Antisemitism Threatens More Than Just Jews

As published in Real Clear Politics

September 20, 2026.

Foreign adversaries have found a way to weaken America without firing a shot: weaponized antisemitism. 

Russia, Iran, and China understand that Jew-hatred – now a modernized, shape-shifting, digitized, algorithm-driven information weapon – can tear at America’s social fabric, turn citizens against one another, poison trust in democratic institutions, and undermine America’s willingness to defend its interests abroad. Convincing Americans that their institutions and leaders are corrupt and secretly controlled by Jews, Zionists, or Israel is part of their campaign to destabilize the United States. Most Americans don’t even realize they’re in the crosshairs.

Russia pioneered weaponized antisemitism. Iran and its proxies supercharged it. And China scaled it with technology.

Russia has spent more than a century perfecting this tactic. In 1903, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” was published in a rabidly anti-Jewish newspaper loyal to the czar. A notorious forgery alleging a secret Jewish plot to control the world, the “Protocols” became a model for future information warfare.

After Israel defeated Soviet‑backed Arab states in three wars, Moscow updated the strategy. In the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet propagandists simply replaced “Jewish plotters” with “Zionist,” allowing old conspiracy theories to masquerade as political opposition to Israel. The goal: Undermine Israel’s existence and destabilize America. 

Building on this foundation, Operation SIG (Zionist Government) recasts Israel as a racist colonial oppressor and Palestinians as indigenous people seeking liberation, flipping a Muslim jihad to reclaim territory once under Islamic control into a human‑rights cause Americans could embrace. Repeated for decades, the lie morphed into the truth for many.

By 1975, Soviet influence helped pass the United Nations resolution declaring “Zionism is racism.” In 2001, in Durban, South Africa, Russia championed the slur that Israel is an apartheid state. The Soviet Union collapsed; its propaganda did not. Social media supercharges Russian dezinformatsiya today. In the month after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, Kremlin‑linked Telegram channels posted about the war roughly 9,000 times, generating 865 million views.

Much of the pro‑Hamas rhetoric now chanted on American streets and campuses and promoted in media, Congress, and the arts traces back to Russian disinformation. The strategy hasn’t changed: Use antisemitism as a tool to disrupt and weaken America.

The antisemitic ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran is rooted in apocalyptic Muslim religious doctrine. When Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in 1979, he fused Soviet anti‑Zionist propaganda with Islamist theology. America became the “Great Satan.” Israel, the “Little Satan.”

The Gaza war that began with Hamas’ October 7 massacre gave Iran a major opportunity to undermine American support for Israel and deepen U.S. political divisions. Microsoft security analysts found a 42% surge in global consumption of Iranian state media during the war’s first week.

 Avril Haines, director of national intelligence in the Biden administration, publicly described Iranian efforts to exploit Gaza‑related protests – including government‑linked actors posing as activists online, providing financial support, and encouraging demonstrations. Hamas and other Iranian proxies amplified the operation. Iran’s Supreme Leader even called American campus protesters a “branch of the Resistance Front.”

An analysis by the cybersecurity firm Cyabra found that one in four accounts supporting the October 7 massacre on major platforms were fake – bots designed to create the illusion of huge grassroots support for Hamas. Hamas itself ran a digital operation of more than 160 members in Gaza, reaching more than 24 million followers who reposted to “flood” social media.

This is manipulation at industrial scale. And China turns this strategy into an algorithmic weapon.

China has no comparable history of antisemitism, but it has every incentive to weaponize it – especially through TikTok, where 43% of Americans under 30 get their news. Beijing’s spam operation deluges social media with fake accounts and doctored videos. TikTok’s algorithm amplifies violence and outrage, understanding exactly what users will keep watching.

A Generation Lab study found that at its peak, 98.6% of U.S. TikTok content about the Israel‑Hamas war was anti‑Israel. For every view of a pro‑Israel hashtag, there were 54 views of a pro‑Palestinian one. When an entire generation sees only one side, their perception of reality is shaped accordingly.

Information warfare thrives on the “big lie” repeated incessantly. Repetition breeds believability. The most effective disinformation– for example, images of emaciated children with preexisting illnesses falsely portrayed as starving – generates anger, disgust, and accusations of Israel-directed “genocide.” Emotion drives engagement, which drives algorithmic exposure to millions.

Demonization and delegitimization give an aggrieved “us” a malevolent “them.” Scapegoating is powerful.

Foreign adversaries know exactly what they’re doing.

Russia, Iran, and China aren’t just trying to make Americans dislike Jews and Israel. They’re trying to make Americans dislike America. If Americans can be convinced that Jewish or Zionist interests secretly control Washington, America’s leaders and foreign policy become illegitimate. Support for Ukraine becomes “neocon manipulation.” American military action becomes service to Israel rather than the United States.

Most importantly, this information warfare attacks the foundation of democratic government: public trust. It seeks to convince Americans that their system and leaders are hopelessly corrupt – precisely the environment in which authoritarian powers thrive.

A powerful democracy doesn’t have to be defeated militarily. It can be weakened from within. The Jews aren’t the ultimate target of weaponized antisemitism. America is.

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