Across the country in recent months, many anti-Israel activists have been engaged in strategic “escalation” to further their cause. These actions have included increasingly aggressive and targeted protests, property destruction and defacement, physical takeovers of institutions deemed to be “complicit” in alleged Israeli military actions, and even multiple cases of ideologically motivated arson attacks.  For the most part, the tactics themselves — such as…

While the anti-Israel encampments have largely been dismantled, their architects appear determined to capitalize on what they see as their most successful organizing tactic in a decade. “Summer school” is now in session, led locally and nationally by pro-Palestinian individuals and groups.  These ”schools” — currently scheduled to run from June through August — are designed to educate and train student and community activists. Some are only open to…

Since October 7, extremists and conspiracy theorists have promoted mis- and disinformation narratives about the reality of Hamas’s unprecedented, multi-pronged attack on Israel, attempting to deny or minimize the tragedy and shift the blame towards victims, a majority of whom were innocent civilians. These misleading or false claims — many of which have proliferated on mainstream social media platforms — manipulate and distort the facts of the mass assault, invalidate the…

Extremists and online trolls are using Suno, an increasingly influential Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) music creation tool, to make songs promoting hate speech, racist stereotypes, calls for violence and extremist rhetoric. The tool, created by Suno AI, became popular in 2023 after the company announced a partnership with Microsoft.  Today, many users employ the tool for innocuous purposes. However, the ADL Center on Extremism has discovered a vast library of disturbing songs…

While the days of lockdowns and social distancing are behind us, anti-vaccine narratives remain prevalent on social media, and extremists continue to exploit these sentiments to recruit new members, raise money and mainstream their beliefs. Many extremists view anti-vaxxers as a massive pool of potential fresh recruits and followers primed for the “red pill.”      While the mainstreaming of once-fringe anti-vaccine beliefs poses obvious risks to public health,…

As the “People’s Conference for Palestine” got underway in Detroit, MI on May 24, the packed audience cheered as Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) organizer and conference MC Mohammed Nabulsi opened by offering “salutations to our people in Palestine and to our noble, steadfast Resistance.” Nabulsi garnered further enthusiastic applause when he urged “eternal glory to our martyrs” and called to “liberate every inch of Palestine, from the Jordan…

Nakba Day commemorations across the United States, already charged events, were compounded this year by a sharp rise in anti-Israel activity tied to the Israel-Hamas war that was triggered by the October 7 mass terror attacks. Nakba Day (“catastrophe” in Arabic) is commemorated annually on May 15 by Palestinians and their supporters worldwide to mourn the events related to the creation of the State of Israel, including its impact on Palestinians, and to advocate for the…

Disturbing memes and images created using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) are polluting social media with camouflaged hate and extremist propaganda. Innovations in AI technology, plus a wider range of tools available than ever before, have enabled the use of AI image generators for nefarious purposes—some of which have been coordinated and crowdsourced online. In the last year, one GAI feature has emerged as a favorite among extremists: The ability to embed shapes, symbols and…

“Go back to Auschwitz, bitch!” This disturbing antisemitic refrain rang out repeatedly at an anti-Israel protest held across the street from a synagogue in Fort Lee, NJ on November 5, 2023. More recently, in March and April 2024, anti-Israel protests outside of synagogues in nearby Teaneck have included protesters explicitly calling for the exclusion of “Zionists” from the community.    These incidents are part of a wave of antisemitic and extreme anti-Zionist…

A new analysis by the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) has found that online expressions of antisemitism on Telegram, a prominent messaging platform frequented by purveyors of hate speech, increased dramatically in the days following the Iranian regime's unprecedented assault on Israel on April 13, 2024. The weekend attack consisted of some 300 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. The Iranian regime’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias based in Iraq, Syria…

Anti-Zionist student groups on more than 100 U.S. college and university campuses have established “encampments” in recent days to ostensibly protest Israel’s actions in Gaza and their academic institutions’ alleged “complicity” in those actions. College campuses have been the site of many tense anti-Israel protests and antisemitic incidents since the start of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack. These…