Israel’s war on Hamas has been making headlines worldwide since it began on 7 October 2023. However, individuals around the world not only consume news about the war via traditional media and news outlets, but often through browsing social media platforms.
Our monitoring of online far-right extremist channels has shown that these individuals use meticulous strategies to spread anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda on mainstream social media platforms. Their goal is to normalise far-right ideologies and narratives, ultimately aiming to radicalise individuals across the ideological spectrum.
Far-right activists often exploit online discussions of current events to further their own agendas, with a primary aim of Red Pilling— radicalising various groups by interposing and disguising far-right ideology into mainstream discourse. For instance, following the 2020 US presidential elections, when supporters of candidate Donald Trump felt disenfranchised, far-right extremists capitalised on this and sought to radicalise them. Similarly, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, they exploited the anti-vaccination movement to radicalise users and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories.
This Insight presents findings from the research we conducted at the Antisemitism & Global Far-Right Desk at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) – “From Memes to Mainstream – How Far-right Extremists Weaponize AI to Spread Antisemitism and Radicalization.
