Digital Consumption
Digital Consumptionצילום: istock

It would be naïve to believe that proclamations or a set of guidelines in and of themselves can solve the issue of online hate speech against Jews and Israel or the proliferation of antisemitism in recent years. Yet maintaining internal cohesion within American society , enabling Jewish Americans to live in peace with their respective neighbors, within their communities, and preserving a strong strategic alliance with Israel are all vital components of America’s national security interests-and the clearest proof comes directly from America's chief geopolitical adversaries.

As documented in unsealed U.S. Department of Justice affidavits targeting Russia's Doppelgänger network (operated by Kremlin-linked firms) and threat assessment intelligence reports from Open AI, Graphika, and Microsoft tracking Chinese networks - the governments located in Moscow and Beijing are actively deploying covert digital online campaigns to stoke antisemitism to unprecedented levels and drive a wedge between the United States and Israel.

Foreign intelligence agencies recognize that classical anti-Jewish conspiracy theories-such as "secret cabals" and "puppet master" tropes-act as a low-cost, high-yield Trojan horse. By convincing Americans that their government is controlled by the State of Israel or hidden anti-American interests, these campaigns systematically erode public faith in national and local elections, national security policies, and democratic institutions.

To achieve this, foreign adversaries of the United States have turned Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) into an automated engine of asymmetric warfare. Russian and Chinese operations use Large Language Models (LLMs), AI image generators, and synthetic voice cloning to churn out thousands of fake news articles across spoofed domains (like washingtonpost.pm or Holy Land Herald), deploy photorealistic caricatures, and coordinate bot swarms that amplify real-world provocations.

Whether staging physical acts of violence, vandalism or flooding social platforms with multi-directional rage to pit domestic groups against American Jews, the overall objective is total civic paralysis-making Americans enemies of one another, and paralyzing U.S. foreign policy. Ultimately, if America's primary adversaries spend millions of dollars leveraging AI to incite hostility against American Jews, the State of Israel and to sabotage the U.S.-Israel relationship, the end game leads to one undeniable conclusion: protecting Jewish citizens and preserving the U.S.-Israel alliance is not merely a moral or diplomatic issue, but an essential shield for maintaining American national security.

The explosion of Jew hatred and anti- Semitic rage against the State of Israel in recent years throughout the United States can now be conclusively associated with extensive exposure to social media and the widespread use of the Internet in all spheres of human endeavor. Digital antisemitism is defined as the spread of anti-Jewish hatred, anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, and graphic harassment of Jews through online platforms.

Algorithmic amplification, generative AI systems, and lax social media content moderation by mainstream internet networks/platforms such as Meta, X, TikTok, and YouTubem, have enabled and technologically facilitated high-engagement emotional content, rapidly pushing extremist anti-Jewish tropes and calls to violence against American Jews into mainstream feeds. Artificial intelligence tools have been exploited to generate historical revisionism such as Holocaust denial or Holocaust distortion.

The use of Conspiracy Theories and anti-Semitic tropes has become a cost effective tool in the digital war against American Jews and American society: Medieval blood libels and fabricated global control conspiracies (like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) are repackaged as modern memes and QAnon narratives (QAnon is a baseless far-right conspiracy movement centered on the core belief that a secret cabal of satanic, cannibalistic elites operates a global child sex-trafficking ring. The narratives claim that Donald Trump is secretly fighting this group, anticipate a mass reckoning known as "The Storm", and recycle older anti-Semitic tropes).

A new report by the Gino Germani Institute traces how anti-Semitic narratives have been used by Russian power - from the Tsarist era to Vladimir Putin - as tools of disinformation and cognitive warfare aimed at destabilizing Western democracies. The report focuses on disinformation, hybrid warfare and political dynamics in the post-Soviet space.

The report examines how anti-Semitic narratives have been integrated into Russia’s long tradition of “active measures" - influence operations designed to manipulate public opinion and destabilize Western adversaries. Why it matters? Antisemitism is not just a historical prejudice in Russia. According to the report by researcher Massimiliano Di Pasquale, it has repeatedly been used as a strategic instrument of influence operations - from Tsarist secret police to Soviet intelligence and, today, the Kremlin’s information ecosystem. The study argues that anti-Jewish conspiracy theories have become part of Moscow’s broader effort to fragment Western societies and undermine trust in democratic institutions.

And so - the October 7 invasion of Israeli communities bordering the Gaza Strip by Hamas, a Palestinian Arab terror organization (which perpetrated a barbaric mass murder of 1200 men, women, and children, mass kidnapping and sexual assault of hundreds), the responsive wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and the war initiated by the Islamic Republic of Iran against the United States, Israel, and other American allies in the Middle East resulted in online vitriol surges against the United States, American Jews, and the State of Israel. Big Tech was purposely used as an amplifier of antisemitism and conspiracies online, fuelin real-life violence against American Jews and Jewish communities.

There is no Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world, but there is a widespread global anti-Jewish conspiracy based on the principles of digital and online anti-Semitism. The first airplane that was hijacked was an Israeli airliner, and today at every airport in every country in the world, we now all line up for invasive and time consuming security checks, so the world should be concerned about the results of this cabal. The danger of dismissing the inherent threat of digital and online anti-Semitism lies in its danger not only for American Jews but for all Americans and all of Western civilization. What starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews.