While the war between Israel and Hamas is happening across the Atlantic Ocean, there have been significant ripple effects felt here in the United States after the terrorist organization violently attacked Israel on October 7.
A new report has suggested that the total number of online posts that included some form of anti-Semitism in the wake of Hamas’ attack has increased by about 1,200%. The main focus of the hate has been happening in New York City, a place that is home to a large number of Jewish people.
The report, issued by the Antisemitism Cyber Security Monitoring System, found that, from October 7 through October 10, there were at least 157,000 online posts that called for violence against Jews, Zionists and/or Israel. The Jerusalem Post obtained a copy of that survey.
Those numbers represent an increase of 450% from the four days prior to the study, and a 360% increase compared to the same time period from September.
In a separate study, the anti-Defamation League said it found 347 messages posted to Telegram by extremists that called for violence against Zionists, Israelis and Jews in the 18 hours that followed the surprise attack by Hamas.
That represents an increase of 488% from just one day prior.
The problem isn’t just relegated to the United States, though. The Community Security Trust in the UK reported that in the first four days after the conflict started, antisemitic content increased by 300% online.
On Sunday, Chris Wray, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, weighed in on the issue, saying to reporters:
“The threat is very much ongoing and, in fact, the threat picture continues to evolve. … Here in the U.S., we cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or other foreign terrorist organizations could exploit the conflict to call on their supporters to conduct attacks on our own soil.”
Over the last week, Wray said that both Muslims and Jews have been the subject of threats – as have the many houses of worship and institutions that are aligned with them.
That being said, the FBI is “moving quickly to mitigate the threats,” Wray said. Many of them aren’t credible, but they still investigate every one of them as if they were, he said.
The Antisemitism Cyber Security Monitoring System said most of the online posts they found could be attributed as “new Anti-Semitism.” According to the agency, that type of hate revolves predominantly around sentiment that is anti-Israel.
The survey also reported that “classic antisemitism” accounted for about 16% of the online posts, with posts that denied the Holocaust happened accounted for 6% of the posts.
The report further pointed out that the majority of the content actually originated from Paris. It was there that a teacher was stabbed as part of an act of “Islamist terror,” according to the report.
New York City was actually second on the list for where the posts originated from. The city has been home to hundreds of protesters who are backing Palestine recently, and they’ve been burning Israeli flags and stomping on them, with one person at the rallies even holding a Nazi flag.
