‘Gaza Holocaust survivor’ trend vilifying Israel surges up on social media, watchdog warns

Report finds that new anti-Israel social media trend comparing the war in Gaza to the Holocaust has reached over half a billion users worldwide.

By World Israel News Staff

A new social media trend pushed by anti-Israel online activists is reshaping how users of popular social media platforms view the war against Hamas in Gaza, a watchdog group warns, vilifying the State of Israel and Jews.

On Tuesday, CyberWell, a nonprofit organization which partners with major social media platforms to track and combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial, reported that there has been a significant rise in social media content recently which attempts to conflate the war in the Gaza Strip with the Nazi Holocaust.

Just two phrases alone, “Gaza Holocaust” and “Gaza Holocaust survivor” have appeared in more than 525,000 social media posts in the past six months, with a sharp rise since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect on October 10th.

Those 525,000 posts have generated 2.6 million interactions, CyberWell reported, and reached some 552 million users around the world.

The organization said that since the ceasefire’s signing, a new trend has emerged in which users post selfies and videos falsely claiming to be survivors of the so-called “Gaza Holocaust.”

While the phrase “Gaza Holocaust” was occasionally used prior to the October 10th ceasefire, its usage increased dramatically afterwards.

“Gaza Holocaust survivor,” however, was first seen on October 10th. Within five days it had appeared in 3,200 posts and drew 25,000 engagements, reaching nearly 900,000 users.

Related expressions such as “I am a Holocaust survivor” and “I am a survivor of a real Holocaust” also surged online, appearing in more than 20,000 posts and attracting 93,000 interactions between October 10 and 14.

“We are watching social media users blatantly trivialize the Holocaust, trying to equate its victims – the Jewish people – with its Nazi perpetrators,” said CyberWell Founder and CEO Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor.

“This is not just a modern form of classical antisemitism, but a deliberate dehumanization of Jews and a purposeful distortion of the historical record of the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis and their allies against the Jewish communities of Europe.”

“In the last two years, we have seen how social media platforms were hijacked by Hamas and their supporters, weaponized into an effective tool and far-reaching tool of cognitive warfare.”

“Now the unique historic record, industrialized and state-sponsored extermination against a civilian minority across an entire continent is in the cross hairs of this cognitive warfare effort. In addition to this trend spreading disinformation about the record of the war against Hamas in Gaza, this purposeful distortion of history erodes the public understanding of Holocaust memory and foments hatred on a global scale.”

“While social media platform’s digital policies explicitly prohibit Holocaust denial, this trend of misappropriating Holocaust language is falling through the cracks and is currently being amplified by their engagement algorithms. When left unchecked, these narratives spread antisemitism and desensitize global audiences to dehumanization.”