The Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee, headed by MK Oded Forer (Yisrael Beiteinu), held a discussion today (Monday) on the dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents against Diaspora Jews since the outbreak of the war.
According to data presented by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, there has been a 500% increase in all antisemitic incidents worldwide (compared to last year), a third of which are in the United States, and prominent countries in this regard are Britain, Germany and France. The number of violent antisemitic incidents has increased by 330% since the outbreak of the war, including desecration of synagogues and cemeteries, harassment and threats.
The discussion in the Absorption Committee, photo: Knesset Spokesperson, Danny Shem Tov
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Shikli said in a discussion on Diaspora Jewry and incitement on campuses: "We are in direct contact with the Jewish communities. The main problem on campuses around the world is the lack of a clear position on the part of the institutions. The effective approach, in my opinion, is the one led by American Jewry and advocates a firm line – divestment and lawsuits.
On citizenship initiatives in the field of advocacy and the fight against anti-Semitism, Minister Shikli said that his ministry allocated NIS 10 million, in matching, to civic bodies, and in addition, NIS 3 million, about NIS 100,000, to 80 small civilian projects. In addition, the minister spoke about a budget of NIS 8 million for protecting Jewish communities: "A fortified door of a synagogue in Germany prevented a massacre when a terrorist arrived. It's a wise investment that I wouldn't take lightly."
Yad Vashem Chairman Danny Dayan said, "It is disturbing to say this, but in the prestigious universities in the United States, a pseudo-academic justification for the destruction of the State of Israel is being built today. It happens in the social sciences and humanities departments, not by all the lecturers, but the spirit comes from them. The students stroke it and here we have to make a great effort. Yad Vashem will join the fight against hatred of Israel. It won't be an easy job. It's not too late for us to take action."
Pro-Palestinian demonstration in Washington, D.C.,
Justice Ministry representative Eyal Zandberg was asked to describe the legal tools today: "If it happens abroad and has no direct connection to Israeli law, there is a limitation to Israeli law, and we must remember that there are other tools that are not legal. In any case, when it comes to providing a legal response in legislation, it is due to necessity, and it is at the doorstep of policy makers. The focus is currently on security and security needs are being addressed by the Cyber Department. Insofar as there is a need for other non-security interests, they should be characterized by government staff work and not following a committee discussion in the Knesset."
More data from the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs presented at the discussion on online antisemitism: a 1180% increase in the number of posts containing antisemitic discourse that includes calls for violence against Israel; 71% of the antisemitic discourse that contains violent content is in Arabic.
Adv. Or Arber, a representative of the Cyber Department in the State Attorney's Office: "The Cyber Department in the State Attorney's Office submitted 19,000 requests to remove offensive content and incitement to terrorism. More than 93% of the content reported to Facebook and Instagram was removed from the networks.
A representative of the Cyber Department added: "We have no ability to receive inquiries from citizens, but from bodies in the state, such as security agencies and government ministries. We are prepared to receive antisemitic content from the Diaspora Ministry, whatever it may be."
Chairman Forer showed the attendees an illustration of decapitated babies that was circulated online and Facebook refused to remove and turned to a representative of the Cyber Department: "What do I do with this picture? We contacted you to remove it from the network and that didn't happen."
Attorney Arber: "In the preliminary conversation with the representative of the committee who contacted us on this issue, we told her to contact the police because this is the course of action chosen by you."
"Investigating how the content came about"
Liron Ripman, a TikTok representative in Israel, said: "From October 7 to the end of the month, we removed more than 925,000 videos in the conflict zone for violating our policies on violence, hate content, fake news and terrorism, including content promoting Hamas. Horror images and graphic content are not allowed on our platform and we will remove it. As for bin Laden's letter posted on TikTok, the content was removed and we're investigating how it even came about."
Minister Shikli complimented TikTok on the issue of removing offensive content: "We eat grit on Tik Tok, but with Tik Tok Israel we have continuous communication – we managed to remove hashtags and where there is incitement – they are taken down."
Google representative Liat Glazer: "On YouTube, we removed more than 50,000 videos and closed hundreds of channels. Our policy prohibits support and encouragement of terrorism, there are no channels of terrorist organizations or content related to this field."
Zionist Organization representative Racheli Baratz concluded: "We know only about 30%-20% of anti-Semitic incidents in the world. Jews are still afraid to report."
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