By: Fern Sidman

As Jewish communities worldwide gathered recently to commemorate the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre, the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) and its Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) revealed an alarming surge in antisemitic activity. In a new report that underscores the persistence and evolution of global Jew-hatred, CAM documented 254 antisemitic incidents in just one week — 150 of them directly linked to October 7-related protests and demonstrations.

According to CAM’s ARC, this spike marks a disturbing echo of the first anniversary of the Hamas atrocities, when 324 incidents — the highest number ever recorded in a single week — were tracked across the globe. Once again, anti-Israel extremists exploited the anniversary not to mourn the victims of the worst antisemitic attack since the Holocaust, but to erase, invert, or glorify the violence, transforming a day of remembrance into a platform for renewed hate.

The ARC’s data paints a chilling picture of how antisemitic rhetoric is mutating. Of the 150 October 7-linked incidents recorded by CAM, 130 (nearly 87%) involved efforts to erase or distort the memory of Hamas’ crimes, reframing the massacre as the “beginning of an Israeli genocide” against Palestinians. Another 20 incidents (13%) explicitly glorified the October 7 killings, hailing them as “righteous” acts of resistance.

As CAM’s researchers note, this rhetorical inversion — portraying the perpetrators as victims and the victims as aggressors — is a pernicious form of antisemitic propaganda. “Commemorating October 7th as the start of an Israeli genocide is not political discourse,” the ARC emphasized in its findings. “It is an act of moral erasure designed to obscure Hamas’ atrocities and to dehumanize Jewish victims.”

CAM’s analysts drew direct comparisons between this phenomenon and historic efforts to deny or minimize antisemitic atrocities, including Holocaust denial. “From tearing down posters of kidnapped Israeli hostages to claiming that Israel brought October 7 upon itself, the underlying purpose is the same: to extinguish Jewish memory and invert Jewish suffering,” CAM stated.

The organization’s report detailed how these messages were amplified across social media platforms, particularly on Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Instagram accounts. CAM found that SJP chapters across the United States and Europe used the anniversary to post images and slogans portraying Hamas’ attack as a form of “resistance,” often omitting any mention of the massacre’s brutality — the murder, torture, and rape of over 1,200 people.

CAM’s report draws upon psychological frameworks to explain how such narratives gain traction. Researchers point to a manipulation tactic known as DARVO — an acronym for “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.” It describes the behavior of abusers who deflect blame by denying wrongdoing, attacking their accusers, and reframing themselves as the true victims.

“DARVO perfectly captures the rhetorical architecture of antisemitic propaganda,” CAM’s ARC explained. “Anti-Israel activists deny Hamas’ atrocities, attack Israel’s defensive actions, and reverse the moral polarity — branding the Jewish state as genocidal while absolving genocidal actors.”

This reversal, CAM warns, is not merely rhetorical. It creates a moral ecosystem in which violence against Jews appears justified. “When the world is taught to see Hamas’ victims as oppressors, and its killers as heroes,” the report noted, “antisemitic violence ceases to shock and begins to seem inevitable.”

The correlation between inflammatory rhetoric and real-world violence remains a core concern for CAM and its partner organizations. The ARC’s data shows that in 2024, 9.44% of all documented antisemitic incidents involved violence or threats of violence — a slight reduction from previous years, but still an unacceptably high figure given the severity of the attacks.

The report highlighted one particularly tragic episode: on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, an Islamist terrorist murdered two Jewish worshipers outside a synagogue in Manchester, United Kingdom. CAM underscored that this attack was no isolated incident, but part of a larger continuum of ideologically motivated violence nourished by both online and offline antisemitic incitement.

“When antisemitic myths are normalized, when Hamas’ crimes are minimized, and when Jewish identity itself is politicized, the stage is set for violence,” CAM said in its analysis. “This is not abstract hatred — it manifests in bloodshed.”

One of the most striking elements in CAM’s findings is its exploration of the “red-green alliance” — the convergence of far-left activism and Islamist extremism in the global campaign to delegitimize Israel.

While much of the antisemitic glorification recorded by CAM emanated from university-affiliated groups with progressive or socialist orientations, the ideological justifications for such rhetoric often draw on Islamist theology. Hamas, whose founding charter calls for the annihilation of the Jewish people, has found strange bedfellows among segments of the Western left who view Israel as a symbol of colonial oppression.

“The red-green alliance is united by a shared antipathy toward Western democratic values, particularly those embodied by Israel,” CAM observed. “In this ideological fusion, antisemitism serves as a bridge — a common denominator that binds religious fundamentalists and radical secular activists.”

