Overt Antisemitic and Extreme Anti-Israel Rhetoric Continue to Spike After U.S. Strikes Iran Nuclear Sites

Escalating tensions in the Middle East continue to elicit antisemitic, conspiratorial and extreme anti-Israel reactions from extremists, activists and influencers. On Saturday evening, as the U.S. initiated airstrikes on multiple Iranian regime nuclear facilities, commentary quickly spread across online platforms, largely echoing the extreme antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric seen throughout the past ten days since Israel and Iran began exchanging airstrikes.

Echoing Classic Antisemitic Tropes

Mainstream anti-Zionist figures shared accusations that America is doing Israel and AIPAC’s bidding. Even without openly naming Jews, these reactions play into classic antisemitic tropes about alleged Jewish control of the U.S. and global governments.

Accusing President Trump of Bowing to the Interests of Israel and AIPAC

• Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), posted on X: “U.S. policy: America takes a back seat, Israel takes the wheel. Netanyahu calls the shots. Trump pretends to be in charge.”
• Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR’s 501(c)4 affiliate CAIR Action, commented on X that President Trump bombed Israel on “AIPAC marching orders.”

“United States of Israel” and Related Rhetoric

• Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR’s Los Angeles chapter, wrote in a Facebook post that “Congress and the White House” are “Israeli-occupied territories.” The post was liked by Zahra Billoo, the CAIR San Francisco/Bay Area executive director, among others.

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• Neveen Ayesh, the government relations coordinator for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), Missouri, retweeted a post from Suppressed News, a popular conspiratorial anti-Zionist X account with nearly 600,000 X followers, that stated: “It was never MAGA [Make America Great Again], it’s MIGA [Make Israel Great Again],” alongside a meme depicting President Trump with the label “The president you voted for” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the caption “The president you got.” Ayesh also retweeted another post that stated, in response to President Trump’s remarks on the airstrikes, “Why didn’t you just have Netanyahu deliver the address to the Nation? The United States of Israel.”
• Max Blumenthal, an anti-Zionist conspiracy theorist and editor-in-chief of far-left publication The Grayzone, wrote: “We live under a Zionist regime that hates us and which will sacrifice us for its ethnosupremacist agenda.”
• Arthur Kwon Lee, an influencer who engages in antisemitic rhetoric and who has appeared on Stew Peters’s show, posted on X: “America is totally israel’s [sic] bitch, fuck this country for kowtowing to the most dysgenic and deceitful race of human beings for flashy material gain. The United States was conquered generations ago, total submission has been established and we’re just waking up to it now. Weak.”
• Motasem A Dalloul, a Palestinian photojournalist who has covered the war in Gaza and has a 167,000 X following, tweeted, “America’s new flag,” with a graphic of an American flag in which the stars had been replaced by Stars of David.

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Overt Antisemitism

Hardcore antisemites and white supremacists reacted with predictable, overt antisemitism, openly blaming “the Jews” for the U.S. strikes, and at times deploying antisemitic tropes and dog whistles.

Openly Blaming Jews

• White supremacist Gregory Conte posted via the “National Socialist World” channel on Telegram: “Trump has bombed Iran for his Jew-masters…This war is for the interests of world-Jewry.”
• The white supremacist National Socialist American Party wrote on Telegram: “This is ZIONIST WARMAKING – plain and simple…Trump — like Biden, like Obama before him — serves the Zionist Occupied Government that rules Washington. It is not ‘America First’ — it is Israel First, again and again.”
• Antisemitic Traditionalist Catholic writer E. Michael Jones posted on X to his over 100,000 followers, writing that President Trump “is really showing that he is too weak to stand up to pressure from the Jews, who are America's real enemy.”

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“Die for Israel” Rhetoric

Commentary referencing the conspiracy theory that the U.S. is secretly planning to draft American citizens in a war to defend Israel was a common refrain across ideologies. Similar language about not wanting to “die for Israel” often surges in both overtly antisemitic and more mainstream spaces during conflicts between Israel and its adversaries, including earlier this month after Israel’s airstrikes on Iranian regime targets.

