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A Twitter campaign launched by anti-Israel organizations
comparing the Jewish State to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) that has killed over
200,000 worldwide has gained popularity in the US and Jordan.
The campaign, launched with the hashtag #COVID48, was
accompanied by cartoons comparing Israel in various ways to the pandemic and
essentially calling for its eradication.
Research suggests that the #COVID48 Twitterstorm originated
from a Facebook event, complete with full campaign agenda, to mark Palestinian
Prisoner’s Day. The campaign appears to have been coordinated by a group called
“The Children of the Refugee Camps – The Jordanian Group” which has since been
suspended by Twitter.
Of roughly
1,000 Tweets sampled over a 15-hour period, #COVID48 had a reach of over
500,000 accounts with an impression count of over 1 million, with its largest
impression bases in the US and Jordan.
The #COVID48
campaign spread mostly through retweets.
In the past
week, during which anti-Israel delegitimization networks marked the observance
of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, there was an upsurge in online global antisemitism
tying Israel and Jews to the Coronavirus.
Several
well-known anti-Israel NGOs such as Addameer, Palestinian Youth Movement-USA
(PYM-USA), and NY4Palestine participated in online activities for Palestinian
Prisoner’s Day. Several posted antisemitic content on their social media,
including the conspiracy that Israel is infecting terrorists imprisoned in
Israel with COVID-19, though no security prisoners in Israeli prisoners have
tested positive for the virus.
COVID-19,
in general, has brought a sharp rise in online antisemitic content. As during
previous global pandemics and catastrophes, Jews have been scapegoated and
blamed for spreading the virus, have been characterized as the virus itself,
and antisemitic theories have accused Jews of creating the virus for economic
gain claimed and the novel Coronavirus was an Israeli bio-weapon.
An internal
report by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) revealed last month that antisemitism
is rising around the world as a direct result of the spread of the Coronavirus.
A sharp
rise was detected globally, with the US, Germany, and France seeing the largest
increase. The MFA stated that it was working closely with foreign governments
to address the problem.
Similarly,
the UK-based Antisemitism watchdog Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) reported
last month that antisemitic conspiracy theories are spreading online and in
international media, claiming “Jews and Zionists” have “organized and
engineered Coronavirus” as part of a scheme to “design the world, seize
countries and neuter the world’s population.”
Twitter has
been a hub for Corona-based conspiracy theories, with Israel’s ongoing efforts
to develop a vaccine also seen as “proof” for the “Zionist plot” by several
users.
Source: Jewish press
