This briefing examines a New-Zealand based neo-Nazi channel on Telegram. From close monitoring, it is evident the group expresses a wide range of kinds of antisemitism, including calls for violence against Jewish people, the glorification of Hitler and the Holocaust, as well as traditional antisemitic tropes. All of the following examples were captured within a couple of days of each other, which illustrates how prevalent antisemitism is in this group. Through assessing this Telegram group, it was also evident that antisemitism on this channel largely increased after October 7th, 2023.
There is a prevalent general distaste and hatred for Jews in this group, which can be summed up in the example below. The poster says “Fuck the Jews”, which is self-explanatory, but what is perhaps more troubling is the emoji reaction: someone saluting. While the emoji itself is not antisemitic when used in isolation, it is possible that the use of it on this post references the Nazi salute. This suggests support for Hitler and therefore a wish to exterminate all Jews.
World Jewish conspiracy
The promotion of the idea of a world Jewish conspiracy is a form of antisemitism that accuses Jews of having grand plans to take over the world. It paves the way for other antisemitic tropes, such as claims that Jews control the economy, the media, or government and other societal institutions.
The example below shows a general instance of this. The Telegram user writes that Alex Jones, a right-wing radio host, can’t accept that “Jews run the world”. Off-hand, casual comments like these perpetuate antisemitism.
The next example comes from a thread of comments, several of which allude to Jews influencing major governments, making references to being “under Jewish control”, “controlled by Jews”, or needing to “liberate themselves from Jewish control”, and the concept of “Jewish countries”.
The final example in this category is a video posted in the channel about how Jews allegedly control the government and the economy. The poster quotes the 32-second video with the caption “The default life under this state amounts to subservience to the Jews”, suggesting that if you do not rise up against the state, you are letting the Jews control you.
Dehumanisation
In this example, the poster starts by conveying their appreciation that Jews are “openly showing how much power they have”. As explained earlier, this relates to the traditional antisemitic trope of world Jewish conspiracy.
The poster then goes on to call Jews “an alien, subversive and ugly people”. “Alien” depicts Jews as subhuman. This blatant dehumanisation separates Jewish people from the average person as much as possible. This is done to ensure any derogatory remarks made against Jews are more acceptable to the audience. This is a largely concerning form of antisemitism because it “others” Jews and thereforevcan lead to eventual intensified violence and discrimination.
Exterminating the Jews
This example features a channel contributor first calling Jews “white jew cunts”. This is not only a display of an offensive, derogatory swear word, but also tries to strip Jews of their identity by boxing them in the “white” category. This tactic is often used to create the fallacy that Jews are the settler-colonialist oppressors, and in doing so, it becomes more acceptable to demonise them. It also denies Jews of their ethnic origins, often going hand-in-hand with dismissing Jewish indigeneity to the land of Israel and thereby denying Jews the right to self-determination.
Similar to the previous example pertaining to the dehumanisation of Jews, the individual also calls Jews “roaches”, which relates to 1930’s-style antisemitism of likening Jews to insects and vermin.
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of this example, however, is the poster’s wish that the Jews are “exterminated”, a clear call to the harming of Jewish people invoking Hitler’s “Final Solution” and Judenrein (to get rid of the Jews). Such calls to violence are a troubling form of antisemitism.
Conclusion
In the Online Hate Prevention Institute’s recent reports about online antisemitism before and after October 7, Telegram was one of the worst performing platforms when it came to both the amount of antisemitism found, as well as its failure to remove hate speech.