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How Influencers Have Enabled Anti-Semitism

(UnHerd) Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Since the most recent conflict between Israel and Gaza, acts of anti-Semitism have spiked in many corners of the Western world. Anti-Semitism has been haunting our societies for years, but today it is no longer confined to the fringes of society. Social media has normalized anti-Semitic tropes and attacks. The Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism found 17,000 tweets which used variations of the phrase "Hitler was right" in just one week. Likewise, anti-Semitism has ferociously spread across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, in large part due to a group of popular "influencers" who use their platforms to highlight the Palestinians' plight. Take supermodel Bella Hadid, who has almost four times as many Instagram followers as there are Jews in the entire world. She joined a pro-Palestinian protest, chanting: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" - an anti-Semitic slogan coined by the Palestine Liberation Organization to call for the elimination of Israel. Yet I do not believe she understood she was calling for the elimination of Israel, or the expulsion or genocide of the Jewish people. I believe the majority of those posting infographics and memes about Israel-Palestine are simply under-educated and ill-informed. The writer is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
2021-05-27 00:00:00
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