New research reveals how denial of Jewish victimhood fuels modern antisemitic conspiracies

Contemporary anti-Jewish conspiracies frequently use Holocaust denial tactics, according to a new research report released by the non-profit organization CyberWell.

The report, titled “Denial and Conspiratorial Self-Victimization in Antisemitic Discourse: Analysis of the Online Aftermath of Violent Attacks on Jews and Israelis,” was published ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. ['Conspiratorial Self-Victimization' refers to accusations or claims that Jews or Israelis carried out or staged attacks against themselves.]

The organization reached this conclusion after analyzing more than 300 pieces of antisemitic online content that denied violent attacks against Jews and Israelis while promoting self-victimization conspiracy claims. The examined content received a total of 14 million online views.

CyberWell stressed that it specifically focused on antisemitic content that "erased Jewish victimhood, denied atrocities, or falsely claimed that Jews or Israelis staged attacks against themselves.”

The internet has been flooded with antisemitic conspiracies falsely claiming that Israel carried out the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre, even though Hamas terrorists filmed their own atrocities in real time.

In March 2025, British historian Andrew Roberts oversaw the publication of a detailed report documenting the Hamas attacks. Many pundits have drawn parallels between Holocaust denial and the denial of the Oct. 7 massacre – the largest single-day killing of Jews since the Holocaust.

“The IHRA definition does not reference broader denial or conspiratorial self-victimization narratives surrounding antisemitic violent attacks,” CyberWell noted, referring to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of antisemitism. The organization stressed in its report that it “developed a categorization system designed to specifically track and analyze” online narratives that focused on denials of documented facts and “conspiratorial self-victimization.” 

CyberWell’s framework is divided into four categories: CW1 - Denial of violent events against Jews, CW2 – Denial of violent events against Israelis, CW3 – Conspiratorial self-victimization against Jews and CW4 – Conspiratorial self-victimization against Israelis.

CyberWell admitted that its categories can intersect with IHRA-defined groups, stressing that “many examples fall into more than one category simultaneously. For example, content labeling the Oct. 7 massacre as a 'hoax' (CW1) often appears alongside claims that Jews staged the attack for political gain (CW3).”

The report noted that a pattern of denial of violence against Jews and Israelis and accusations of self-victimization were “consistently observed,” warning that this false narrative served to “fuel further incitement” against the Jewish people and Israel. The report stressed that the most common conspiracy “blamed Jews for being responsible or committing a violent attack on themselves.”

The report findings also revealed that the anti-Jewish posts frequently used the term “Zionist” as a slur “often used not to describe political ideology, but as a proxy for Jews and Israelis, or simply as a derogatory label.”

Zionism is the 19th-century Jewish national liberation movement, which seeks the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland, Israel, and refers to Zion, one of Jerusalem’s hills. However, in the world of anti-Jewish conspiracies, the report noted the “broader observation that ‘Zionist’ is routinely deployed as a slur in multiple antisemitic narratives.”

Looking ahead, CyberWell urged online platforms to "Adopt explicit policies against violent event denial; explicitly prohibit antisemitic conspiratorial self-victimization; and develop stronger detection tools for denial and conspiratorial self-victimization.”