TEL AVIV — CyberWell, a technology-driven nonprofit combating online antisemitism and Holocaust denial, has uncovered a disturbing rise in antisemitic hate speech targeting the Syrian Druze community during one week in July. Over 45 million social media users encountered violent posts calling for attacks on the Druze amid unrest in southern Syria’s Sweida region.
Between July 13 and 20, thousands of Arabic-language tweets flagged by CyberWell’s advanced social listening tools explicitly vilified the Druze with slurs such as “Zionist dogs” and accusations of being agents of Israel. This surge included nearly 6,000 posts using an Arabic hashtag translating to “The Druze are agents of Israel,” which alone reached more than 4 million users. The volume of posts peaked on July 17, soaring over thirteen thousand percent compared to prior baseline levels.
CyberWell Founder and CEO Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor remarked, “This rhetoric is a direct continuation of familiar antisemitic patterns, only now the target is the Druze people, not because of their religious or national identity, but because of their political and social association with Israel and the Jewish people.” He urged social media companies to act rapidly, emphasizing the real and immediate threat such violent language poses to vulnerable communities.
The flagged content met the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism by repurposing longstanding antisemitic conspiracies to attack non-Jewish minorities aligned with Israel. CyberWell noted that posts included calls for violence, threats, and dehumanizing terms, many linked indirectly to anti-Jewish hatred.
Such online incitement has had deadly offline consequences. A video calling for violence against the Druze was posted on Instagram and remained despite being flagged. Shortly after, Hezbollah launched a rocket attack on a Druze village’s soccer field in Majdal Shams, killing 12 children and injuring dozens more.
CyberWell is demanding that social platforms step up enforcement, remove hate content swiftly, and treat online antisemitism as a real security risk. The nonprofit continues to use AI-driven monitoring and human analysis to track abusive posts and promote transparency through its open database accessible at app.cyberwell.org.
By exposing these trends, CyberWell reaffirms the urgent need to confront and extinguish online hate before it translates into real-world violence threatening both Jewish and allied minority communities.
This article is based on verified information from CyberWell’s official releases, statements by CEO Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, and social media monitoring data.