This convergence, CAM argues, has transformed antisemitism into a “trans-ideological phenomenon” — not confined to any one political spectrum but sustained by a broader culture of moral relativism that excuses violence when committed against Jews or Israelis.

According to CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center, the pattern of antisemitic expression surrounding the October 7 anniversary falls along a continuum — from erasure, to inversion, to glorification.

At one end lies the soft denialism of those who refer to October 7 as a “military action” or “uprising,” omitting its civilian victims. In the middle are those who acknowledge the killings but justify them as resistance against “occupation.” At the extreme are those who celebrate the massacre outright, declaring it “divine justice” or “revolutionary triumph.”

CAM’s monitoring team provided multiple examples of each category, many drawn from open social media sources. The organization’s digital investigators identified dozens of posts explicitly calling Hamas terrorists “martyrs,” and others celebrating the abduction of Israeli civilians — including women and children — as “strategic victories.”

“This spectrum demonstrates that antisemitism is not always expressed through overt hate,” the ARC noted. “It often masquerades as moral or political commentary, weaponizing the language of human rights to rationalize the violation of Jewish rights.”

The Combat Antisemitism Movement has long emphasized the central role of historical memory in combating hate. The ARC’s report argues that efforts to deny or distort the meaning of October 7 are not isolated phenomena but part of a wider cultural war over truth itself.

“The denial of Jewish suffering is one of antisemitism’s oldest and most enduring strategies,” the report asserts. “Whether it takes the form of Holocaust denial or the erasure of the October 7 massacre, the goal is the same: to invalidate Jewish victimhood and legitimize antisemitic aggression.”

CAM draws direct parallels between Holocaust denial and the current wave of October 7 revisionism. In both cases, antisemitic actors seek to control the narrative of violence — to recast perpetrators as freedom fighters and survivors as oppressors.

In interviews cited by CAM, Jewish students on campuses across North America reported that anti-Israel activists frequently referred to October 7 as a “hoax,” echoing the language of Holocaust denial. Posters commemorating the victims were torn down; hostage images were defaced or replaced with slogans accusing Israel of “genocide.”

“This erasure is psychological warfare,” the ARC stated. “It aims to strip Jewish people of empathy, history, and legitimacy.”

In response to the surge of antisemitic activity, the Combat Antisemitism Movement has urged governments, civil society organizations, and educational institutions to adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward hate speech and incitement masquerading as political activism.

CAM called for enhanced monitoring of campus organizations that promote or justify terrorism, and renewed enforcement of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which explicitly includes “justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of radical ideology.”

“The IHRA definition remains our best moral compass,” CAM said in its statement. “It provides the clarity and consistency needed to identify antisemitism in all its evolving forms — whether it comes from the right, the left, or religious extremism.”

Beyond enforcement, CAM continues to prioritize education and awareness as antidotes to hatred. Through its Antisemitism Research Center, the organization has launched a series of digital campaigns aimed at reclaiming the narrative of October 7, reminding the world that the massacre was not a political act but a genocidal assault on Jews.

“History must not be rewritten by the enemies of truth,” CAM’s leadership declared. “The victims of October 7 — like the victims of all antisemitic violence — deserve to be remembered for what they were: innocent men, women, and children murdered for being Jewish.”

The Combat Antisemitism Movement, which unites more than 750 partner organizations and millions of individuals worldwide, has positioned itself as a leading force in the global fight against antisemitism. Its data-driven approach — combining social media analytics, open-source intelligence, and community reporting — provides an unparalleled view of how antisemitism spreads and mutates in real time.

CAM’s mission is not only to expose hate but to galvanize global solidarity. Through partnerships with interfaith coalitions, governments, and grassroots movements, it seeks to translate outrage into action — to ensure that no act of antisemitism goes unanswered.

In the words of CAM CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa, “October 7 was not just an attack on Israel. It was an attack on the Jewish people, on truth, and on the moral conscience of humanity. Two years later, we are still fighting the same battle — not only against terrorism, but against the lies that sustain it.”

As the world marks the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre, CAM’s findings serve as both a warning and a call to moral clarity.

The resurgence of antisemitism — from university campuses to digital platforms, from city streets to global institutions — underscores the fragility of truth in an age of disinformation. But it also reveals the importance of organizations like the Combat Antisemitism Movement, which confront hatred not with despair, but with determination.

“The fight against antisemitism is a fight for civilization itself,” CAM’s report concluded. “To remember October 7 is to affirm that Jewish life and truth still matter — and that we will not allow the world’s oldest hatred to disguise itself as justice ever again.”

In the shadow of that dark anniversary, CAM’s voice rings clear: remembrance is resistance — and vigilance is the price of peace.