Total Mentions: 29.58K | Individual Accounts: 14.98K | Total Retweets: 20.9K Total Impressions: 375.64M | Total Reach (estimate):~58.14M
Felix Matos Rodríguez, the Chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY), and the CUNY Board of Trustees labeled as “hate speech”remarks by student Fatima Mohammed during the CUNY School of Law's graduation ceremony on May 12. This marks the second consecutive year that the law school's commencement speaker has made antisemitic statements.
In her address, Mohammed called on her fellow graduates to challenge "capitalism, racism, imperialism, and Zionism." Mohammed’s invocation of Zionism alongside racism and imperialism frames Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, as a racist endeavor.
In response to the incident, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) proposed the "Stop Antisemitism on College Campuses Act," which would prohibit higher education institutions that host antisemitic events from participating in federal student loan and grant programs. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) denounced Mohammed's speech, tweeting “Imagine being so crazed by hatred for Israel as a Jewish State that you make it the subject of your commencement speech at a law school graduation. Anti-Israel derangement syndrome at work.”
Many other people on social media expressed their dismay that a publicly funded university would allow such hateful speeches.
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Weekly Overview
For All Topics Regarding Antisemitism
Most Mentioned
Phrases & Hashtags
Over the Past Week
*The bigger the phrase, the more total mentions it had in the time period
“Holocaust denier,” “White supremacist” - See below.
“Amanda Gorman,” “Florida mom,” “Proud Boys” - Related to ongoing conversation around a woman who got an Amanda Gorman poem banned from an elementary school. Reports emerged this week that she had connections with the Proud Boys, an antisemitic far-right group.
“United States,” “first-ever national strategy to combat antisemitism,” “Antisemitic incidents” - Related to the release of the White House’s U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. See previous version of "From the Command Center."
“Antisemitic attacks” - Related to conversations around Barack Obama’s trending tweet praising the White House’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.
“Fatima Mohammed” - See above.
“Israeli apartheid,” “human rights,” “#Israel,” “#FreePalestine,” “#Palestine,” “#BDS,” “#apartheid” - Related to discussion of Israel-Palestine.
Total Mentions: 27.65K | Individual Accounts: 23.16K | Total Retweets: 14.66K Total Impressions: 175.35M | Total Reach (estimate): ~37.97M
Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter and CEO of Tesla, was criticized this week for sharing an anti-establishment quote with his 146 million followers on Twitter, wrongly attributing it to the French philosopher Voltaire. The origin of the quote, which urges people to “find out who you are not allowed to criticize” was fact-checked last year by The Associated Press after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) used it to criticize Dr. Anthony Fauci. The AP concluded that the quote, which had been paraphrased, actually originated from a 1993 radio broadcast by Kevin Alfred Storm, a self-proclaimed American white nationalist and Holocaust denier. The quote is popular with those who share Jewish power conspiracies.
Users on Twitter quickly pointed out the misquote and condemned Musk for sharing a quote commonly used by white supremacists to his hundreds of millions of followers. Many have also noted the absence of Twitter community notes to provide the necessary context for Musk's tweet.
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Israeli Flag Burning DAY
This is an emerging topic. FCAS is actively monitoring any developments.
June 1 was designated as "Israeli Flag Burning Day" by right-wing extremists on Gab, an alternative social media platform popular with the alt-right. The campaign encouraged participants to record themselves burning the Israeli flag as a way to mark the beginning of LGBTQ+ Pride Month. The convergence of antisemitism and anti-LGBTQ+ hate is not uncommon, as many white supremacists believe that Jews are attempting to bring about the downfall of Christianity or the white race by promoting "sexual immorality."
A public Gab group was created to spread the message and encourage participants to post videos of themselves burning Israeli flags, attracting over 140 members. Some participants also burned the Pride flag alongside the Israeli flag. We have identified 13 videos of flag burning thus far across multiple social media platform. Most of the posts have been found on sites commonly used by extremist groups, but have also been identified on mainstream platforms, including Twitter and Facebook.
