National Security | Military Ethics | Global Far-Right Extremism | Counter-Terrorism | Antisemitism

The Far-Right Leverages COVID-19 Pandemic to Gain Influence and Encourage Violence

The raging COVID-19 (“Corona”) pandemic has been leveraged by various elements to promote their agendas. One of the most active of those are far-right activists who preach white supremacy ideology, xenophobia, nationalism, anti-pluralism, anti-globalization and more. The most extreme faction of the above which includes, inter alia, neo-Nazis, calls itself “Acceleration” and believes that the western governments are corrupt and humanity, or at least that part that follows values such globalization, openness and pluralism is destined to extinct, mainly through destabilization of the current order and use of violence. In its stead, a new and pure society will emerge. These ideas have been quoted in manifestos posted by attackers who have perpetrated mass casualties’ attacks, such as the New Zealand attacker1.

These days millions of people are required to practice social distancing which in many cases requires them to stay indoors, sometimes alone; flooded with negative emotions such as loneliness, anxiety, confusion, sometimes even anger. The currently reigning chaos and confusion2 provide a platform for far-right activist to disseminate their message3. The latter are being disseminated on multiple social media networks from YouTube through Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and even on the dark net. It seems that they treat the Corona pandemic as a gift and an opportunity to capitalize on for the creation of a new world order, per their ideology. An analysis of far-right processes and messages points to several trends as follows.

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Liram Stenzler-Koblentz PhD

Dr. Liram Koblentz-Stenzler a scholar and practitioner with a wealth of experience in fields of counterterrorism, antisemitism studies and global far-right Extremism. She is senior researcher and head of the Global Far Right Extremism Desk at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), Reichman University, Israel and lecturer at Yale University. She advises security agencies, technology companies, other organizations, and communities to achieve better understanding of the language, global connections, and action patterns of right-wing extremists in order to prevent acts of terrorism, incitement to violence, and antisemitism.

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