Lies about Israel and Jews are nothing new, and they didn’t begin on Oct. 7, 2023. The inflammatory libels have been repeated so often since the Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 men, women and children in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that many people now fully accept them as fact.
The most serious accusation is the charge of genocide, repeated by elected officials, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and chanted at protests around the world. Its repetition has convinced many to believe it without question.
The blood libel is one of the oldest accusations against Jews. Jews have been accused of killing Christian children for rituals and poisoning wells dating back to the 12th century.
The Big Lie is a propaganda technique that distorts the truth for political gain. Hitler described it in Mein Kampf: a method mastered by Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi propaganda machine during World War II. Hitler blamed the Jewish people for Germany’s defeat in World War I to help justify the Holocaust. He wrote that people are more likely to believe a colossal lie than a small one, because they cannot imagine someone having the audacity to devise something of that magnitude.
Anti-Zionism is yet another iteration of an ancient campaign to vilify Jews and blame them for the ills of the world.
Often overlooked, Hamas controls the messaging inside Gaza—and there is no free press. The terror group’s false claims are part of a broader ideology that systematically vilifies Jews and Israel on the global stage, largely crafted by Iranian propagandists and Islamist radicals. These slanders are then amplified by anti-Israel activists, influencers, politicians, reporters, celebrities, nonprofits and organizations, like the United Nations, across the political spectrum.
Lies repeated often enough eventually are accepted as fact.
Misinformation and untruths on Oct. 7 anniversary
The war in Gaza has been tragic. The bombardment from the Israeli military in its efforts to defeat the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist organization and its partners has created heartbreaking devastation for many Palestinian civilians. Social media spreads these images to a worldwide audience within minutes. The suffering is real, but the charge that Israel intentionally targets civilians is blatantly false. Hamas fights from inside homes, schools and hospitals, which is why so many civilians have died.
The anniversary of the terrorist attacks became an occasion to accuse Israel. Mamdani marked Oct. 7 by calling the war in Gaza a genocide. Other politicians also used the day of commemoration to attack Israel, including House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Michigan Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed walked away when asked about his silence on the anniversary.
Some Democrats criticized Mamdani. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) stated that “the world demonizes Israel 365 days a year. Perhaps, for just one day, the critics could take a vacation from their hysterical hatred of the world’s only Jewish State.” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) accused the mayor of “desecrating the memory of murdered, innocent Jews.”
Comedian Bill Maher mocked Mamdani as tone deaf for criticizing Israel in an Oct. 7 tribute. Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations accused the mayor of “hijacking” the day, saying his statement is “like turning Sept. 11 into a day of mourning for al-Qaeda.”
Words with strong negative connotations
Anti-Israel activists planned at least 262 events in 37 countries in the days around the Hamas Oct. 7 attacks. A Fox News Digital investigation identified the Global Alliance for Palestine—a London-based coalition—as a key ringleader. The reporter’s conclusion: “The global coordination illustrates how contemporary protest movements combine international leadership, local activist networks, standardized visual branding, emotionally charged messaging and traditional news outreach into a single mobilization infrastructure.”
Chants were scripted in advance. A review of the organization’s toolkit by The Jerusalem Post found shared guidelines for “Communications Framing” and “Core Messages” about Israel that encouraged language that was “disciplined, credible, urgent and impossible to ignore.”
This is why activists use words with strong negative connotations, like genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, racism, colonialism and imperialism—terms chosen to put Israel’s supporters on the defensive and force them to withdraw their support.
Outside the University of Oregon’s Hillel Jewish student center, masked protesters chanted “we will get Hillel off-campus,” “Long live the intifada” and “Glory to the martyrs of the al-Aqsa flood,” which is Hamas’s name for the Oct. 7 massacre. One man burned an American flag. In New York City, protesters waved Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad flags.
Thousands marched in London, waving Palestinian, Iranian and Soviet flags. A few protesters desecrated a war memorial dedicated to Brits who defended the country against the Nazi air force, and a female protester made a Nazi salute. Britain’s opposition leader, Kemi Badenoch, who grew up under a Nigerian military dictatorship, blamed mob mentality for the rise in attacks against Jews.
Hundreds showed solidarity on Oct. 7 by posting their support for Zionism as non-Jews. Iranian Canadian women’s rights activist Sara Ghorbani: “I’m not Jewish. I’m Iranian. And I am a Zionist.” Unfortunately, even this effort was hijacked by the anti-Israel crowd to declare its opposition to a national Jewish homeland.
Gaza libels
On Oct. 17, 2023, the Hamas-run Health Ministry announced that an Israeli airstrike had hit the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City and killed about 500 people. Activists, reporters and others quickly repeated the claim without independent verification. Six days later, The New York Times acknowledged that it “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas that could not immediately be verified.”
The explosion came from a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that landed in the hospital parking lot. Hamas terrorists confirmed this in an intercepted phone call and an Islamic Jihad spokesman admitted that his terror group “fabricated” Israel’s role.
The strongest evidence against the genocide charge comes from Hamas. The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health recently released mortality data for 2025: 50,227 births against 24,650 deaths. By its own count, the population grew.
Many anti-Israel activists go further and allege that Israel has committed genocide since 1948, a period in which the Palestinian population increased from about 500,000 to 5.5 million—a 1,000% increase—with an additional 2 million Arab citizens in Israel. In contrast, the worldwide Jewish population still has not returned to its pre-Holocaust level.
Points to consider:
1. Attacks against Jews and Israel are carefully orchestrated.
False accusations against Jews did not start in Gaza. Modern-day hate campaigns take pages from 12th-century blood libels, Nazi Germany and Soviet propaganda campaigns. The terms and techniques are the same, but contemporary slander and stereotypes are dressed up to appeal to today’s ideologies and causes.
2. Many protesters don’t even know why they are protesting.
Ignorance leaves a vacuum easily filled with toxic lies and conspiracy theories. A popular chant at anti-Israel protests is “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” When many protesters are asked which river and which sea, they’re unable to answer. They ignore the question or just say they are there to join the crowd. Others who have voiced support for Hamas change their tune when they learn that the Islamist movement is dedicated to killing all Jews, persecuting gays, repressing women and executing Palestinians who criticize it.
3. Jews are being attacked for a false charge.
The genocide charge is being weaponized against Jews to push them out of social and cultural spaces. Comedian Judy Gold was told “You’re a Jew” during two shows in one weekend. None of it had anything to do with Gaza. A new ADL study found that not one of 40 American art museums includes Jewish identity in its diversity commitments, and authors reported being pressed to cut Hebrew words and Jewish-sounding character names from their manuscripts. The accusation is false, and the consequences are all too real.
4. Jews are refusing to be pushed out of public life.
Activists from two Chicago groups recently interrupted a Jerry Seinfeld show, calling him a genocide apologist. He told the heckler he would send her ticket money to Israel, and the theater applauded. A retired teacher in Los Angeles whose union voted to throw her out of a meeting for being a Zionist wrote: “We are not going back to being quiet.”