, Education and Commemoration, says: "The shocking dimensions of the phenomenon of anti-Semitism on social media must wave before our eyes like a red sheet warning of the seething hatred that so many people harbor against Jews around the world.
""The inscription is posted on the Facebook walls of thousands of bodies, organizations and individuals who spread incendiary messages of ignorance, hatred and rage against Jews. I hope that the report will inspire the State of Israel to act with all the tools at its disposal to reduce the dimensions of anti-Semitism on the social network and beyond.".
