By Maia Szecket
This briefing presents a small sample of the antisemitic trope of ‘baby killer’ or ‘child killer’ that is widespread on X (Twitter) in New Zealand (NZ) in the context of the current Israel-Palestine conflict.
Where does it come from?
The claim of ‘baby-killer’ and ‘child-killer’ is reminiscent of the blood libel against the Jews which was popularised in the 12th century. The blood libel involves false accusations that claimed Jews killed non-Jewish children, mainly Christians, to use their blood for ritual practices such as making unleavened bread at Passover. Several unfounded murder accusations started the rumour which led to violent pogroms and massacres of the Jews across Europe and would later be used in 1930s Nazi propaganda. Even after the Holocaust it persisted with Holocaust survivors massacred in Poland n 1946 due to blood libel allegations.
Today these popular catch-phrases of ‘baby-killer’ and ‘child-killer’ are used to demonise Israel and her sympathisers. While children are indeed dying because of Israel’s war in Gaza, the trope goes further to suggest that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is deliberately targeting children. This fits with the false narrative that Israel is conducting a genocide of Palestinians, because of the perceived intent to wipe out the Palestinian people purely because of their identity. This explains the comfort posters take in throwing the baby/child killer trope around. Of course, these individuals remain blind (intentionally or not) to the fact that the IDF take precautions to minimise civilian casualties, including those of children and babies.
Rather than factual evidence, the trope relies on emotional reactions to garner hatred towards Jews, Israelis, Zionists, and anyone who associates themselves with Israel. Pairing these buzzwords with misinformation and out-of-context headlines, photos, and videos, posters aim to delegitimize the State of Israel and deny its right to exist and defend itself by painting a picture of Israel and Zionism as ‘evil’ and ‘genocidal’.
Recent examples on X
The first example is a tweet in response to the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony. To support their claim of “civilisation in full moral decay”, the poster references how the “zionist child killers” (the Israeli Olympics team) are taking part in the Olympics. The use of this trope against Israeli citizens who are not responsible for Israel’s actions tells us that ‘child killer’ has become a meaningless buzz-word to demonise anyone who associates with Israel.
In several of the examples we saw the trope of “child killers” seemed to be thrown in gratuitously. It appears to be an appeal to traditional antisemitism to boost viewers receptiveness to the rest of the vitriol in the post. The following post calls all IDF soldiers “heartless bastards” who are “gutless” with the reference to “child killers” a mere accessory to the rest of the vitriol.
Also worth noting is the accusation that the “polish psycho benzion mileikowsky” is a “pretend jew”. Benzion Mileikowsky (who passed away in April 2024) was a Polish Rabbi born in Warsaw in 1910. When his family moved to the then British Mandate of Palestine in 1920 they changed their last name to Netanyahu. His son, Benjamin Netanyahu, went on to become Israel’s Prime Minister. The poster not only confused the then 101 year old Benzion with his son, but attacked his Jewish identity. This shows the poster’s identity-based hate (antisemitism) regardless of politics or current events.
This trope in the next example is accompanied by “that’s evil”. This fallacious illustration of Israel is exactly what the baby-killer trope wishes to accomplish – to demonise Israel so that it is denied its right to defend itself, and without being able to defend itself, it would ceases to exist.
The following two examples were written by the same individual. It is clear that crediting where credit is due is not important to this individual – they use the baby-killer trope against Jews in general, rather than against Israel or the IDF as the previous posters have done. This highlights how the trope is not based on rational thought, and instead stems from emotion and raw antisemitism to demonise ‘the other side’. “Pig jew” is a common slur dating back to the Middle Ages and used right through to Nazi Germany, referred to as ‘Judensau’ (German for ‘Jews’ sow’), and it is incredibly antisemitic.
