تغريدة مثبتة
In our time and capacity combatting hate speech and extremism in the past few years, one thing has really stood out.
It isn’t hate speech during times when there is no conflict that is most concerning, although of course that remains utterly important.
No, what has proven to be horrific beyond measure is the vitriolic rhetoric and hate speech during times of war, particularly the horrors we are witnessing today. Hate speech during conflict has proven to be far more important to combat because some people have demonstrated tendencies to dehumanise human suffering and to dehumanise victims of war and terror.
Even as countless people die in Gaza, far-right, and anti-Arab extremists across the world and in Israel have celebrated the deaths of Palestinians — viewing them as “others” not worthy of humanity even in death.
This lack of compassion, this lack of intellectual capacity to distinguish between Hamas militants that committed atrocities on October 7 and Gaza’s innocent civilians has resulted in calls for the wholesale destruction, ethnic cleaning and deaths of people in Gaza — not just by extremists but also by people who prior to the war were not wholly familiar with the subject.
The same applies to extremists who have targeted Jews across the world for the actions of Israel in Gaza, conflating Judaism and Jewishness to Israel’s terrible war in Gaza. These extremists, some of them Islamists and some not, feed off the extremists belonging to the other side.
This war has regrettably amplified the inhumanity, hate, and lack of compassion by so many individuals — and unfortunately social media has acted as an echo chamber for many of these narratives.
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