• The anti-Zionist groups Palestine Solidarity Grand Rapids and the Anti-War Action Network posted a joint statement and protest announcement on Instagram, commenting: “Trump wants us to die for Israel…Join us in rallying against war with Iran and against zionist [sic] escalation.”
• Jake Shields, a former MMA fighter turned far-right influencer with a history of posting antisemitic tropes, posted an anti-Israel meme of the famous Uncle Sam enlist poster with the captions, “Ready to die for Israel?” and “I want you to fight Iran for Israel. Obey. Enlist. Perish.”
• Influencer account “The Saviour,” which has nearly 430,000 followers on X and a history of antisemitic comments, posted a meme of the Uncle Sam enlist poster, but with an image of President Trump replacing Uncle Sam, a Star of David on his hat, and the caption, “I want you to die for Israel.”

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• Right-wing provocateur “Sneako,” known for using his popular streaming platform to boost antisemites, posted on X: “I’m not fucking dying for Israel.”
• Far-right anti-Zionist influencer Jackson Hinkle wrote on X: “I WILL NOT DIE FOR ISRAEL.”

Calls for the Destruction of Israel and Zionism

Familiar calls for the destruction of Israel and “death to America,” as well as support for terrorist groups and so-called “resistance” by any means necessary, also proliferated, particularly from more radical anti-Zionist groups and Islamist extremists.

From U.S. and Transnational Anti-Zionist Organizations

• The National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) put out a statement on Instagram titled “The empire will fall, from Gaza to Tehran,” in which it refers to Israel as the "Zionist vassal state" of the United States and reaffirmed its “commitment to the struggle against zionism [sic].” The statement also referenced Ghassan Kanafani, a former leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

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• The transnational anti-Zionist group Samidoun, sanctioned by the U.S. government for its ties to the designated terror group the PFLP, wrote on X: “…Bringing down the Zionist entity and breaking U.S. imperialist domination of the Arab and Iranian region is one struggle, one fight -- necessary for a world with a future.”

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• Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical New York-based anti-Israel organization that frequently expresses support for terror, posted on Telegram: “From Iran to Palestine, from Lebanon to Syria to Yemen, it is our duty from within the belly of the beast to stand against the U.S. empire and zionist [sic] entity’s barbaric, illegal genocidal aggression, and to stand by all those resisting the ongoing genocide in Gaza by any means necessary.”
• The California-based radical anti-Zionist group United Liberation Front for Palestine (ULFP) published a statement on Telegram declaring “Death to Zionism” and commenting, “We stand firmly and without hesitation alongside the people of Iran and their right to retaliate by any and all means necessary…From Gaza to Tehran, from Sana’a to Los Angeles—this global intifada is already underway.”
• The U.S.-based extreme anti-Israel group Unity of Fields posted on X, in Persian: “Death to America.”
• Suzanne Adely, an anti-Israel organizer with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), retweeted a post on X that read, “What better US base to strike than Tel Aviv?”

From Overseas Islamist Organizations

• The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, an overseas Islamist organization, wrote in Arabic on Telegram: “We call on the peoples of the Ummah to unite, close ranks, and stand united against the American-Zionist aggression the powers and centers of the Ummah. For today is a day of unity, power, and resistance.”
• Taufan al-Ummah, an extremist Islamist Telegram channel that recently drew attention for circulating propaganda videos of suspected Boulder, CO, firebomber Mohamed Soliman earlier in June, commented in Arabic: “Now is the time for you to take real action and strike at the supporters of the Entity [Israel] everywhere.”
• Islamist Telegram channel “ISNAD” wrote in Arabic on Telegram: “Iran's position is difficult. And the position of our entire nation is difficult now. But this difficult situation necessitates confrontation. And confrontation is less harmful than submission. We are facing a historic opportunity as a nation…to rise up.”
• The Syria chapter of the international Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir wrote in Arabic on X: “The arrogance of the Jews in Gaza and the Levant will not be met with flattery, appeasement, and messages of normalization.”

As the ADL Center on Extremism continues to monitor the reactions of individuals and groups, we expect this rhetoric to proliferate further. It is possible that some of it may make its way to on-the-ground protests planned across the U.S in the coming days, some organized by these very same groups.