“Antisemites draw inspiration and ideas from virtual platforms. They are brainwashed and enraged as a result of unchecked and unrestrained online discourse”, said Israeli President Isaac Herzog, in his address to the European Parliament marking Remembrance Day, with a clear reference to the recent reports published on online hatred. “The distance between a Facebook post and the smashing of headstones in a cemetery is shorter than we would think. Deranged tweets can kill”, he added. The Israeli President then turned to MEPs, saying: “Elected officials of Europe: do not stand by! You must read the warning signs, detect the symptoms of the pandemic of antisemitism, and fight it at all costs”.

The President calls on everyone to “fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism”. Herzog went on to point out that “criticism of the State of Israel must not cross the line into negation of the very existence of the State of Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish People, as recognized by the institutions of the international community”. Finally, he said about Iran that it “not only publicly calls for the complete annihilation of my country but is also murdering its own countrymen and women, who are demanding liberty and human and civil rights, stoking wars throughout the Middle East, playing an active and lethal role in the war in Ukraine, and developing weapons of mass destruction”.